Page 64 of The Coveted
“You’re such a good girl.” He gasped, a low groan escaping his lips as my grip around him tightened. After a few moments he put his hand over mine, slowly guiding it back to my side. In a burst of movement, he had me flipped over on my stomach, grabbing my wrists and binding them together behind my back. I rested my cheek on the silky duvet, and Daelon brushed my hair out of my face, his touch soft and delicate.
He pulled me up to my knees and spread my legs, grabbing my ass so firmly it hurt, his fingernails digging into my skin. His hips found mine, and suddenly he was inside me. I moaned, overwhelmed with sensation as my head pressed into the bed cover. He lightly held my wrists in place on my back as he moved, his pace slow and deep before driving into a tempo much more intense.
I cried out in response, grasping at his hand that held my bound wrists, my fingertips only able to lightly graze his skin. He tightened his grip, reaching his other hand to move through my long strands of hair.
“Fuck, Áine,” he cursed. He untied my wrists and pulled me up and against his chest, wrapping his arms around my torso. His lips were at my ear, nestling into my hair and then tugging at my earlobe with his teeth. “Do you even know how perfect you are? And howmineyou are…”
His breath hitched as his hips thrust deep, forcing another moan from me as I lay victim to his claiming. Just when I thought I couldn’t take any more he finished, pulling me into his arms as we fell back into the sheets.
He kissed my ear and then my shoulder, both of our breathing ragged as we lay close together. “You okay?” he asked.
“Uh huh,” I managed, and he chuckled, the sound tickling my skin and sending a shiver down my spine.
I relaxed into his chest, still lost under his command—his hold on me like an invisible bondage of its own. I resisted the heavy pull of reality, wishing instead to stay just like this, forever.
Chapter21
Iwas back in my own chambers far too soon. Lucius had returned from wherever he’d gone with the resurrected witch, so Daelon and I were forced to go our separate ways. Nathaniel had survived, unfortunately, and if I’d thought his hatred for Daelon and me was palpable before… it had shifted into a full-blown wrath after my fireball sent him through a glass door. Lucius was still distant and up to something sinister. He visited Amos so frequently now that it was unsafe for Daelon and me to risk a visit of our own, which was more than frustrating. It was alsoextremelysuspicious. Amos was a powerful psychic who was able to access the same depth of energy and wisdom as I could, just without the ability to channel it into magick. Whatever Lucius needed from him and the old ways surely had to do with me and his new scheme to make me Queen. With our plans to visit the Akashic Records at a standstill, Nathaniel still angry and on the prowl, and Lucius’s new fascination with me, Daelon and I had barely seen each other in days. And despite the mind-blowing sex, our separation only spelled trouble for the unfinished arguments, unanswered questions, and tension left festering. I worried that we were both using the physical side of our connection as a shield of its own.
Taryn had also been noticeably absent, probably because she had already fulfilled her duty to acclimate me to court. And, of course, the fact that my power had shown her something I figured had to do with her homeland and my purpose, similar to what the secret coven had seen. I wouldn’t know because she was still avoiding me like the plague. Actually, the whole of the elite had been suspiciously quiet and inactive since the ball.
Lucius had entered my chambers just moments before, much to my displeasure. I decided to at least use the opportunity to ask some questions.
“They’re recovering,” Lucius explained in response to my first question, his tone a mix of disinterest and condescension. “They do so at a much slower rate than us, obviously. What goes up must come down, and all of that energy sharing and elixir comes at quite a cost.”
Oh, so like the aftermath of a witchy drug bender. Got it. “Where’ve you been?” I asked from my seat on the couch. I’d been zapped from my deep trance by the awareness of Lucius at my door. Ever since I’d left Daelon, I’d been meditating in my ocean of magick and taking my meals in my room, save for the occasional walk in the gardens. Not only was it deeper and even more vast than before—with these curious invisible threads tethering me to the witches who’d brought me back to life in the servants’ quarters—but there was also something dark in the waves, like an omen. A warning that something wasn’t quite right in the delicate balance of our natural reality. And I knew it hadeverythingto do with Lucius and the resurrected witch.
“Why? Did you miss me?” he fired back, plopping down in the chair across from me and flashing me a smile that didn’t quite reach his darkened eyes. He wore mostly black, this time with deep purple accents instead of the usual gold.
I stared at him blankly. “Considering that the last time I saw you, I almost died, I’m not sure how to answer that question.”
He sighed with great exasperation, absent-mindedly playing with a gold ring as he tapped his fingers on the arm of the chair. “But you didn’t, did you? Like I said, it was a side-effect I’m working on eliminating. Permanently. I’m just glad Daelon volunteered to take care of all the… unpleasantness.” He grimaced, as if recalling the black bile on his precious carpet. “Don’t look so glum. Your moodiness is of great annoyance considering the lengths I am going to in order to free you and promote you toroyalty.” He narrowed his eyes, leaning back to rest his head on the back of the chair.
“Free me from what, exactly?”
“Your chains and obligations to the old ways, of course,” Lucius said slowly, once again employing a voice much more suited for talking to children. “Have you not listened to a word anyone has said since you’ve arrived? Your connection to the inferior, conquered losers of history and their false, obsolete gods and rituals has only made you ignorant and weak. You have a great capacity for power. Don’t you want to be able to use it again? I’m offering you the chance not only to live within my Kingdom, but also to rule it… in some capacity. And yet you pout and fight and question me,” he admonished. I struggled to block out the sour, putrid nature of his energy as it grew heavy and potent all around us.
“Let me get this straight. You want to cut off my connection to natural power, in favor of connecting it to wherever the hellyour powercomes from?”
“Watch it,” he spat, rising from his chair. “You do not have immunity just yet. And if you refuse me in any capacity, then you and your heretic tongue will shrivel and perish. Is that understood?”
Oh, I understood it perfectly. Lucius couldn’t be threatened by me if he controlled my power, and, by extension, controlledme.My birthright was a threat because it was the last bit of resistance between him and total, unchallenged domination of the realm and all magick contained within it. He wanted to be a god, and I was standing in his way. He also wanted to show the last remaining dissenters that I was nothing compared to him, and that our fight was hopeless and futile.
Lucius wanted to win this war, once and for all.
“I understand,” I said, because I was still reeling from the pain of our last confrontation. I forced all of my anger down, holding Lucius’s gaze with as much passivity as I could muster.
He hesitated, no doubt surprised by my sudden lack of resistance. He moved closer, towering over me. “You tasted it, before the heretic side of you spit it out. That feeling like no other. And youloved it.I could see it on your face. Imagine living on a high like that for all of eternity, where nothing and no one could bring you down. You could have anything you wanted, oranyone. You could live in a state of pure creation, pure power and will.” His eyes were alight, and when he crouched down next to me, I had to fight hard not to recoil. “Us, together… it would be like no other. We would haveeverything—don’t you see that? Our power wouldn’t just double. It would be infinite.”
“How do I know you don’t just meanyour power?Sharing doesn’t seem to be in your repertoire,” I muttered, sucking in a breath when he slowly pulled my hand into his icy grip.
“You will see, in time. I am not who you think I am.” He looked pensive for a moment, as if traveling somewhere else, far away from here. When he brought himself back, he glanced down the length of my body, sending a cold shiver along my spine. “Maybe fate is not just the superstitious ramblings of mystics. Maybe you were sent here as a gift rather than a weapon,” he whispered.
I stared back, incredulous. Did he really believe all of the delusions he spun? Or did he just say and think them so often that they became their own kind of truth over time, obscuring reality behind the veil of his stolen power?
“You will see. You will learn to trust me and believe in the path I have laid out for us. And when the time comes, you will accept my guiding hand and become my Queen,” Lucius mused, finishing his demented monologue. “Thoughts?”
Oh, I had plenty. I just shook my head. “How you’ve treated me over the course of my stay hasn’t exactly been conducive to building trust.”
