Page 23 of Craving Their Venom
The words are a mistake. I see it in the way his golden eyes narrow, the way a muscle jumps in his jaw. I have equated him with the General, with a creature he considers his brutish inferior. I have wounded his pride.
“Do not,” he says, his voice dropping to a deadly calm, “ever compare me to him.” He takes a step toward me, and I scramble backward until my back hits the cold, unyielding stone of the wall. “He is a mindless animal, driven by base instinct. I am your Prince. Your master. What I take, I own. What he takes, he defiles.”
He crouches before me, his movements fluid and serpentine. He reaches out, his clawed fingers gently touching the side of my mouth, where the skin is still tender and swollen from Zahir’s kiss. His touch is light, almost clinical, but it sends a shiver of pure terror through me.
“I will have to erase his scent from you,” he murmurs, his gaze dark and unreadable. “I will have to remind you, and anyone else who might be watching, to whom you belong.”
Before I can process his words, before I can even draw a breath to protest, the chamber door crashes open again.
Zahir fills the doorway, a crimson storm of raw, violent energy. His face reflects pure, possessive fury, the fresh scar on his cheek a stark, blue line against his scales. His golden eyes are blazing, and they are fixed not on the Prince, but on me, cowering on the floor.
“You will not touch her again,” the General growls, his voice the sound of rocks grinding together.
Varos rises slowly to his full height, turning to face his rival. He does not draw a weapon. He does not need to. His very presence is a weapon, cold and sharp and utterly dismissive. “This is my chamber, General. And this,” he gestures toward me with a flick of his wrist, as if I am a piece of furniture, “is my property. You have no place here.”
“I go where I please,” Zahir snarls, stalking into the room. He moves to stand between me and the Prince, a living wall of muscle and rage. He is shielding me. The gesture is so unexpected, so fiercely protective, that it steals the breath from my lungs. “You will not punish her for my actions.”
“Punish her?” Varos laughs, the sound a cold, brittle mockery. “I am not punishing her. I am cleansing her. I am re-establishing the proper order of things. An order you so crudely disrupted.”
The air in the room becomes thick, heavy, crackling with the unspoken violence between them. They are two apex predators locked in a battle of wills, and I am the prize bleeding at their feet. They circle each other, their movements slow and deliberate, their tails lashing behind them in agitation. They do not speak, but a silent, furious conversation is taking place in the clash of their gazes, in the tensing of their muscles.
I am forgotten. A piece of furniture. A catalyst.
Varos’s gaze shifts, his golden eyes finding me where I am still huddled against the wall. A slow, cruel smile touches his lips. “Perhaps you are right, General,” he says. “Perhaps punishment is not the answer. Perhaps a demonstration is in order. A demonstration of ownership. Of a claim so absolute, it cannot be disputed.”
He moves toward me, his steps unhurried. Zahir tenses, a low growl rumbling in his chest, but he does not move to stop him. This is a challenge he cannot meet with fists. It is a game of power, and Varos has just changed the rules.
Varos crouches before me again. He reaches out and rips the front of my tunic, the sound of tearing silk unnaturally loud in the silent room. The cool air hits my exposed breasts, and I gasp, my hands flying up to cover myself. He brushes my hands away with contemptuous ease.
“You belong to me, Amara,” he whispers, his eyes blazing with a cold, possessive fire. “And I will have you. Here. Now. In front of him. So that he, and you, will never again forget that truth.”
He pushes me back onto the furs, my struggles useless against his strength. He follows me down, his body a cold, heavy weight. His mouth finds mine in a kiss that is not gentle, not reverent. It’s a kiss of ownership, of branding.
I see Zahir over the Prince’s shoulder. He stands frozen, a statue of crimson fury, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. His face is tormented. He is being forced to watch his rival claim the thing he desires most. The cruelty of it is breathtaking.
Varos’s hands are on me, stripping away the ruined silk, his touch efficient and impersonal. But then his fingers find the wetness between my thighs, the proof of my body’s unwilling response to the violence, to the sheer, overwhelming presence of these two powerful males. His touch changes. The clinical efficiency gives way to a slow, deliberate exploration.
He positions himself above me, and I see the truth of his naga form, the twin, barbed shafts of his hemipenis. He takes me with his upper shaft, a slow, deep invasion that is both a punishment and a dark caress. He moves with a controlled, sensual rhythm, his eyes locked on mine, watching as my fear begins to war with a rising tide of pleasure.
“You feel that? That is my claim. My right.” He uses his lower shaft to rub against my clit, a masterful, tormenting friction that makes me cry out, my hips arching off the furs.
And then, the world shifts.
“If she is to be claimed,” Zahir’s voice growls, a sound torn from the very depths of his soul, “then she will be claimed by us both.”
He is there, on the other side of me, his massive body a furnace of heat. He does not ask. He does not wait. He pushes my legs wider, and I feel the blunt, terrifying pressure of him against my entrance. He is thicker than Varos, his flesh hotter, his presence more overwhelming.
I cry out, a sound of terror and a strange, dark thrill. I am being stretched, filled, possessed by two opposing forces. Varos is a glacier, a cold, precise invasion. Zahir is a volcano, a hot, explosive eruption.
Varos’s rhythm becomes harder, faster, his control fracturing in the face of this new challenge. He is no longer just claiming me; he is competing for me. His lower shaft moves against me with a new urgency, a desperate attempt to draw a response that is for him alone.
Zahir takes me with a single, brutal thrust of his upper shaft, a raw, primal claiming that rips a scream from my throat. The pain is sharp, blinding, but it is followed by a wave of pleasure so intense it is almost unbearable. He fills me completely, his barbed flesh a torment and a delight. He moves with a savage, driving rhythm, a desperate, hungry passion.
I am the bridge between them. The battlefield. The prize they are tearing apart and sharing all at once. My body is no longer my own. It is a vessel for their hatred, their jealousy, their dark, possessive desires.
Varos’s mouth is on my breast, his teeth grazing my nipple, sending a jolt of sharp, electric pleasure through me. At the same time, Zahir’s lower shaft finds my clit, his movements rough, demanding, a stark contrast to the Prince’s calculated sensuality.
My senses are overloaded. The scent of them, the cold stone of Varos and the hot storm of Zahir. The feel of them, the smooth, cool scales of the Prince and the rough, calloused strength of the General. The sight of them, the shimmering gold and the deep, angry crimson, a maelstrom of color and power.
