Page 61 of The Sacrifice

But it’s not a scream. It’s a fucking laugh. Too rich. Too smoky. Too erotic. Not like my sweet Tessie with her laughter as glittery as treasure to be cherished.

“Well, now, Drago...” the Hag teases her breath along my ear, and I tense all my muscles as she rips away the fantasy playing in my head, shredding it to tatters. I cringe, a guttural growl in my throat when she nips my earlobe while her tentacles sink inside the canal. “All you needed to do was ask, my virile dragon.”

This is the torture I will not survive. Not when she twists her tentacles like twirling a strand of hair while eyeing me as some snack. Not when she cuts herself with her own claws, swirling her fingers in the blood before spitting into her palm in a predictive motion of what’s to come. And no matter how much I war with the shackles, I can’t break them. I can do nothing when she wipes that lethal concoction upon my eyes, chants ancient words, and transforms her form into my little pet’s. An illusion. But it works its magic regardless.

All my muscles bulge, and I snarl when the Hag tears off her ragged shift to bare herself to me as Tessie. The same rose-tipped buds on small but high and ripe mounds. The same pretty pink pussy glistening with fluids which she peels apart to show me. Inner folds flushed and swollen. Despite the heat tunneling to my groin, I stay down and dry even as she pinches her nipples and thrusts a finger in that drenched slit. But it doesn’t matter when she presses her warm, false body against me, slides down my chest, and takes both my cocks in her hands.

I thrash. I roar. I tear my flesh and break bones, spilling more blood for her, careless if I’ll sever a fucking limb. With an annoyed groan, all it takes is the Hag waving her hand, commanding more bone spikes to lodge in my body. This time, she secures them to bone and muscle, denying me any opportunity to escape. The pain of my shredded flesh only heightens my adrenaline. And endorphins.

It doesn’t matter what I fucking tell myself. That it’s rape when she unhinges her jaw and slides her plump lips over both my cocks. “Hmm...can she do this, Drago?” taunts the Hag.

It doesn’t matter how I choke and my muscles harden. Her wet silken heat imprisons my flaccid members, demanding their swollen subjugation. And they yield. They thicken and turn rigid. Shame turns my blood to ice and darkens my heart. It’s her face below me, her eyes, her hair, her scars, and tattoos. It’s her fingers stroking me. But I am a damned monster for this betrayal. Two betrayals when her finger sinks into my ass, and heat claws at my insides until my cocks pulse, and my hips unwittingly thrust. The veins in my neck strain against my skin with the force it takes me to resist.

Until she rises and binds her naked legs around my hips.

Red rage eats at my vision. Only replaced by sheer bliss when the Hag slides onto my shafts. Slow. Excruciating. Her pussy creeps hot, velvety, and wet over my members. She wiggles. She shifts from side to side. Sliding. Sliding. Sliding. Swallowing and sealing around my cocks until my balls nudge her buttocks.

It doesn’t matter how I clench my jaw and press my lips into a hard line as she licks at them, tongue prodding between the seam. None of it matters.

Because she is safe. I sent her away. My brothers will protect her. Once I die, my brothers will lose some of their humanity, but I must believe she is strong enough to bond with the others and break through our curse before they all become beasts. I should have known I wouldn’t be the first. Not when my cocks jerk and blow their load inside the Hag.

I’m not the first because I deserve it last.

45

They are mine. I own them as much as they own me.

QUINTESSA

The moment Merikh raises his fist to Kyan, I lunge and catch his hand. He stops as I wrap mine around it and shake my head, my eyes wide and pleading. His are dark and violent, breeding shadows that seem to penetrate my core. I squeeze my arms, suddenly self-conscious about my nakedness, save for Kyan’s jacket.

“She needed healing,” interjects the fallen angel.

“You broke your word, Ky,” Merikh snarls, jerking his head to his partner, teeth gnashing.

Kyan shakes his head. “Only by half. Your blood was on the feather.”

My gaze flits between the two of them, and I thread my brows, confused. But it’s not long before Mayce cups my shoulders and brings his calm rationality into the circle.

“This is no time for division, my brothers. Regardless of what may happen, it will be Quintessa’s choice in the matter. We owe her that much.”

Shoulders hardening, Merikh rises and bares a lethal fang. “We owe her nothing! She’s the reason the Hag took Drago. We couldn’t do a damned thing to thwart Kronos. This scar...” he rips his vest, and I choke on a gasp from the sight of the bleeding harpe scrawled onto his chest, “...has her name in the wound, little dove. And I don’t give a damn if I can’t bond with you. At least I can fuck you.” He advances toward me, his dark trench coat more like a yawning grave waiting to devour me. “What’s to stop me from doing so?” He balls his hand into a fist.

I can’t help it. Fear is such a foreign sensation when it comes to the four kings. Or much of anyone. Too used to Qora all those years I don’t move back but push my body toward him, stand on my tiptoes, arch my neck, and press my lips to Merikh’s. All within the span of a couple of seconds, so he’s caught off guard. He growls into my mouth, and I taste blood and darkness, brutality and ice. I have no idea what they’re talking about. Kyan’s feather and Merikh’s blood. Or the difference between bonding and fucking.

All I know is he’s mine. They are mine. I own them as much as they own me. Except for one.

So, the moment Merikh groans and deepens the kiss, bruising my lips with how hard his crush mine, I pull away and demand of them all, “Where is Drago?”

Mayce kneads his brow while the vampire stalks before me, prowling back and forth as if waiting for an opening, so he may force me to the ground and fuck me hard. “The Hag returned him to her lair where she holds ultimate power and control. In the course of ten thousand years, we have never managed to penetrate her spelled barriers.”

“I don’t care. Take me there.”

* * *

“How long must we suffer through this?” I hear Merikh groan behind me as I try for the seventeenth time. Or is it 77th’? I’ve lost track. By now, one managed to make it back to the castle to find a set of clothes. I could care less how it’s a servant’s simple gray dress. Little more than a shift. I’m still wearing Kyan’s jacket.

Despite the pain racking my body, I throw myself at the walls of labyrinthine thorny vines, too clumped and thick to afford any glimpse of what lies beyond. Not one bends or breaks beneath my weight. No matter how much I try to squeeze my way in, to the point of nearly breaking my ribcage, the walls part for nothing.

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