Page 12 of Blood Court (Cursed Darkness #2)

CHAPTER TEN

LYSITHEA

Staggering towards the Ossuary Tower, I stumble against the wall, gripping it to hold me upright.

The brand on my back is a throbbing inferno, and the corruption that retreated is returning.

My hands are covered in black veins. I pull the sleeves of my black dress further down, trying to hide them.

The doors of the tower come into sight, and I lurch forward.

The bone-white doors swing open before I reach them, a silent, grim invitation.

Inside, the air is colder, charged with a power that makes the fine hairs on my arms stand up.

I practically crawl up the stairs to the top room, the brand forcing me to reach it, to reach whatever is waiting there.

The door is already open when I get there, revealing Evren standing in the middle, a book clutched in his hand. His eyes find mine when I lunge towards him and he catches me, dropping the book with a loud thud.

“Lysithea,” he croaks.

“What is this? Where are the others?”

He shakes his head and gestures to the empty room. The door slams shut, invisible locks sliding audibly into place.

“Just us,” I breathe, the words stolen by a fresh wave of agony from the brand.

Evren’s grip tightens. He is my only anchor in a sea of pain. The corruption creeps up my arms, a lattice of black against my pale skin. A death sentence being written in real time.

“What do we do?” I ask, my voice trembling. The room feels smaller, the walls pressing in. The skulls that I shattered before are back, sitting in their alcoves, watching with a new, hungry intelligence.

He doesn’t answer. His ice-blue eyes are fixed on the book he dropped.

It lies open on the floor, its pages glowing faintly.

He releases me and takes a step towards it, but an invisible force slams him back.

He hits the stone wall with a grunt of pain.

He’s trapped on his side of the room, and I’m trapped on mine.

We stare at each other, but he looks away first, the guilt on his face a living thing.

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” I croak, knowing he needs to hear this. “I needed you.”

The pain from the brand ignites further, forcing me to my knees.

I pant, dropping my hands on the floor, in complete supplication to him.

I know this. But I can’t do anything about it.

He kneels near the invisible boundary. I force myself to meet his gaze, but it’s like fighting against a force of nature.

“Lysithea,” he whispers my name again. “Look at me.”

“I can’t,” I stammer.

“Yes, you can.”

I grit my teeth, fighting a force that feels like a hand pressing my head down. My neck screams, muscles threatening to tear. I force my chin up, inch by painful inch, until my eyes meet his across the invisible divide.

The brand answers my defiance with a nova of pure agony.

A scream rips from my throat, raw and broken. The skulls in their alcoves rattle, their jaws chattering with a dry, dead sound.

“You make me feel things…” He trails off, his hand going to his throat.

I shake my head. “You don’t have to say anything. I know.”

“You need to hear it. I want to do it again, Lysithea. I want to ravage you until I can’t breathe, until you are raw and open, bleeding your soul into mine.” He lets out a muffled sound of pain. This is costing him everything, and it brings tears to my eyes. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You don’t,” I say, shaking my head again. “You never hurt me. I need you.”

His smile is sad. “You need what I can give you. Relief.”

“No! I need you .”

He doesn’t believe me. I can see it written all over his face. “No one wants a monster.”

“ I am a monster!” I scream at him. “Don’t you see why we need each other?”

“Then give me yourself,” he spits. “Give me everything you are and not because some fucking book told you to!”

The words, more than he has ever said, shock us both.

He scoots back until he hits the wall, staring at me with something close to loathing.

It breaks my fucking heart. With a strength that rears up out of sheer desperation, I crawl forward, trying to breach the barrier that was thrown up.

I glance over to the book he dropped, but it’s gone.

It’s not doing this, something else is. Probably that fuckface Tenebris Vinculum.

It wants us to stop fucking about and to be with each other, trust each other.

But we are both too scared. Him more than me.

I need to be the one to go to him, break down those walls that he keeps so high.

With a scream that echoes around the room, making the skulls drop from the perches and smash all over the floor, I breach the barrier and collapse, but I keep going.

The fire in my back recedes to a tolerable, simmering burn.

A reward for my compliance. Evren stares at me, his eyes wide with terror and disbelief.

He’s still a prisoner of his own making, pressed against the cold wall.

I crawl the last few feet, my body aching, my will a raw, exposed nerve. The shattered bone crunches under my hands, making them bleed, bruising my knees, but I don’t stop until I reach him, until I’m kneeling between his legs.

My hand trembles as I lift it. “I see you.” His skin is like ice, a stark contrast to the fire licking at my back. “I see all of you. And I’m not scared.” He flinches but doesn’t pull away. I see the war in his eyes, the self-hatred battling a desperate, forbidden hope.

“You are not a monster,” I whisper, the words a vow in the sudden silence. “You’re mine.”

The finality of it hangs between us. It’s not a question. It’s a statement of fact. A claim. His breath hitches.

But this isn’t over. I crawl even closer, pressing my body to his as I crush my lips to his, sweeping my tongue over his freezing lips to get him to open up.

For a second, he is a statue of ice. Then his mouth moves against mine, a hesitant, questioning touch.

It’s not enough. I push harder, my fingers tangling in his dark hair, pulling him down to me.

I pour every ounce of my defiance, my need, my monstrous truth into that kiss.

He breaks. A shudder runs through him, a surrender so profound it feels like a tectonic shift. His arms wrap around me, crushing me against his chest. He kisses me back with a desperate, starving hunger that matches mine. The ice in his touch is gone, replaced by a raw, living need.

The brand on my back goes silent. The simmering fire vanishes, replaced by a thrum of pure power that flows from him to me and back again. A circuit is completed. The corruption in my veins recedes but doesn’t disappear.

I pull back, panting, my forehead resting against his. His eyes are wide, dark pools of shock and want. The loathing is gone. He sees me. The real me.

“Mine,” I whisper again, sealing the vow.

His hands slide under my dress, his cold fingers a shocking, welcome brand against the bare skin of my thighs. He pulls me onto his lap, my legs straddling his hips. This isn’t a violation. It’s an acceptance. A claim from both sides.

His cock is pressed against me as his fingers hook into my knickers.

He rips them with a force of strength that sends goosebumps over my skin.

I fumble with his pants, eager to get him free, to feel his cock in my hands.

As I free him from his pants, he groans, leaning his head back against the wall.

The sound sends a shiver down my spine, a mix of lust and triumph.

He’s finally letting me in, seeing me, not just the puppet the grimoire is manipulating.

With a tentative touch, I stroke his cock, feeling the cold, silky skin.

A shudder runs through him, but he doesn’t stop me.

Instead, his hands grip my thighs tighter, pulling me closer until my pussy is lined up perfectly with his rock-hard cock.

He grunts, a deep, primal sound that makes my nipples harden.

“I want you, Evren,” I whisper. “All of you.”

His eyes meet mine, a raw, naked hunger in their depths. “You have me,” he rasps, the words torn from somewhere deep inside him. “All of me.”

I take a deep breath and sink down onto him, feeling every inch of his cock as it fills me. The sensation is electric, a cold fire that races through my veins, freezing and burning all at once. He bites his lip hard enough to draw blood, his gaze locked on mine.

He fills me so completely that I can barely breathe.

I shudder, my pussy clenching his cock tightly as I take all of him deep inside.

He groans deeply, a wild sound that vibrates through his chest and into mine, making my nipples tighten even more.

His eyes never leave mine. His hands are gripping my hips with a possessive force that will leave bruises, but I don’t care.

This is what I want, what I need. This raw, primal connection.

Our breaths mingle, hot and ragged, as I ride him.

Slowly at first, grinding against him, feeling every inch of him inside me.

His lips part, his breath coming in short pants, his eyes glazing over with pleasure.

I ride him harder, my body taking control, driven by a need that’s more than just physical.

It’s a marking of territory. His hands slide from my hips, one moving up to tangle in my hair, gripping tightly, the other splaying over the brand.

The pain is a distant memory, replaced by a pulsing, electric energy that flows from his touch into my skin, binding us closer.

“Lysithea,” he whispers, my name a sacred invocation on his lips. It’s a sound of surrender, of acceptance.

I lean down, pressing my forehead to his, our breaths syncing as I move over him. My pussy soaks him as my climax approaches. “Evren,” I cry out, my hands fisting in his shirt when my pussy clamps down on his cock, clenching as the wave of pure pleasure crashes over me.

His roar is a guttural, desperate sound that vibrates through my bones. He spills his cold release inside me, a shocking flood that makes my body convulse again, a final, shuddering aftershock of pleasure. Our ragged breaths mingle in the sudden, deafening silence.

The room is still. The shattered bone is a stark white carpet around us. His hand is still tangled in my hair, his grip possessive, anchoring. He doesn’t let go. He doesn’t pull away.

“Mine,” he breathes against my lips, echoing my own claim.

The locks click open, and we stare at the door. It remains closed, keeping us hidden from the world as we share what we were always meant to. Our souls.