Page 17 of Blood Court (Cursed Darkness #2)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

LYSITHEA

Clara takes a step forward, swinging the magical branks from her fingers. “No screaming now.”

I bare my teeth. She wants to test me? She wants me to relive my breaking? Fine. But this time, I’m the one who decides when the silence ends.

I won’t just survive this. I will burn it, and her, to the fucking ground.

Giving her a cold smile, I open my mouth.

Fear flashes over her face. “No!”

But it’s too late. That fear I had of the repercussions, of the beatings, of the branks , has vanished. I am not the same girl they tortured, used and abused. Feeling it rise in my chest, I inhale and then I let out the mother of all fucking screams. It’s overkill, but I want my point made.

Clara screeches, clapping her hand over her ears before her head explodes in a spray of gore that splatters the oppressive grey walls.

The sound keeps going, a physical wave of power that rips the illusion to shreds.

The windows explode outward. The brickwork crumbles to dust. The floor beneath my feet cracks and gives way, revealing a screaming black void.

The entire fabricated nightmare tears itself apart, unable to contain a victim who refuses to play her part. I stand in the epicentre of the destruction, the collapsing memory a storm of my own making. I breathe in the dust of my shattered prison. It tastes like victory.

The world whites out. A roar of static and collapsing reality fills my ears.

Then, silence.

I’m standing on the flagstones of the courtyard again. The familiar gothic spires of DarkHallow loom around me.

I’m alone. The trial is over. I won. I look up at the Ossuary Tower, a new, hard purpose solidifying in my chest.

Time to collect my monsters and show the Arbiters that they can try their fucking hardest, but we won’t fall.

“Thea!” Dathan calls out, and I lower my gaze from the top of the tower to see the guys racing out of the front doors. He reaches me first, his hands gripping my shoulders, his silver eyes scanning me for damage. “Are you hurt?”

I shake my head. “No.”

He pulls me into a rough hug, crushing me, burying his face in my hair.

Verik skids to a halt beside us. He looks like he’s been in a fight to the death. His clothes are shredded, and a nasty cut bleeds freely above his eye. But he’s grinning, a feral, bloody slash of a smile. “You passed.”

It’s not a question.

Evren is the last to reach us, and my breath catches. The hollow, haunted look is gone. In its place is a chilling stillness, a focus that’s more terrifying than any ghost he could conjure. He looks at me, and for the first time, I see a king looking at his queen.

“We all did,” I say, my voice steady. I pull back from Dathan, meeting each of their gazes in turn. The broken pieces of us are finally starting to fit together. “They tried to break us. Separately.”

“Big mistake,” Verik grunts, wiping at the blood on his face.

“They showed us what we’re fighting for,” Dathan says.

They tested us individually, but the worst is yet to come. The next tests will be about trust and intimacy and all the things the Tenebris Vinculum has been trying to show us.

Evren touches my arm. His skin is cold, but it’s a living cold now, not the chill of the grave. His eyes are clear, focused. I know how to save you . The thought isn’t in words, but a feeling, a certainty that flows from his touch into me.

The air shimmers. The bastard book appears, hovering between us like a malevolent insect. Its single eye blinks, slow and arrogant. It knows it pushed us to the brink. It knows we didn’t break.

The pages flip, the sound like dry bone snapping. Words bleed across the parchment, elegant and cruel.

The First Trial is complete.

The Warden awaits.

Power will not suffice. Trust is the key.

Another page turns. A diagram appears. Four figures, intertwined. A ritual.

A bond of flesh, willingly given. A mark of trust, carved by four.

“What the fuck does that mean?” Verik snarls.

“It means an orgy. The book wants a fucking orgy,” Dathan states.

“It wants us all,” I say, my voice flat, devoid of the panic that would have once choked me. “Together. Willingly. No guilt, no regrets.”

I look at the grimoire, at its unblinking eye.

It thinks this is my next breaking point.

It thinks it can shatter me with a deep intimacy, of multiple hands touching me, squeezing me, stroking me.

It thinks my past trauma with Jenson will come back to haunt me, but it doesn’t know how far I’ve come.

How far these men have pushed me to become.

It’s wrong. It’s always been wrong. But that’s the point.

The book wants to strip me bare. It wants to see if I’ll break under the weight of their combined touch.

My gaze flicks between them. Dathan, a storm of protective rage.

Verik, an inferno of defiance. Evren, a quiet, deadly winter. My monsters. My weapons.

“It’s not a request,” I state slowly. “It’s the key to the next lock. The price of entry.”

“We don’t have to—” Verik starts, but I shush him with my fingers to his lips. He has healed now, but it worries me that his trial was real enough to hurt him, to make him bleed. I won’t ask, but I’ll listen if he tells me.

“I want to,” I whisper. “I want to beat this thing, but I also want to be with all of you, together. We have all crossed the line; there is no going back. Only forward.”

The grimoire flips shut with a final, smug snap and vanishes. It doesn’t need to stay. It has set the stage.

“My room,” I murmur, and lead the way.

The walk back is a silent procession. A march to a new beginning. I don’t look back. I can feel them, three distinct signatures of power tethered to my will. A nightmare, a hellfire, a death. My own personal apocalypse.

My door clicks shut behind us, locking the world out. The air in the room is thick, charged with unspoken promises and the weight of what we are about to do. It’s suddenly too small for the four of us.

I turn to face them. My blood is rushing through my veins, but it’s not fear. It’s power. It’s the thrill of taking control. Their eyes are locked on me. Three predators waiting for their queen to make the first move.

I don’t disappoint them.

My fingers find the zip on my dress, and I lower it. The fabric pools at my feet, a black puddle on the carpet.

This is the test. Not just for me. For all of us.

Evren moves first, breaking the spell. He doesn’t reach for my body. He offers me his hand, palm up. A question. A promise. Trust me.

I place my hand in his. His skin is cold, but his grip is solid, real. A lifeline.

Verik moves behind me, his knuckles grazing the brand on my back. A low growl rumbles in his chest. “Ours,” he murmurs, his breath hot against my skin.

Dathan circles in front of me, his silver eyes drinking me in. He kneels. Not in submission. In worship. He presses a soft, reverent kiss to the inside of my knee.

My breath catches. The book wanted intimacy. It’s getting a coronation.

Dathan’s lips trail a slow, hot path up my inner thigh.

Each touch is a brand of ownership, a claim I willingly surrender.

He doesn’t stop until he reaches the apex of my legs, his breath a ghost of heat against my pussy.

He looks up at me, silver eyes blazing with a reverence that steals my breath.

Verik’s arms snake around my waist, pulling me back against his solid, furnace-hot chest. His hellfire hums, a low thrum of contained power that resonates with the brand on my back. He nuzzles my neck, and I shiver.

Evren lifts my hand to his mouth. He doesn’t kiss it. His teeth graze my knuckles, a sharp, cold bite that sends a jolt straight to my centre. He is death and life, and in this moment, he is utterly mine.

My body is a battlefield of sensation. Fire at my back, ice in my hand, worship at my feet.

Dathan’s tongue flicks out, a single, deliberate taste.

A shockwave jolts through me. My hips buck against Verik’s hold, a sound somewhere between a gasp and a groan ripped from my throat.

Verik’s hands slide from my waist, one cupping my breast, his thumb circling my nipple until it’s a hard, aching peak.

Evren releases my hand. His cold fingers trace the path of the corruption on my arm. He is mapping my pain, learning the shape of my curse.

Dathan’s mouth is hot, wet. His tongue is a masterful weapon. He laps at me, devours me, sucking my clit and nipping it until I’m ready to come all over his face. I throw my head back against Verik’s shoulder, a silent scream building in my chest. This is too much. It’s not enough.

This is the bond the book demanded. Flesh, given willingly. A four-way collision of darkness and desire. I am the epicentre. The queen on her throne of monsters. I won’t break. I will be remade.

Dathan pulls away before I can have a release, but I don’t get time to protest when Verik sweeps me off my feet and carries me to the bed.

He lays me down and spreads my legs, taking over from Dathan.

He swipes his tongue up my slit before burying it deep inside me with a low groan.

He fucks my pussy with his mouth, a brutal, claiming rhythm that makes me thrash against the mattress.

Dathan crawls onto the bed, his weight settling next to me. His mouth crashes down on mine, a kiss that’s pure nightmare, all teeth and tongue and the taste of my own terror. I kiss him back, matching his ferocity.

Evren joins us on my other side. His cold hands slide from my stomach to cup my breasts. His touch is a shock of ice against my fevered skin. He squeezes, his thumbs circling my nipples, and a broken sound escapes my throat, swallowed by Dathan’s kiss.

I am an altar. They are my gods. I am their goddess.

Fire, nightmare, and death. All claiming me at once. Verik’s tongue is relentless on my clit.

The brand on my back ignites, a constellation of shared power.

My orgasm hits like a blast of hellfire.

I break the kiss, and a scream tears from my lungs as my body convulses.

The windows implode, the foundations tremble, but I don’t care.

My pussy floods cum into Verik’s mouth, and he laps it up like a parched man.

Verik withdraws and slowly rises to his knees, undoing his pants.

Dathan’s mouth moves to my neck, his teeth grazing the sensitive skin, a possessive, claiming bite that makes me arch into him.

Evren’s cold hand leaves my breast. It travels down my stomach, a slow, deliberate path that makes my muscles clench in anticipation.

His fingers dip into the slickness Verik left behind, then slide inside me.

Two fingers, then three. I gasp against Dathan’s shoulder as he stretches me, fills me with his cold.

This is the ritual. The bond. We were becoming something new.

Their elements are woven into me, through me, around me.

Hellfire, terror, and oblivion, with my soul as the cord that binds us.

Dathan releases my neck and sits back, playing with my nipples as Verik’s cock springs free, thick and hard.

He grabs my hips and drags me closer, until my pussy is millimetres from his cock.

He fists it, jerking off slowly over me while I watch.

He rubs the head over my clit, and I gasp, feeling it pulsate again, desperate for another release.

He drags the head of his cock over my slit, coating himself in my slickness, a torturous back-and-forth that has my hips lifting off the bed, begging for him to just fucking take me.

Evren’s fingers curl inside me, finding a spot that makes my entire body jolt.

Dathan moves to my other breast, sucking my nipple before his teeth clamp down, not hard enough to break the skin, just enough to hurt.

I am being pulled apart. Unmade. Re-forged in a crucible of their combined power. The book wanted to break me with this. It miscalculated. It is building me into the weapon it needs, but it’s a weapon that will be aimed at whatever the fuck I choose.

“Now,” I gasp.

Verik grins, a flash of hellfire and pure arrogance.

He guides his cock lower and shoves into me in one brutal, insistent thrust. A sound tears from my throat as my spine bows, his cock stretching me open, branding me from the inside out.

He doesn’t move. He just stays there, buried to the hilt, letting me feel every inch.

Evren pulls his fingers out, making me cry out in protest. Dathan moves off my breast. For a second, there is only the overwhelming presence of Verik inside me.

Then Dathan’s cock is pressing against my mouth, and Evren’s cold lips are closing over my nipple, his soaked fingers sliding over my clit.

My eyes roll back. This isn’t a trial. It’s a fucking ascension.