Page 4 of Blood Court (Cursed Darkness #2)

CHAPTER THREE

LYSITHEA

His promise is a dark poison that soothes the wound.

A vicious, ugly part of me wants it. Wants him to find Clara and unmake her, piece by agonising piece. But the rest of me just feels hollowed out, exposed. The secret I’ve carried like a stone in my gut is out, and I feel naked.

I push myself out of his arms, stumbling back a step.

I can’t stand their pity. I can’t stand the look in their eyes.

Verik’s face is a mask of murderous intent, his hellfire eyes burning with a promise of vengeance.

Evren’s silence is worse. It’s a cold, absolute vow of a death so slow and excruciating, Clara would beg for hell.

My gaze falls on the grimoire. On the new lines drawn in blood on the map. My pain is its currency. My trauma, its reward.

“Where?” I ask, my voice a raw rasp. I point a trembling finger at the book. “What is it showing us?”

Verik steps closer, his fury banked but still simmering. He leans over the desk, his eyes tracing the new red lines. “The Ossuary Tower,” he says, his voice rough.

I blink. I know it. Everyone knows it. I’ve never been inside.

I’ve never been invited, and no way was I straight up walking in there on my own.

Its bone-white stone is an odd spot against the black granite of the academy.

It’s foreboding just to look at. The tower serves as a gathering place for those students who walk the knife’s edge of the academy’s tolerance.

The tower’s doors recognise only those who’ve crossed certain lines, its ancient hinges refuse to budge for anyone still clinging to absolutes.

I know the three guys have been inside. It was their unofficial clubhouse.

But me? The weirdo, last of her kind, who can sing a creature into oblivion, was persona non grata .

Not anymore, it seems.

“So why there? What is inside?” I direct this question to Dathan, the most likely to answer me.

He shrugs. “Who knows? Most of the rooms are empty save for sparse furniture. There are skulls and bones scattered about to serve as reminders of where we are.”

“The grimoire is showing us this for a reason. There must be something in there that it wants.”

“So, let’s go and find out,” Verik says, scooping up the book and staring at the drawing. “Looks like it wants us in the top room.”

I nod, my throat too raw to form words. The confession hangs in the air, a ghost that won’t be banished. Dathan holds the door open, and they fall into a protective formation around me as we walk. No one speaks. The silence is a heavy blanket.

The Ossuary Tower comes into view, and the air chills, forming a fog as we breathe.

As we approach, the massive doors swing inward without a sound.

Inside, the air is cold and still. Ribcages form arches overhead.

Vertebrae line the spiral staircase that winds up into darkness.

It’s less a clubhouse and more a cathedral for the damned.

Verik leads the way, the closed grimoire in his hand.

I follow with Dathan and Evren flanking me closely.

Every step up the winding stairs feels like a descent, deeper into the book’s game.

Deeper into whatever fresh hell it has designed for us in that top room.

The brand on my back simmers with a familiar, ominous heat.

We pass alcoves of skulls, their empty eye sockets seemingly following us, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

When we reach the top, Verik pushes open the door and steps inside. We follow.

The door slams shut behind us, making me jump.

“Okay. So, what now?” I murmur.

Verik strides over to the single, circular table and places the book on its surface. It barely holds it when he opens it up. “All right, fucker. What do you want from here?”

Compliance.

“No shit. Compliance to what?”

I shiver inside.

The book answers, the script bleeding onto the page beneath the first word.

Her.

My breath catches. It’s pointing at me. The demand isn’t for all of us. It’s for them.

“That’s not an answer,” Dathan growls, stepping closer to the table. “What the fuck do you want?”

The script changes, the letters forming with a vicious speed.

Make her yield.

I stumble back until I hit the door. It wants them to break me, to force my submission so it can have what it wants.

“Fuck. That,” Verik snarls, his hand moving to shove the book from the table.

But before he can touch it, the brand on my back ignites. It’s a pain beyond anything I’ve felt before, a searing agony that drops me to my knees with a choked scream that rattles the bones strewn about.

“No!” Dathan roars, but the book is relentless.

The pain is white-hot, consuming thought, consuming everything.

Yield.

The word isn’t on the page. It’s in my head. A cold, absolute command from the grimoire.

Evren kneels in front of me. He reaches out, his fingers tracing my jaw.

His death magic is chilling compared to the fire.

It works, but only so much. I need more.

I need his hands on the brand. With shaking hands, I unzip my dress and pull my arms out of it.

I scrabble around, exposing my back to him.

Yield, Nox Siren. He is your god now.

“What?” I stammer as the words chill me to my core.

This is another test. One I have to pass, but I’m not really sure what it’s asking of me.

Yield to what exactly? I already want his hands on me.

I’m burning from the inside out. My brain feels like someone lit a match and threw it inside my skull. I scream and slap my hands to my head.

“Dammit!” Dathan roars. “What are we supposed to do?”

“It isn’t for us.” Verik’s words are the last things I hear before the buzzing in my head becomes too loud to hear anything else.

I whimper as my veins set on fire under my skin, tears pricking my eyes as the pain becomes unbearable.

Yield.

“I am, you bastard,” I slur, swaying on my knees.

Evren shuffles closer, pressing his lips to my skin, and I go still.

He swipes his tongue over the brand, and I moan with relief as it subsides, only to flare up again as his tongue passes over it.

The grimoire wants intimacy. It wants me to yield, to break down my walls, to be touched by him without hating myself, without hating him.

“Please,” I croak, giving in under the torture that is causing sweat to bead on my forehead. “More.”

His tongue traces the lines of the brand again, a slow, deliberate movement that is both agony and ecstasy.

A whimper escapes my lips. The fire recedes, replaced by an arctic chill that sinks deep into my bones.

He doesn’t stop there. His cold hands slide around my waist, his fingers splaying across my stomach, pulling me back against him.

My entire body goes rigid. Every instinct screams to pull away, to fight, to put distance between us. But the brand on my back blasts me with a high, threatening heat, a reminder of the consequences of resistance.

Yield your body to him.

“Fuck,” I whisper. “Why are you doing this?”

There is no answer, of course. Only actions.

Evren’s lips move from the brand to the nape of my neck.

I shudder, a full-body tremor I can’t control.

This is what it wants. My pain, but also my surrender.

My acceptance of their touch, their claim.

Their power as gods. My gods. His hands slide up my thighs, shoving my dress out of the way.

His fingers grip my knickers, and I twist in his grip. Not like this.

But when he slides his fingers past the fabric and onto my clit, I gasp as the sensation is overwhelming. The brand’s heat dies down enough to clear my mind, but not enough that I can relax. It’s like lava pulsing through every cell in my body.

“More,” I croak. “Evren…”

He removes his hands from me and pushes me forward on my hands and knees, lifting my dress around my hips. He moves my knickers to the side before he thrusts his cold, almost dead fingers inside me. I moan as the coolness spreads from my pussy outwards in a soothing wave that makes my head spin.

I don’t know what the book is telling him, but this goes against everything that he is.

It goes against everything that I am. But then thoughts of allowing Dathan between my thighs permeate my mind, and I shiver as an orgasm builds.

Evren withdraws his fingers and slides them over my clit before he pauses momentarily.

In that moment, the fire returns tenfold, and I scream, exploding the skulls scattered around into shards of bone.

“Evren.” My voice is barely a whisper, a plea torn from somewhere deep inside me. “Please.”

The tip of his cock presses against me hesitantly before he slides inside, burying himself deep. The relief is so intense I nearly collapse. The brand’s fire retreats just enough for me to think, to breathe, to exist without feeling like I’m being flayed alive from the inside.

I hear the other guys move closer, their breathing ragged as they watch this…

whatever the fuck it is. The rape of our minds through pain and necessity.

They’re watching this happen, watching me break apart and beg for more, watching Evren left with no choice but to go against everything that is part of who he is.

The humiliation should burn worse than the brand, but I’m past caring.

Past dignity. Past everything except the desperate need for relief.

The grimoire’s presence presses against my mind, satisfied with my surrender but demanding more.

It wants complete capitulation. Total submission to their touch, their power over me.

I quiver as Evren fucks me slowly, his hands on my hips, and his grip tightens.

He’s still hesitant, still unsure, but the grimoire’s influence is relentless.

It pushes him, urges him on, and I feel his resolve crumble.

His thrusts grow harder, more insistent.

The cold radiating from him seeps into my bones, numbing the pain that the brand inflicts.

I’m panting, my breath coming in ragged gasps.

The sensation of Evren inside me is overwhelming, but it’s not just physical.

It’s a surrender of will, a yielding of control.

The grimoire wants this, needs this, and I’m helpless to resist. The pain recedes, replaced by a numbing cold that spreads through my body, dulling my senses.

The grimoire’s command is absolute. We play or I die from being burned inside out.

I can feel the guys’ eyes on me, watching, waiting.

Their silence is a tacit agreement to the grimoire’s demands.

Evren’s pace quickens, his grip on my hips tightening.

The cold from his body is almost unbearable, but it’s a welcome relief from the brand’s searing heat.

I can feel the orgasm building inside me.

I can’t hold back the moan that escapes my lips as Evren’s pace becomes punishing.

The cold is intense, but it’s nothing compared to the fire that rages inside me when he slows down.

He fucks me like he hates me, like he hates himself for doing it, and I can’t even blame him.

This is fucked up, a violation of both of us, but the grimoire doesn’t give a shit.

It wants what it wants, and it’s using us to get it.

My fingers claw at the stone floor, my body rocking back to meet each of Evren’s thrusts. The sounds that come from my mouth are raw, animalistic. I hate it, but I can’t stop. The pain is a live wire, and the only way to keep it from consuming me is to give in.

Evren’s grip on my hips is bruising, his body slamming into mine with force. His fingers dig into my flesh like he wants to rip it off me just to end this spectacle. Tears prick my eyes as my climax hits me in a wave that makes me go dizzy, soaking Evren’s cock as I come all over it.