Page 7 of Blood Court (Cursed Darkness #2)

CHAPTER SIX

LYSITHEA

“You didn’t answer Verik,” Dathan says when I stop by the stone bench in the Nightmare Gardens. I can’t face going to my room yet.

I turn and look at him. His silver eyes are a storm of concern and violence.

“Because ‘okay’ isn’t a word that applies anymore.

” I sit down on the bench, my gaze fixed on a patch of Shadow Weave, a carnivorous plant that strangles its prey in darkness.

Fitting. I pull my knees to my chest. The memory of Evren’s touch, of the grimoire’s cold victory, is a fresh wound.

But one that I can’t help but have mixed feelings over.

My orgasm was spectacular. I needed it like I need air to breathe.

I needed it from Evren, even if I didn’t know it at the time.

We are both fucked up, maybe even him more than me.

He has pulled away, slammed his walls back into place when I’d hoped mine were crumbling.

It kind of makes this even more difficult to accept.

We were forced into a situation by a sentient grimoire, and I’m not even really sure why.

Dathan sits beside me on the bench, not too close, but near enough that I can touch him if I wanted to. “It wanted to break him. It used you to do it.”

“It broke both of us.” The admission is a bitter pill. I look at him, at the storm in his silver eyes. “Are you okay?”

He lets out a harsh laugh. “Am I okay? Thea, I watched that happen. I wanted to rip the fucking book to shreds, but I couldn’t move.” He runs a hand through his dark hair, agitated. “No, I’m not fucking okay.”

His honesty is a strange comfort. We’re all broken. Just in different ways.

“This is fucked up.”

“It is.”

“Evren shouldn’t be alone. I’m fine. Go to him.”

“And say what?” He stares at me, uncertainty in his eyes.

I shrug. “Tell him he didn’t do anything wrong. Tell him I’m sorry.”

“ You have nothing to be sorry for,” he growls.

“Neither does he. This was circumstance. If he hadn’t given me the full extent of his power, I’d be dead.”

“No, I don’t believe that. The grimoire won’t kill you. It needs you.”

“It might not mean to, but shit happens. You can’t stop it,” I say, my voice flat. “None of us can. We’re just pieces it moves around.”

“Then we break the fucking board,” he snarls.

His certainty is almost convincing. Almost. I look away from his burning gaze. “Go to Evren, Dathan. He needs one of us. And it can’t be me.”

A muscle jumps in his jaw. He doesn’t want to leave me, I can see it. But he knows I’m right. He gives a stiff nod, straightens up, and stalks off towards the residence building without another word, a storm of protective fury in his wake.

The silence settles around me, heavy and suffocating.

The Shadow Weave plant next to the bench slowly unfurls a new tendril, questing for something to choke.

I know the feeling. My mind wanders to Reena.

Contested throne . What does she know about this?

I’m not buying her innocence; her sudden need to be my friend.

“He’s right, you know.”

My head snaps up. Verik stands in front of me, the grimoire held loosely at his side. He must have just come from the library. His hellfire eyes are unusually serious.

“About breaking the board?” I ask, my voice a dry rasp.

“About that.” He sits where Dathan was, the book resting on his lap like a sleeping predator. “And about what happened in the tower. It wasn’t your fault. Or his.”

I just nod, unable to speak past the lump in my throat.

“I talked to it,” he says, his voice low.

“It?”

“The grimoire. As in, I had an out loud conversation.”

“What?” I frown, my heart thumping wildly. “It speaks?”

Verik nods, his expression grim. “To those it deems worthy.”

“I see. And what did it say?”

He hesitates, his hellfire eyes searching mine. “It told me who screamed you into existence for one thing.”

My breath catches. The world tilts on its axis. “Who? Or what?”

“It did,” Verik says, his voice flat, brutal. “The grimoire. It screamed. You are its creation.”

The Shadow Weave next to me tightens around a struggling starfly.

My creator. A book. A sadistic, manipulative, perverted entity that gets off on my pain. The thought is so grotesque, it makes me want to vomit.

“It calls itself ‘Absolute Truth’,” Verik continues, his voice a low rumble of disgust. “It said it was a god that was erased, and we’re putting it back together.”

“For what?”

“So it can annihilate whoever tried to erase it, I’m guessing.”

“The opposition?”

“Probably. Which means they will try to stop us and go to any lengths to do it. They are, in fact, more dangerous to us than the grimoire.”

“Because we can’t stop what we’re doing,” I whisper.

“Precisely.”

I pull my knees up and rest my head on them, closing my eyes and trying to find some semblance of order in my chaotic mind.

His warm hand lands on the back of my neck, and I freeze. I want to tell him to get off, to slap it away, to scream until his ears bleed… but I don’t. I can’t. It feels too good there, warming my blood after being with Evren who chilled it.

It’s a brand of a different sort, not of pain, but of possession.

A part of me, the old me, wants to recoil, to scream.

But the part of me that just shattered on the floor of the Ossuary Tower leans into it.

I lift my head from my knees, my neck still under the solid weight of his hand.

I am a thought the book had. A scream it gave form.

“This makes you powerful against it. You are its power.”

His words are a match struck in the hollow space inside me.

Its power. Its source. The thought is a dangerous seed.

If I am its power, then my pain isn’t just cruelty.

It’s a transaction. A syphoning. It’s feeding on me to fuel itself, make it stronger.

It does need me, but that doesn’t mean it won’t make me suffer first.

Verik’s hand doesn’t move. Right now, I really don’t want it to. I look over at him, staring off into the distance, the book on his other side. Without thinking, I crawl into his lap, shocking him. He leans back, dropping his hands to his side. “Is this the book again?” he murmurs.

I smile and shake my head. “No, this is me.” I press my lips to his, tasting him.

For a moment, he’s completely still, surprised.

Then his mouth crashes against mine. This isn’t gentle.

It’s a collision. A claiming. His hand tangles in my hair, gripping tight as he tilts my head back.

Hellfire licks at the edges of the kiss, a warmth that clashes with Evren’s chill, arousing me on a fire and ice level that my body is craving to experience more of.

This is my choice. Not the book’s. Not a command born from agony.

Just me, taking something I want, knowing I still have free will.

His tongue slides against mine, a challenge I meet.

The grimoire can watch. It can learn that I am not just a tool to be broken.

I am power, and I will be its fucking end if it pushes me too far.

Verik pulls back just enough to speak, his breath hot against my lips. “What was that for, hellcat?”

“Practice,” I say, and pull him back for more. The grimoire on the bench beside us remains silent, its eye a single, malevolent witness to my small rebellion. Let it watch. Let it see that its power over me has limits. Let it see that I can yield on my own terms.

Unfortunately, the thought worms its way into my head that this is still the book manipulating me, but on a much subtler level.

I break the kiss, the thought a venomous snake sinking its fangs into the moment.

Verik’s hellfire eyes narrow, searching my face. “What?”

“Nothing,” I lie, and drag his mouth back to mine. If this is a game, I’ll play. But I’ll set the fucking rules.

The brand on my back gives a faint, smug throb. Bastard.

I bite his lip, hard enough to draw blood.

A coppery taste fills my mouth. He groans, a low, pleased sound, and his arms wrap around me, pulling me impossibly closer.

The grimoire on the bench is a silent, judging presence, but I ignore it.

I pour every ounce of my rage, my defiance, my fucking despair into this kiss.

This isn’t just rebellion anymore. It’s a declaration of war.

He deepens the kiss, his power a roaring inferno against my skin. It’s too much. It’s not enough. He is devouring me, and I am letting him. I am feeding him.

His cock hardens when I grind down on him.

A promise of a different kind of pain. A pain I choose.

A pain I control. He groans, his hands sliding from my waist to cup my arse, pulling me tighter against his lap.

I use my knee to push the book off the bench.

The grimoire slides to the ground, landing on the stone path with a dull thud. Neither of us cares.

He breaks the kiss, his breathing ragged. “Here?” he rasps, his gaze flicking around the deserted garden. “You want to fuck on a bench in the open?”

“I want you to fuck me so hard I forget my own name,” I spit back, the words a raw, ugly truth. I need to be obliterated. I need to be remade by a fire I can at least pretend to control.

His eyes darken, the hellfire within them flaring.

He stands, lifting me with him as if I weigh nothing.

He backs me against the cold stone of a nearby statue, its carved gargoyles staring down with silent judgement.

His mouth crashes down on mine again. This isn’t a kiss.

It’s an invasion. And I welcome it. I welcome the burn.

His hand snakes between us, hooking into the front of my dress.

The sound of fabric ripping is sharp, satisfying as my pussy goes wet.

The cool night air hits my bare skin, the opposite of the furnace of his body pressed against mine.

He lifts me without effort, and I lock my legs around his waist, claiming him as he claims me.