Page 12 of Cruelest Kiss and Fairest Blood (Tales So Wicked #2)

My wings pump once, twice, shooting me ever faster and farther.

Wind bites across my face as I pick up speed.

It whips past me, tangling the strands of my pale hair until they’re wrapped up in the spires of my dark crown.

Ravens fill the sky above, carrying the dead in their great talons.

I dodge the rain of bodies that fall down around me.

My feathery servants ferry the souls to their respective resting places.

Though, for those of immoral character, no rest will be found here.

The water continues underfoot. The serpentine river path leads me straight to the edge of the mountain.

The mountain itself is as black as the sky but the green veins that run deep within it give it an emerald glow that cannot be missed.

Vivianite. The necro-crystal. It’s one of the only crystals that has been found growing on decomposing human remains.

Here in the Underworld, with such a bounty of bones and bodies, it thrives.

My palace glistens where it’s been carved into the side of the mountain itself.

The largest deposit of Vivianite forms the archways, columns, and rooms of my refuge.

The only other décor to my verdant palace?

Bones. I quite enjoy ripping the skeletons from those who have wronged me.

Frederic Bellingham’s skeleton now ornaments my throne room.

His skull is one of many that fashion the pedestal that I prop my blood-splatted boots upon.

I bank hard to the left before shooting skyward. The castle turns temporarily blue. Dichroism. The phenomenon gives Vivianite its unique color-changing properties. Depending on the angle and lighting, the slender tube-like crystals shift from a jaded green to a deep ocean blue.

My reflection follows me all the way up the mountain, its glassy obsidian surface revealing my truest form. I reach the balcony overhang that leads to my throne room, landing on the precipice with ease. Energy hums from the crystals surrounding me.

Dropping onto my throne, I note the shallow pool in the center of the chamber.

The moment my power begins to flow into the room, the water rises.

It leads to a waterfall that flows down the mountainside, feeding into the river.

The constant flow mixed with my power keeps the souls locked away in the ever-churning waves.

They tumble, tossed about, never gaining their bearings.

The dark murky water clogs their noses and mouths, silencing their screams of pain and outrage.

I enjoy watching them flail about, suffering the sensation of helplessness for eternity.

Many of their victims were helpless at the hands of those wicked souls. It is a just punishment.

Having the water level tied to my power does lead to some complications. The longer I’m gone, the lower the level drops. If the damned should climb free, they threaten the sanctity of those whose souls are still pure. The river needs me here, needs my power to keep the souls in check.

Which is one of the reasons my obsession with Lenore is quite dangerous.

Mytha swoops through the open balcony, seamlessly transitioning from a sleek raven into her Serpien form.

She lands, bowing before me. The Serpien are born from within this very mountain and tasked with the retrieval and gathering of souls.

They are masters of illusion, most often reaping in the skin of a raven.

Today, she has chosen the skin of a young, human woman.

In the mortal world, her feminine face, braided auburn hair, and milky skin would be quite alluring and even possibly convincing to the humans.

But her Serpien features will always give her away for what she is.

The Serpien are something not exactly living, but not altogether dead.

Born of death, perhaps. Given life in the land of the deceased.

What happens beneath the mountain and how the Serpien come to be is a mystery.

Her twisted reptilian lower half is hidden beneath the silken black gown.

Without looking, it could be assumed her flowing gait was produced by long, graceful legs.

Her eyes are harder to conceal. They glow, the same brilliant green as the crystals in the mountain. That unusual coloring dominates her gaze, leaving her eyes pupilless and overly bright. Ovals of glowing green peer up at me.

“My lord. Ssso good to sssee you ssseated on the throne again.” A forked tongue flicks outward as she hisses the syllables. I don’t miss the irritation lacing each word.

“None escaped,” I address her unspoken concern.

“Thisss time. It was clossse.” She raises a dark brow at me. “The human isss a dissstraction. My lord hasss more important thingsss to attend to than ssstudying the living.”

I stride toward the swirling pool in the center of the room. Kneeling, I run my fingers through the water. It shimmers, a bioluminescent trail highlighting the path of my touch.

“Indeed.” My glance shifts to the vast crystal chamber.

What would it be like to hear her smoky voice filling these halls?

My bone-adorned throne rises up, an ugly, dark thing amidst this natural beauty.

Visions of a matching throne next to mine swirl into focus.

My bone queen on a throne of bones. Truly, she is meant to be mine.

“Sssnap out of it,” Mytha hisses again.

Impertinent creature. Though loyal to a fault. “Have you left the feather for her?”

“Yesss.”

“Good.” I reach a hand behind my back, stroking my wings once before selecting a large feather settled just above my right shoulder blade.

Plucking it, I wince at the pain that shoots red hot down my spine.

A throbbing ache settles over that side of my body.

It will take several hours for the pain to ease, but it will pass. “Here is the feather for tonight.”

“Twice today? My lord?—”

A sharp glare her way silences the protest. She may speak freely in my presence, but she need never forget who I am.

“My apologiesss. It will be done.” She shifts into a raven, gently takes the feather from my palm with her taloned foot, and soars outside.

Restlessness itches up and down my skin.

I sit horizontally in my throne with my legs hooked over one of the arms. Twirling a fractured skull in one hand, my cheek settled in the palm of the other, I contemplate my existence.

I’ve been staring into the ghostly depths of the soul pool in my throne room for hours.

My fixation with Lenore is the only thing that occupies my thoughts.

My body is taut with unspent energy. Shadows snake across the floor, climbing up the walls and dropping down from above.

They’re restless too. That small outburst in the gardens was just a fraction of the power I could have released upon the prince.

The need to fight, fuck, or do both builds in my overly tense muscles.

I have no companion here. Certainly no one I’m interested in bedding now that I’ve set my sights on Lenore.

When my needs are met by another, it will be her.

The idea of snatching her, of taking her by surprise and then filling her up until her eyes roll back and her tongued protests fall silent has me instantly hardening.

Spiriting her away is not an option right now, but there may be another way to satiate those needs.

A temporary solution. It’s the best I can do without rising above and dragging Lenore, kicking and screaming, to my bed.

Conjuring my many shadows, I set them to work. They dive into the task with eagerness. Obeying my every unspoken thought. With great care, my creation begins to take shape.

Bones levitate, moving toward each other. Piece by piece, a full skeleton forms. As the last bone slides into place, my shadows expand, wrapping around the skeleton until it disappears beneath a smoky skin of rippling darkness.

The corpse comes to life, in physicality only.

My shadows animate the pieces, making the arms and legs move.

The newly attached head turns on its neck.

I shape the shadows, tightening them until the slim figure of a woman appears.

Shadowy tendrils of hair grow from the hidden skull.

I work to match them to the precise length of Lenore’s hair.

I’ve only seen her hair pulled back. But my guess will have to be good enough.

I snap my fingers and the shadowed skeleton walks my way.

My power washes over it, imbuing the farcical figure with my commands, my needs.

It drops to its knees before my throne. My eager fingers are quick to dive under my trousers.

Gripping my cock tightly, I pull it free from the fabric.

I’m as hard as the stone that makes up this mountain.

One hand strokes my shaft, the other crooks my fingers, beckoning the night-like figure forward.

The shadows pry the jawbone of the broken skull wide, filling the mouth with a tight swirling tunnel of darkness.

My free hand buries into the shadow strands of hair, pulling the open mouth down over my erection.

My own jaw falls open. The shadows constrict and swirl, wringing my cock, spinning, squeezing…

Fuck it feels good. I shove the face down harder, pressing my length deeper into the proverbial throat.

Up and down, up and down. My shadow-coated skeleton bobs, sliding my length in and out, sucking me down until I’m shaking.

“ Lenore ,” I groan out, picturing the perfection of her pink lips as they make a mess of my weeping cock.

The memory of her leaning up to kiss that mortal prince floods my thoughts. The image saps the sensual warmth from my bones. That ignorant, greedy prince. I wrench the shadow figure back and off my cock. My boot flies up, connecting with the skull and sending the skeleton slamming onto the floor.