Page 62 of Eldritch (The Eating Woods #2)

“I’ve walked this world for so long, searching for you.

” His brow tightened. “Centuries have gnawed at me, hollowing me to the bone. I didn’t know how starved I was, or what I craved, until I found you.

” Both hands gripping my bottom, he pulled me closer and crushed his lips to mine.

“I will never be worthy of your light, the purity of your heart, but I’m too selfish to spare you from this darkness I carry.

Godsblood, I would follow you to the edge of existence and into the black void. ”

I rested my hand against his cheek, my body stretched across his naked chest. “You are worthy.”

His brows lowered, muscles stiff and tense as he looked away. “And yet, I bear the marks of a slave.”

“You bear the marks of a warrior unbroken by the kind of pain that would’ve destroyed lesser men.” A jagged ridge across his throat carved the violent path of a blade as it slipped beneath my tracing fingertip. “Every one of these scars is precious to me. More precious than coin or crown.”

Fingers curled around the curve of my neck, he ran his thumb across my bottom lip, eyes focused there.

“You’re a fate I never dared to dream, moon witch.

The stars I was never meant to grasp. But seeing how this gluttonous world devours the unclaimed, I’m calling you mine.

” He dragged me into a kiss that burned across my mouth and deep inside my chest.

Cold air rushed across my skin, as he lifted me out of the tub, letting the water spill across the stony floor while he carried me across the room.

The blaze of the fireplace sapped the cold, and he stood me on my feet where the hearth had warmed the stones below them.

With both hands, he lifted the shift over my head and tossed it away.

Completely naked, I covered my breasts, but his massive body urged me back onto the blankets that lay crumpled on the floor.

Soft velvet brushed across my skin when I lay back, letting him cage me beneath his muscled form, his arms outstretched on either side of me.

A brush across my thigh had me looking down between us.

His stiff flesh lay against my thigh and bore the deep crescents of my nails where I’d clutched him.

The agony of what I’d done to him was quickly smothered by the tendrils of worry coiling around my spine, as I took in his size, and my stomach churned to a tight knot, imagining him pushing it inside of me.

He hooked his finger beneath my chin, guiding my eyes to his. “You’ve nothing to worry about, Lunamiszka. I don’t think either of us is ready for what it’ll feel like inside of you.”

Relieved, I swallowed a gulp and nodded.

He lowered himself to my side, pulling my body in close, my back to his chest, and I watched the fire flicker as we lay naked and bared to one another.

Vulnerable. Yet, I’d never felt so safe and contented in my life.

Despite his erection pressing against my backside, there was no intent on his part, yet even so, my head spun with anxious thoughts.

“Does it make you nervous?” he asked, as if he’d read my mind.

“I worry that I won’t be able to accommodate.” I couldn’t imagine the pain, given the size of him.

His dark chuckle rumbled against my back. “Don’t think about it now. And know that, when the time comes, and you’re ready, I will not hurt you.”

“Will you feel pleasure that way?”

“I cannot begin to fathom what I’ll feel with you. It’s an elusive sensation that I suspect will take me by surprise.”

“Something new for both of us, then.”

“Yes.” His lips pressed against my shoulder. “I very much look forward to it,” he said, his words a promise.

We breathed in sync, like a single lung, while the heat of the fire sipped the errant drops of water still clinging to my skin. The flickering light danced over the angel faces that’d been carved into the stone beneath the mantel, and my thoughts drifted. “Do you believe in angels?”

“I’m certain you’re the closest I’ll ever come to knowing they exist.”

“No one has ever told me that I was anything more than evil and cursed. They’d have called you blasphemous for likening me to an angel. Strange to imagine that they’re gone now. Every one of them, it seems.”

“I feel no pity for those soulless cunts. May they roam this world mindless and starving. Nothing but a vessel for the plague.”

“That may have very well come to pass. And yet, their words still haunt me.”

“If only the gods had granted me your vengeance, I would’ve silenced those voices.”

“I wish I’d known you back then. I’m certain I’d have suffered far less grief with you as my guardian angel. The guards would’ve certainly thought twice before brandishing their whips.”

His arms tightened around me, muscles a wire of tension. “Were they standing before me now, I’d watch their flesh burn from their bones.” He reached out and drew part of the flame to his palm, holding it there in front of me. “No one would be spared of my wrath.”

I slid my hand along the length of his arm and let my fingers drift across the flame, smiling at the hum of energy that tingled beneath my skin.

He turned his palm over and dragged the fire up my arm, sending a warm vibration down to my bones.

Lost to the sensation, I shuttered my eyes and tipped forward, letting him run his warm palm over my back.

He drew a line of exhilarating heat over the curves and dips of my body, and when he reached the fleshy cheeks of my backside, I let out a quiet moan. “I don’t know a soul, besides myself and a very select few mages, who can touch the flame without disintegrating.”

I smiled. “What is the strange tingling?”

“Sablefyre energy. It gives off a powerful vibration. Do you like it?”

“Yes.”

He slid his hand over my hip, to the apex of my thighs, and I gripped his wrist before his fingers could go further.

“Zevander, we shouldn’t.”

“And yet, you’re not pushing my hand away.”

I sucked my lip into my mouth, his palm flat across my pelvic bone, that vibrating heat spreading deep inside me.

“Say the word, and I will not touch you tonight. But, gods, Maevyth, I want to touch you so badly, I’m burning in agony.”

Telling him I didn’t crave his touch would’ve been a lie. “She’ll hear us.”

“Is that all that concerns you?”

“Yes.”

“You’re certain?”

At my nod, his other hand came up from under me, and he slid his palm over my mouth, his body urging me forward until I almost lay on my stomach, my face half-hidden in crumpled velvet.

His knee nudged the back of my thigh, spreading my legs wider apart, and when he reached down between them, my breath hitched.

The warm buzz struck my sensitive flesh with such intensity, I jerked forward on contact.

Slow and controlled, he ran his finger up and down my wet seam, stoking my arousal.

I curled my fingers into the blanket, and with a long, droning moan, smothered by his palm, I writhed against him. Waves of unbearable pleasure and heat pulsed through my body, every muscle contracting. He slipped his finger inside of me and rested his forehead against my back.

“Seven hells, Lunamiszka. The sounds you’re making stir a violent need inside of me.” He dragged his tongue up the length of my spine and kissed my shoulder, the steel of his piercings hot against the back of my thigh, as if the flame inside him also stirred.

That intoxicating tremor moved through me, so deeply, it shook my bones.

Desperate and delirious, I circled my hips, as he plunged his finger in and out of me, each glide wetter than the last. I could feel it dripping down my thighs, the maddening ache he’d aroused inside of me too much.

Far too much. Panting through my nose, I buried my face even more, squirming and grunting, my body growing more rigid by the second.

My breasts, far more sensitive than before, brushed over the soft fabric beneath me, only heightening the torment.

Heat spiraled through me. Building. Tensing.

Climbing. I’d felt that sensation with him before, knew what awaited me.

My eyes rolled back, drool dampening my mouth and cheek, trapped behind his hand.

“Do you feel that? The burning need that you can’t quite pinpoint?

The pressure and heat rising in your muscles?

” He spoke through clenched teeth, as if the sensation angered him.

“I feel it every time I look at you. This maddening need consumes me.” Another finger joined the first, and I let out a whimper as the vibration intensified, the flame hotter than before.

“The fire longs to be inside of you as much as I do.” His voice curled in my ear like a wicked, black smoke and settled as a warm flutter deep in my chest.

A soft and breathless sound of pure rapture shuddered out of me, and those greedy fingers plundered for more, faster.

My thighs shook, the delicious tremors stoking more arousal, slickening his fingers that slipped in and out of me with ease.

Each smooth glide brought me closer to the invisible pinnacle, the edge I clawed toward.

Grasping and pulling, sinking my teeth into the fingers that captured every grunt and moan. My stomach coiled, toes curled.

He harnessed my pleasure as masterfully as he wielded a sword.

Back tense and arched against him, I surrendered myself to it. To him.

Lightning flared behind my eyes, and I released a blissful cry, my screams muffled behind his palm, every muscle rigid. I writhed and squirmed as he drew out the last bits of my release, my thighs trembling from the aftermath.

Delicious euphoria surged through me, and I lay half-drunk, my bones soft and useless.

He removed his hand from my wet mouth, and my body jostled as he made his way down the length of me. Palms to my thighs, he spread me wider, and I craned my neck to see his broad shoulders wedged between them, as he angled his big body forward.

“What are you?—”

One long, wet drag of his tongue sent me screaming, face-down, into the blankets.

His lips latched onto my swollen and sensitive flesh while he sucked on it, and he moaned, as if he’d found rapture in the task.

Just as my body began to tense with need again, he stopped and lay beside me once more.

“I couldn’t let one drop of that sweetness go to waste,” he said, wrapping his arms around me again.

The new ache he’d stirred lingered, but I pressed my thighs together in an effort to calm it. As I lay staring at the fire, I was certain that I would stay like this with him forever, given the choice.

Arm banded around my stomach, he dragged me closer and buried his face in the back of my neck. “These nights I’ve been apart from you have been torment.”

“I’ve also suffered your absence. I look forward to finding a way across the Umbravale with Aleysia, so that I can sleep in peace beside you.” The vision of that stoked more thoughts. “You said it was the rabbit which helped you regain a small bit of strength. How?”

“The iron in the blood. It works like vivicantem, but it’s much weaker.” He pushed my hair upward and kissed the nape of my neck.

“And what about human blood?”

“Yes. Human blood works, as well.” Amusement colored his tone, as he dragged his teeth over the curve of my throat.

“What if you were to consume my blood?”

The excessive pause that followed had me regretting the question.

“That is a very sacred ritual reserved for the blood exchange of bonding.”

“How?”

“Blood is consumed during the consummation.”

“But if it keeps you from slipping into delirium, why not try?”

“Bonding is eternal, Maevyth. Given the circumstances, it would only complicate things. Believe me when I say, I’d love nothing more than to make you mine for eternity. But not to spare me from madness.”

“I see.”

“Let’s not dwell on this. Tomorrow, I’ll search for the map to find that vein.”

I didn’t dare myself to imagine what would happen if we couldn’t find the map, or the vein. How dark my world would turn. How terrifying. I nodded. “And Zevander…thank you. For trusting me earlier.”

“The fact that you’re still here, after having seen all of that, is what concerns me most.”

“Are you implying that I’m a sadist?”

“Not at all.” The tone of his voice shifted to something more serious, prompting me to wriggle around to face him. The somber expression he wore confirmed my suspicions.

I placed a hand on his cheek. “What is it?”

“To escape my thoughts before, I relied on a very potent toxin. It was all I had to pull me out of my head. I fear that you might be the alternative. My own personal poison.” Brows crinkled, he traced his finger over my shoulder and kissed me there. “The only thing I have to ground me right now.”

“I asked you to turn to me. To keep you from hurting yourself alone.”

“My concern is that I won’t be able to stay away from you now, moon witch.

I crave every part of you—body, mind and breath.

You consume me, and gods help you, there is no escape.

You’re in my blood.” He cradled my cheek, brows pulled tight.

“Mercy be damned, I’ll tear the world asunder to feed this relentless ache carved by your hands. ”