Page 64 of Horns of Wicked Ebony (Deathcaller Duet #2)

A drenaline rushed through my veins as I raced through the desert.

Head on a swivel, I searched for my mate.

Yet this wasn’t a game of chase, like we’d enjoyed time and time again.

No, icy fear shattered through me. White feathers lined the ground, growing thicker as they swallowed the sand, until I was kicking up clouds of them behind me.

They followed me of their own accord, almost in a taunt.

“Assyria!” I shouted, my voice disappearing immediately, as if they absorbed it so my words couldn’t reach my mate.

Not again. Please, not again. They wouldn’t hesitate to kill her this time. Leave me with only her bones to grieve over.

I tugged on our bond, begging it to show me where she was. It was so faint, so weak. “Assyria!” I shouted again, this time down our mental connection.

I received no response. No quip, no teasing words. Just utter, heartbreaking, silence.

Dots appeared on the horizon ahead, and I wasted no time putting on a burst of speed. Yet my limbs were heavy, leaden, like I was underwater and attempting to run. “Come on,” I gritted out, pumping them harder .

What felt like an eternity later, the ebony hair of my mate came into view. She knelt in the middle of a bed of white feathers, while her black membranous wings hung limply on either side of her. Her head dragged down, obscuring her devious burgundy eyes.

“Assyria!” I called out to her, hoping she’d look at me. She didn’t acknowledge my presence. I pressed on, closing the distance quicker now. Yet as I skidded to a stop, I noticed the silver sword resting across her lap.

“Where did you get that?” I asked her.

She finally lifted her head, revealing eyes of an icy blue. The wrong color. Too late, I realized I’d been tricked. I leaped backward, but a dozen more Angels appeared at my back, wrestling me to the ground. With a roar, I flung them off, only for the sight of my mate, my real mate, to halt me.

Her arms bound above her head, the rope tied to a thick bough, she looked at me with anguish so intense it stole my breath. She’d been stripped of everything, leaving her entire body bare. A gag held her silent, though the tears streaming down her face spoke volumes.

On either side of her, male Angels stood, one with a dagger to her throat, another pressed into her ribs.

“What do you want?” I croaked, falling to my knees.

One of them laughed. “You to watch while we destroy you both.” Another male stepped forward, unfastening his pants.

A scream unlike any I’d ever heard tore from my mate’s throat as he opened her legs. “No!” I roared, leaping for her, not caring about the consequences…

“Rokath,” Assyria pleaded, and I jolted awake. My chest heaved as I took in my surroundings. My mate gripped my shoulders like she’d been shaking me, and a thick sweat coated my skin. The bed beneath me too was soaked.

“Assyria,” I breathed, crushing her against my thundering heart. I’d never been more grateful to be at the academy than I was in that moment. I kissed her head, held her so tightly she protested.

“You’re smothering me,” she wheezed, barely audible, and with a hint of loathing, I released her so she could breathe.

Still, I buried my nose in her hair, inhaling her garden-like scent, reminding myself that she was here, she was in my arms, and that the Angels didn’t have her.

“Fuck, Assyria, I love you so much.” My voice was cracked, strained.

She wriggled her arms out and wrapped them around me, climbing on top of me fully.

“Nightmare?” she murmured.

I nodded, unable to speak for the vastness of my need for her.

“Want to talk about it?” she pressed on.

“Not really.” It was the only way to banish it so that it would never return. So that it would never become my reality.

My breathing had slowed, evening out as her love and comfort poured into me.

Telling her what I saw would only amplify my emotions again.

The utter shock I’d felt when I realized the female kneeling on the ground wasn’t her.

The utter terror when I’d discovered the real her strung up like an animal.

And with no outlet for them other than the soldiers we were training to fight those fucking insects…

An idea suddenly dawned on me, and I kicked myself for not thinking of it sooner. “I want to train with your magic again today,” I announced, mind working. “How would you feel about becoming me?”

I loosened my grip on her so she could look up at me. “You mean like impersonating you?”

“Aye,” I replied. “I am someone most of the Angels try to avoid, save for the foolish ones with too much bravado. What if, in a dire situation, you could become me and confuse them? Leave them questioning which way they should go?”

Her eyes brightened and excitement dripped down our bond. I fucking loved that she didn’t temper her emotions with me anymore. It helped me understand my mate on a deeper level, one that others would never be able to access. And right then, I knew she wouldn’t refuse.

“Absolutely,” she swore, pushing off me. Her long hair brushed over my torso as she shifted up to kiss me. With a groan, I threaded my fingers in her locks and held her in place. My cock jumped to attention, nudging against her ass.

Fuck, I needed to be inside her. To banish the fear of that nightmare. To show her I’d never let anyone take her from me. She was mine, always had been, always would be.

Reaching around, I repositioned my hardness so it nudged at her entrance.

We didn’t even separate our lips as she rolled her hips and took me in one deep stroke.

Her cunt gripped me like a vise as she slid up and down.

With a hand on her lower back and another in her hair, I guided her harder, faster.

She whimpered into my mouth as I bottomed out.

Our tongues battled, and I sucked hers between my teeth, eliciting another heady moan from my mate. Only then did I release her. Using my grip, I yanked her head back. “Mine,” I growled.

“Yours,” she replied, a slight hitch in her breath as I sank to the hilt again. She circled her hips in the most torturous motion, making my eyes roll back in my head.

“Fuck, little imposter, you take my cock so well.”

“It was made for me,” she breathed.

I snapped my attention to her, blood overheating.

“Just like your cunt was for me,” I growled. “So fucking perfect. Always so fucking wet for me. Look how I just slid into you.”

“Like this?” she breathed, bracing her hands on my shoulders and lifting off until only the tip of me remained inside.

The groan that slipped out of me turned her eyes molten. When she sat back on my hips, her arousal coated the tops of my thighs. She repeated the motion, continuing to slick my cock. It throbbed inside her, and I had to grit my teeth to prevent myself from exploding already.

“You’re going to be so fucking good for me and come three times,” I bit out, shifting my hands to the hem of her shirt and tearing it over her head.

“One for the Weaver, who placed us on this path together.”

Her breath hitched as the cold brushed over her skin.

“One for the Giver, who blessed us with this bond.”

I yanked her down and captured a perfect nipple in my mouth.

“One for the Reaper, who kept you alive all the times you should have died.”

The action drew a whimper from her throat.

“You drive me crazy,” I ground out, releasing her. The peaks that greeted me made my cock twitch.

“Good,” she panted as I dragged my teeth over her other nipple. Then, I swirled my tongue around it, savoring the feel of her smooth skin. The sound she made was sinful. “Keep doing that.”

I obliged, and she moved her hips, fucking me while I sucked her. With each pass, her walls tightened around me. “That’s it, little imposter. Take all of me.”

I flicked my tongue over her sensitive bud again, and she quickened her pace, ecstasy edging in.

“Rokath.” She moaned my name, half-plea, half-prayer, and exactly how I liked it.

“Come for me,” I commanded, and on her next stroke, she shattered.

I released her as she arched, riding me through her orgasm. The way she flushed, the sharp tips of her nails digging into my tattoos, the wanton sounds that slipped between her bow- shaped lips, all of it was why she was absolutely fucking flawless and absolutely fucking made for me.

With a shuddered breath, the peak passed her, and I wasted no time flipping us. A small noise of protest slipped out of her as I removed myself so I could settle between her thighs.

“The sight of you, the smell of you,” I groaned, raking my eyes over the slickness coating her thighs, dripping down her ass, pooling beneath her on the bed. My dick dug into the mattress, and I rubbed myself against it to relieve some of the ache of leaving her perfect pussy.

I pressed my lips to the inside of one thigh, then the other. “No one will ever take you from me.”

Her eyes locked onto mine, holding that fierce fire I loved so much. “Never.”

Without breaking her gaze, I licked her slit, then sucked her clit into my mouth.

Those long lashes fluttered against her cheekbones as I went to work, tasting her cum.

So fucking sweet. I speared my tongue inside her, just like she liked, and she writhed against my face. “More,” she pleaded. “ Please. ”

That word did vicious, savage things to me. With a rumble, I gripped her hips and smashed my face into her pussy. Her nails dug into my scalp too, sending tingles to the tips of my toes. My dick wept as she whimpered and moaned.

“The feel of your scruff on my thighs,” she gasped, inner muscles tightening.

I angled my jaw and rubbed them there, drawing another blissful sound from her throat.

She arched off the bed, and I slid a hand beneath her hips, finding her hole.

It was already so slick from her arousal that I had no trouble coating the entire thing.

“Beg me for it,” I told her, stilling my movements.