Page 27 of The Fulbourn: Pitch & Sickle

Heat swept over him, and it felt as though it burned away the dress, the corset, the ridiculous trappings of humanity. He was bare, splayed out, at the mercy of the shape that moved above him.

Not again. He could not bear this again.

Pitch tried to wriggle free of what nailed him to the table, like that poor sod Jesus to his cross.

He shook so hard his teeth rattled. Fuck his head hurt.

His mouth was working, pleas were leaving him, cries of protest that had the strength sucked from them the moment his lips parted.

The weight upon his chest moved. Slid down his ribs, and found the softness of his belly. And he knew, justknew, what came next. And it would hurt. Like nothing he’d ever known.

‘Stop,’ he croaked.

The shape over him swayed, emanating light that grew brighter and brighter. It would do no good to close his eyes, he knew, for the light could be stopped by nothing. The source was incandescent.

Not Fothergill; he was dull as coal. Not Onoskolis; she was a dead daemon walking.

No this light came from someone Pitch knew well. Someone who he remembered had, long ago, leaned over him and whispered fire into his ear.

‘Hush now.’ Not a daemon, but an angel. And his assault was as heavy as the weight of the world. But he was not seeking to fuck Pitch dry. That was not what it was. It never had been.

Fingertips pressed at his belly. Their touch would burn. Heknewit would burn. And gods the pain would be supreme, pushing him from consciousness again and again.

A voice whispered over him. A language echoing with the depth of centuries, hissing like rain on hot coals, rising like a chorus of the gods. Pitch had heard the language of the Seraphim often enough to recognise it when it fell over him.

He’d heard Seraphiel cultivating magick more than once, too.

The language took on a baser, coarser sound when the Seraphim were casting their divine magick.

Fucking gods.

The angel had not sought a daemon prince to fuck at all, nor even to teach him how better to control his flame.

Keeping you on your back was his way of keeping you where he needed.Lucifer’s words. And they made dreadful sense now.

Seraphiel, one of Arcadia’s greatest cultivators, had been casting divine magick upon him.

More than once.

Many more times.

He is no daemon,Onoskolis had screamed, Pitch’s blood on her tongue.

He made you a monster.

Lucifer’s spiteful accusation was not spite at all.

He’d meant it.

Pitch’s fury swelled. And the wildness stirred. The wildness that had always been a part of him but ever more fucking uncontrollable of late.

It was pulling at its leash now. Heat crept up from his core. If he did not wish to burn Edward’s godsdamned house down, he must end this now.

Pitch sank his fingers into Fothergill’s shoulders. The room was crystal clear. A prince’s eyes wide open.

He raised his knee, took his aim, and slammed it into the man’s pillared cock.

CHAPTER NINE