Page 65 of They Call Me Blue

A moment passes between us—us staring into each other’s eyes.

The anger in his dulls to a simmer as I tremble beneath him, more scared than I’ve ever been.

“Don’t pretend you don’t want this,” he says.

“I’m in your thoughts, Arden. I can see everything—feel everything you feel.

Gods, you’re so fucking wet for me already. ”

As if to prove his point, Lyrick shoves the mental image of me spread before him into my mind, soaked and moaning, body flush with fever and desire.

My irises glimmer like mercury in the darkness and silver dusts my cheeks.

Through his mind’s eye, I watch him sink the metal hilt inside me inch by arduous inch, stretching me for him, and I feel the excitement surging through his cock.

It hurts so fucking good, burning as he opens me, and I’m so ashamed I can’t stand it.

He’s going to breed me.

And I’m going to let him.

I’m going to want it.

Horror strikes me at the revelation.

“Of course you want it. You belong to me.”

Our minds separate as he plunges the dagger in and out of me in shallow strokes.

I claw at the grasses—mud wedging between my fingernails, grasses crumpling beneath my fists as those strokes become slower, deeper.

The pommel pushes against that thin line of skin protecting my maidenhead and I feel it rip apart.

Sticky, warm blood oozes onto the hilt, and Lyrick stills.

His pit organs flare, taking in the sight.

“You’re a virgin?” he asks, face uncharacteristically pale. “Fuck.”

For a moment, I think he might stop and let me go, but then those pit organs flare again and he brings the hilt to his mouth. Serrated teeth flash in the darkness as he wraps his tongue around the blade and licks it clean. The groan Lyrick makes is bestial, his eyes darkening with hunger.

When he’s done swallowing my blood, Lyrick casts the blade aside, dropping it somewhere in the tall grasses. “Mine,” he says in a throaty growl that’s more monster than man.

A shiver rolls down my spine, and it has nothing to do with the rain pelting us or the chilly wind rustling the canopy above. His.

I shake my head when he presses his thumb against my clit, massaging it in slow, languid strokes.

He’s softer this time—gentler—as if that’ll make it okay.

Determined not to enjoy it, I grit my teeth and close my eyes.

But the man is like a musician with an instrument.

Or like an asshole with a mental link to my pleasure center.

He spits onto my pussy and shoves a finger deep inside me, then two, pumping me in a way that has my toes curling, my insides clenching.

In my periphery, Lyrick’s dagger gleams in the mud and leaves—close enough I can almost reach it.

With great effort, I force my hands to work.

Lyrick doesn’t notice me stretching for the blade, patting around the leaf litter until I brush against its metal hilt.

He doesn’t see me wrap my fingers around it, knuckles gripping it so tightly they turn white.

One good hit is all I need . . .

But then he curls those fingers deep inside me and I see stars.

Up and up and up, my pleasure climbs, pushing me toward a peak I’ve never reached before. I could stop him—at the very least I could try—but I want to know what my body’s building toward. Maybe that makes me sick, but if I’m sick, he is too.

Lyrick increases the friction on my clit until my muscles tighten, hips lifting off the ground. I’m so close. Tears blur my eyes. My pussy aches with the need to be filled with something other than his fingers.

“Not yet,” Lyrick says, voice gravelly, sweat dripping down a brow that’s drawn in concentration. “You have to come first or I’ll shred you.”

A moment of icy clarity washes over me.

Is that what he’s doing? Trying to make me orgasm so he can fit more easily?

Fuck that. Fuck him. I refuse to be complicit in my own rape.

“Is that what this is?” he asks. “If you feel that way, why don’t you take that blade and stab me with it? I know you have it.”

My eyes widen then narrow. Glaring at him, I squeeze the weapon impossibly tighter, but I don’t move.

“That’s what I thought.” He lowers his head between my thighs, those thick eyelashes blinking up at me, covered in water droplets. The sight is so fucking profane— so wrong —but I can’t stop staring at him, squirming with need.

Rain continues to patter against us, but I can’t feel it’s cold, just Lyrick’s warm, damp breath against my skin.

Lightning crackles overhead and his serrated teeth flash.

He licks along their pointed tips, slimy venom dripping between my thighs, down my clit.

I try to squeeze my legs together, but he easily pries them back apart.

“I think I know how to help you come. Hold still.”

That fucker wraps his mouth around my clit, enveloping it in wet heat. Terror steals the breath from my lungs as I realize what he’s about to do. “Don’t mark me there. Please.”

“I own you. I’ll mark you wherever I want.”

Spearing pain shoots through me as his teeth pierce my flesh, pumping hot venom deep beneath the skin.

Sucking on me, Lyrick laps at my swollen clit in a way that sends tingles through every nerve ending in my body.

I cry out. My muscles spasm as I come undone beneath him, hips grinding into his face.

He sucks and licks me until every twitch, every moan has been wrenched from my body.

Boneless, I exhale deeply. My head falls back onto the muddy ground and my eyes snap shut. I could sleep a thousand years and it still wouldn’t be enough. But Lyrick has other plans.

Metal jingles, and my eyes snap open in time to see him unhooking his belt, shoving the leather from its buckle. Kneeling over me, he thumbs open his hide breeches and pulls himself out.

Absolutely not.

I shake my head at the sight of it. Most Hunters graft their genitalia to resemble ours; he hasn’t. Lyrick’s cock is just as monstrous as a Butcher’s. Thick and wide. Grooved and bumpy from base to tip. It throbs a dark purple, its length nearly the size of my forearm.

“You’re not putting that thing inside me,” I hiss. My words sound firm and strong—much firmer and much stronger than I feel. The blade still lies in my outstretched palm, and I close my fist around its metal hilt. “Try it and I’ll stab you.”

He chuckles. “We’ve already established that you won’t.”

Is that so? I swing as hard and as fast as I can, angling for the bastard’s neck.

Sluggish and heavy, my arm misses the mark and pierces his bicep instead.

Still, he recoils, his fingers wrapping around the braided hilt.

Purple blood dribbles down Lyrick’s armor when he pulls it free, but it’s a shallow graze. Likely, it won’t even scar.

Amused, he flicks his wrist and flings the dagger somewhere in the distance. Then, he unsheathes the blade at his hip and flings it, too. Booming thunder hides where they land.

I roll onto my stomach and try to crawl away from him. Fingers coil around my ankle and then—

Something thuds behind me.

Grasses squish as Lyrick crumples to the forest floor, his hand loosening its grip.

My brows furrow when strong arms coil around my stomach and throw me over their shoulder like a sack of rice. Through the downpour, it’s hard to see their features, but I blink the blurriness away. Sheer harem pants plaster to their legs. Water slides off a poor excuse for a metal corset.

“Giara?” I ask.

She smiles up at me. “Later. We have to go.”

In the distance, a dozen silhouettes dart through the bluewood trees, searching for survivors. I cast a final glance at Lyrick, his skull bleeding—an enormous rock lying beside him. For the first time in five years, my palm doesn’t burn.