Page 37 of Until the End of Ever (To the Cruel Gods #2)

KLEOS

O ver the last week, the word got around that a healer resided at The Royal Manor, and I ended up receiving four polite requests.

One mother of twins had struggled with lower back pain since giving birth—hardly surprising. I knew it’d go away on its own, but it was something I could fix in half a minute, so I wrote back immediately.

One of Sessona’s friends contacted me about her hip; she’d had a replacement a few years ago but was still not a hundred percent. Like Sessona, I advised exercise.

The other two came directly from healers up at the Frejr House, sending me chronic patients in order to try my method. The polite missive was a stark difference from the way healers treated me up in the vale. I couldn’t say no.

Those occasional distractions aside, most of the week was torture.

I dodged Mother’s phone calls, compulsively checked with Silver in case she got news from Demetria—but I knew that could take days, if not weeks—and the rest of the time, I spent reading.

Except no book was going to tell me who cursed me or who created me.

Having to wait for Friday for the answer made each passing day endless.

I baked. I read. I let Lucian distract me against every flat surface in his wing of the manor.

He had his own set of distractions as well.

Every night, when I finally fell asleep, I knew he snuck out of his—our—room to return to his lab downstairs.

I wasn’t sure he slept more than an hour or two.

I woke up several times at night, haunted by dreadful dreams, and almost every time, I was alone in his huge bed.

The hypocrite had the gall to tell me, “You’re not sleeping enough,” spotting the bags under my eyes on Thursday night.

I narrowed mine. “You literally have not slept more than a couple of hours since Monday.”

“Yeah, well, unlike you, I’m used to it.” He smirked, as gorgeous as usual, no dark bruises marring his eyes. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll make you a deal. You drink a sleeping potion tonight, and I will, too. We both need to be rested tomorrow.”

I could agree to that. Until he summoned the ready brew in two of his fancy mugs.

I grimaced. “It looks like mud.”

“Passionflower powder does that. It works though,” he assured me, taking a sip of his own cup.

I dipped my lip in the grayish substance. “Yuck! It kinda tastes like mud too.”

Lucian crooked a brow. “Do you want to sleep?”

“Not that much,” I grumbled, downing the rest anyway.

The week had been endless, and I’d felt barely awake most of it.

“How long do we have?” I asked, sliding underneath the covers.

“A half hour or so,” he replied, removing his clothes.

As usual, he immediately folded the items he could wear again, and put everything else away in his laundry basket. I was the kind of person who shoved everything on the armchair in a corner and sorted it out in the morning, but he didn’t seem to mind.

Lucian slept naked, or in boxer briefs. I had a tendency to get into bed while wearing PJs, and frankly, by this point, I wondered why I bothered. He peeled everything off me in any case.

“I wonder what we could do to pass the time for half an hour or so,” I drawled sleepily.

I could feel I was about to crash, but he’d just uncovered his washboard abs.

“I don’t know,” he teased. “Kore sent along a text with your next outfit. It’s a bit of a statement. Perhaps you’d like to review that.”

The name Kore, followed by “a statement,” was truly a daunting prospect, but right now, I didn’t give much of a fuck. “Approved. Oh, and there’s something else I wouldn’t mind reviewing.”

“What would that be, Valesco?” Lucian asked, hopping on top of me.

“The size of your cock,” I replied, without so much as cracking a smile. “I’ve heard it’s over the legal limit. I’m a concerned citizen, you see. I should absolutely check.”

“And what would you do if it’s too big, love?” he asked, all the while running the hard length right against my core, grinding into me.

My hips moved of their own accord to meet him. “I don’t know. It probably would involve handcuffs. Call it a citizen’s arrest.”

“Remind me to bring the handcuffs up from downstairs,” he groaned, before lowering his mouth to my collarbone. “I wouldn’t mind if you wore that little green ensemble again either.”

It was hard to focus with his lips dropping featherlight kisses along my skin, those silver-gray eyes full of hunger.

“The lace I put on at Samhain?” I checked.

I wasn’t one for sexy lingerie every day, but as the dresses my mother picked for me were so damn childish, I tried to offset that by choosing my naughtiest pieces underneath.

“Mm-hmm. You can wear the dress again, too. I want to tear it off you.”

I giggled, ending in a wail when his mouth closed over the lobe of my nipple. “That’s an expensive dress. You can’t tear it.”

“I’ll buy you ten, just for the pleasure of ripping them to pieces.”

How was that hot? I decided not to question it. Especially since I was starting to get very sleepy.

“I think your stupid sleeping potion works,” I half yawned, hating that the wave of exhaustion hit just as Lucian got to my navel.

Damn him and his disgusting, overly efficient brews.

“I’m going to be out within five minutes,” I warned him.

“I’m not,” he mumbled. “If it kills me, I’m going to make you come. Whether I’m awake or not. Whether you’re awake or not.”

I managed a small laugh. “That doesn’t make any sense,” I drawled.

“I’ll make it make sense.”

I had no clue whether he kept his word or not, given that I was down for the count in seconds. When I stirred, however many hours later, I was the little spoon, and his cock was lodged inside me, nice and warm.

I couldn’t help rocking against it a little. Lucian might have been asleep at first, but within heartbeats, he very much wasn’t, judging by how much bigger he felt and by the purposeful tilt of his hips against my ass.

“Mmm.”

“I think we might just have figured out a cure for my insomnia,” he whispered, shifting and taking me with him, until I was chest down against the mattress.

Lucian had always been the more active between the two of us, no matter how much I attempted to take charge.

Yes, he let me suck him, until he was fucking my face.

Yes, I could climb on top of him, but eventually, he’d just drill into me from beneath me.

I wasn’t complaining, when he was so very good at taking both of us over the edge, knowing exactly what I needed.

But there was something completely different about letting him pin me down, his hands covering mine, our fingers intertwined, as he sank in and out of me, over and over, fully in control.

I could barely move. I didn’t want to move.

All I could do was stay right there and feel.

I drew in a sharp breath as he kept fucking me, the wet, dirty noises filling the room—the sound of my dripping pussy and his cock, his pants, the thuds of the heavy, fancy metal bed he rocked with each forceful move.

Heat converged at my center, taut and vibrating, while he ruthlessly kept working his hips. The angle was deeper than ever.

I was going to come hard enough to pass out, I felt it. Even if I’d wanted to, there was no way to stop it.

And then, just as I was so close I couldn’t see straight, my limbs barely listening to me, he did something I hadn’t seen coming; something I had no way to prepare for.

I hadn’t felt him let go of one of my hands, but suddenly, there was pressure right against the tight ring of muscles of my asshole, pushing past it.

I was too surprised to even think to tense, and next thing I knew, there was a finger moving in and out of my ass in sync with his cock in my pussy.

Oh, fuck! By Aphrodite, this was not supposed to feel so good, was it? The small presence made me feel even fuller, awakening something beneath my skin.

“Would you look at that,” Lucian teased, a second finger joining the first, oh so easily. “Your ass is sucking me in. I think you might just want my cock in there too.”

I only whined. If I’d been capable of coherent speech, I would have said that the idea was a hell of a lot more intriguing that I formerly believed, but at the same time, I didn’t want him to stop fucking me. Not on the off chance I might also enjoy a different way.

“You’re not quite ready to take me in your ass yet. But very soon,” he murmured. “In the meantime?—”

I could feel something fly past, my face still flat against the pillow, but his fingers slid out of my ass to take it, and to my consternation, Lucian also paused his thrusts, letting go of the hand he’d still been holding.

I glanced over my shoulder, spotting him with a smooth dark dildo in one hand and a flask in the other, generously smothering it in glistening liquid.

I was still watching when he moved the fake cock between my ass cheeks, and Lucian’s gray eyes flashed as he looked straight at me, as if daring me to protest. I gulped.

My muscles let it pass without so much as a moment of resistance.

Holiest of fucks.

I screamed at the utterly strange sensation of my butt sucking in the foreign object.

It wasn’t the size of Lucian’s ridiculous cock, but it certainly wasn’t small, and instead of protesting against the foreign intrusion, my body practically absorbed it.

And then, Lucian also slammed into me, balls deep.

My body, already flat on the mattress, surged forward as I yelped helplessly. So true to form, he did it again, withdrawing the dildo while he was inside me, then pushing it back in, nice and slow, as his cock moved out.

He took his time, the rhythm unhurried, languorous, perhaps to save my sanity, or to get me used to the completely new sensation. Little by little, both his hand and his cock picked up the pace, until both barreled into me with complete abandon.

I could no longer even attempt to control my body. My hips lifted up to meet him. My legs flailed.

“It seems like my witch loves to be plowed from both ends, huh?” Lucian chuckled.

He was killing me, and he was amused .

Just when I started to suspect I might survive this if he allowed me to come soon, the discordant rhythm switched.

Lucian started moving the dildo and his cock together .

I screamed bloody murder, feeling myself tighten while my pussy flooded my legs, his cock, and the poor sheet underneath me.

My walls squeezed him so much, it was no wonder Lucian came inside me at the next thrust, collapsing against my back.

Bare skin glistening with sweat, I went slack, still reeling, incapable of doing anything but breathing.

“Weren’t—” I tried, my heart beating too fast, each word a struggle. “Weren’t we supposed to rest?”

“Mm,” he breathed, rolling onto his side, and taking me with him.

We were back to spooning. I looked back at him, and the dick had his eyes closed, his chest rising and falling steadily.

He’d gone back to sleep.