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He’d been flying for a while when a reflection caught the light, and I squinted at the spot a few yards ahead. I pointed at it insistently.

“What’s that?” People-shaped figures surrounded a huge statue with wings. “Are those people dressed in black robes?”

Corvus didn’t answer.

I jerked my elbow back, and he growled, nipping my ear.

“That hurt,” I hissed. “Fine, if you don’t take me, I’ll go while you’re distracted or when you’re in one of those deep sleeps I can’t wake you from.”

He growled and angled as he descended, touching down with a loud thump. The stone statue was him .

The people surrounding it turned at the noise of his landing. Gasps echoed across the clearing, and as if snipping a string holding them upright, they dropped to their knees. There had to be close to thirty people.

“Lord,” a woman moaned and bowed. “Bless us with your presence.”

Similar phrases echoed all around us like a macabre cult scene from a movie. He didn’t say anything to me.

The base of his statue had different gifts, from breads, to pastries . . . to dead bodies?

“Who are they?”

“Worshippers.”

The Novian woman who had first spoken jumped to her feet with a gasp, her eyes focused on me.

“How dare you question a god?” she spat at me. Rage sparked in her eyes, and she bared her sharp teeth.

The shadows whipped out, converging on her, and left behind a husk.

“She has been sacrificed,” a few scattered voices announced from different points in the crowd.

“Take me next, Lord of Shadows,” a soft feminine voice cried, staggering forward and falling to the ground at his hooved feet. She shrugged off her robe, leaving her naked. “I am yours!”

“This has gotten too weird,” I muttered. “Can we go?” I didn’t want to spend my last moments watching people fawn over him.

Corvus spread his wings, ignoring the gasps and pleas from the people prostrated across the foliage.

Some seemed to want things from him, others feared him, rightfully so, and I . . . I was attracted to him.

I groaned and closed my eyes. I guessed, since I was going to die, there was no use agonizing myself over it.

It didn’t take him long to get us up to the terrace of his bedroom, the same spot he’d fucked me. Upon landing, he placed me down, and I gripped the balustrade for balance. “How many people are trapped in your prison?”

“Prison,” he chuckled, “those were souls that attacked my home, they deserved a drawn-out punishment. And.” He stretched his wings out.

“Human souls are much tastier,” he purred.

“For the same energy I receive from one human, it would take five Novians.” The last part of his sentence tapered off, and he stretched an arm out, palm settling against the column framing the entrance.

Corvus shook his head and leaned heavily on his side.

In a sudden movement, he collapsed to the ground.

“Corvus?” I shouted, running to him. His head thumped against the column, and his eyelids dropped. “Shit.” I gripped his arm, tugging to raise it, but my God, he was heavy.

“Wake up, Corvus.” I yanked at his arm and managed to lift the dead weight. “You are so damn heavy,” I panted.

He groaned, his head rolling on the column. “Come on, get your shadows to help me.” Tendrils slid out of the pulsating cloud clinging to him and wrapped around his waist, assisting me in my effort. “Just a few feet,” I grunted, exerting and pulling until the shadows had him lying out on the bed.

Corvus peered at me through thin eyes before they finally shuttered the rest of the way. His body stiffened, and pain flitted over his features.

I sighed, settling next to him. It’d been a long day, so I’d take a little rest before heading down to those cells again. I nestled against his side . . .

A throb through my channel woke me from sleep. I groggily opened my eyes, peering down to find Corvus’s head between my legs. The tips of his hair tickled the inside of my thighs.

He swiped his long, rough tongue up my slit and I groaned, my lips parting with a gasp.

“Your body reacts so well, Little Mortal,” he murmured and shoved his tongue inside my channel. The front of his sharp teeth pushed against my sex. The dangerous weapon being so close to my sensitive flesh should have tempered my desire, but it had the opposite effect.

I gripped his horns, holding on for dear life as he ate me out with his rough tongue spearing into me.

“Corvus,” I whimpered, and his movement became more insistent. My legs began to tremble, and heat expanded in my gut until it was so searing, I couldn’t handle it.

Cries and mumbled nonsense spilled from my mouth.

My sex grew so sensitive, I tried to back away, but he didn’t allow my retreat. I gripped his horns like bars, using them as a perch as I ground upward against his mouth.

I went supine, strength leaking out of my limbs until I was goo. Panting, I stared at the textured ceiling, reveling in the rocking release.

Corvus moaned against my folds, and his tongue continued to lap against me despite my sensitivity.

“ Yesss ,” he hissed. “Give me more of your delightful taste.”

My core flexed in answer, and I throbbed with need. His tongue slid back into my channel, gliding with deep, long licks. The careful coaxing swelled another release. I bunched the fabric I lay on, my body straining from the command of his tongue.

Legs twitching from the overstimulation, I rolled my head from side to side, panting.

“Corvus.”

He purred against my sex and, with a final lick, rose on his arms. The defined dips of his arms bulged, and I reveled in the drastic differences in his body. Where his arm bent, the bone seemed larger and to have a wider range of motion, giving him the agility to crawl up my body.

He moved with feline grace until he hovered over me.

I tucked my chin against my chest, watching him near until he was over my breasts. He lowered smoothly, his wings shaking outward, and he flicked his tongue out to caress my nipple. I gasped, jerking from the overload of sensation.

His deep, resonating purr tickled my skin, and he inched up the rest of the way, spreading my thighs and sinking into my core.

My lips parted on a ragged exhale. He nudged harder against me until he was flush to my hips, seated as deep as he could be. My God, he was so good at this. He’d mentioned he’d had multiple sacrifices . . .

“Did you wake your last sacrifices like this?” I said, hoarse. My sex clasped him, and I couldn’t help flexing to grind harder against him. I moaned, so excruciatingly turned on.

“Like this?” He cocked his head. He rose to his hands, head arched to look at me, and I had to angle my chin up to keep his onyx gaze. He pumped his hips, bringing fire to life. “Fucking?”

“Yes,” I moaned, “did you fuck them?”

A noise left him, it sounded like stones rubbing together, rough, abrasive, and booming. Was he laughing?

I peered up at him from drooping eyelids. The corners of his mouth were spread wider than humanly possible—frighteningly—and showed too many sharp teeth. The white, glinting surfaces could rip me to shreds; having the weapons so close to my sensitive folds shouldn’t turn me on.

“Jealousy. The human fallacy.” He seemed too pleased.

He pumped his hips, feeding the thicker base of his cock into me, halting my retort. I gasped, my hips arching to meet him.

“Answer my question.” I pressed my palms onto the hard surface of his smooth chest. He didn’t have nipples, but his body was tapered with lean, cold muscle.

“I did not fuck any of them. One human attempted—and failed—to tempt me. They all simply sniveled and cried until their death.”

Him saying that made me glad for some weird reason, and that was when I knew there was no turning back. He’d altered my brain, because why was I so fucking happy he had only forced it with me?

The pump of his hips quickened, and the nude girl from earlier came to mind.

“What about your worshippers?” He stopped moving and bared his teeth with that terrifying smile. I scowled and reached up to grab his ram’s horn. “Tell me.”

Another rough chuckle left his lips.

“They have offered to pleasure me. I have accepted,” Corvus said. “I never allowed a lover to live after pleasing me. Count yourself fortunate.”

So he’d killed everyone he’d fucked. That should be my primary focus, but the sick jealousy in my gut wouldn’t let me. He ground against me, causing my channel to flutter around him and wring a moan from deep in my gut.

“But you . . . I could eat and fuck you without end,” he purred in my ear.

I bunched the feathers on his shoulders.

“Flip us over,” I ordered. His shoulders rippled, and he gripped my hips, lifting me while keeping me speared on his shaft.

I scrambled to grab onto his shoulder. In a smooth sprawl, he lay on his back, keeping me seated on him.

The angle change sent a shiver through my core, and my channel clasped his cock.

His mouth curved into a snarl.

“Was this what they would do to please you?” I murmured, gyrating my hips and taking every inch of his cock. He exhaled sharply. I leaned forward, placing my hands on the tuft of feathers above his cock, and rolled my hips.

I couldn’t tear my gaze away from the slackened features of his face. It caused some violent need in my gut that wanted to make him fall apart. I was lost, and it was his fault because I didn’t fucking care.

Having minimal experience, I hadn’t felt pleasure that came close to this, even with my vibrator. My moans echoed and bounced off the walls, blazing my lust to painful extents.

His claw curled under the cross swinging from my necklace.

“This symbol, I have seen it before.”

“A crucifix.”

His eye peeled wide open. His claw curled on it, and I gasped, gripping his second digit to stop him from tearing it.

“No,” I breathed. “My Aunt gave it to me. I swear, if you do anything to it, I’ll off myself before you can take my soul.”

He hissed and rolled me onto my back.

“You will not worship any but me,” he snarled, lifting me and propping my hips higher.

His claws sank into me. I gasped as blood surfaced from the pinpricks.

Madness and a lack of control reflected in his eyes.

He pounded into me, rocking the bed, and then continued to fuck me without releasing my bleeding thighs.

My cross remained intact, the movement of the chain tickling my skin with each of his ruts.