Page 31 of Wicked Bonds (Serpentine Academy #1)

Twenty-Nine

Lucien

The chamber exists, but Rose won’t find it.

I say the words and watch her process them see the way her knuckles go white around the edge of my desk, the way her teeth grit tight enough to crack them.

If I were a less self-aware creature, I’d think my confession a mercy.

But I am nothing if not aware. I know exactly what I’ve just done.

She doesn’t scream, though she wants to. I can hear it building, the way her pulse has quickened and how the blood is rushing through her veins. I can hear each pump of her heart.

“You know.”

“I do.”

She stares at me, eyes full of loathing. “And you wouldn’t tell me, of course.”

I keep my voice level. “You would have been caught if I hadn’t intervened. Wickersly’s familiar would have caught you on your hands and knees.”

She doesn’t thank me, and I don’t expect her to. Instead she launches herself off the desk, strides across the room, and jams a finger into the center of my chest. I let her. She doesn’t move me an inch.

“So you’ve just been sitting on this? Why? Why wouldn’t you just tell me?”

“Because it’s futile. All you’ll do is bring your life to an even earlier end.”

She laughs, one sharp bark. “Nice to know your expectations for me are so low.”

“That’s not—” But she cuts me off, her slapping against my breastbone.

“You think because you’re immortal you know better than I do? You think living a few hundred years makes you some kind of authority?”

“I think,” I say, trying to keep my voice quiet, “that every single witch who’s tried to break their contract before you has ended up dead. Or worse. I think you’re different, and that difference might actually make a difference, but not by breaking the contract.”

She pushes me, hard. It should be laughable, the idea of someone as fragile as Rose Smith moving a creature like me. But she’s got righteous anger on her side and I let myself roll back a step. She’s surprised, but pleased, and then she’s on me again, hands balled in my shirt.

“Who are you trying to protect?” she snarls. “Because it sure as hell isn’t me. If you gave a shit about me at all, you’d help me.”

“I am helping you. I’m keeping you alive.”

She shoves again, and this time I let her drive me back until my back bumps into the bookshelf. “Yeah? For what? So I can be a battery for your precious Coven until they drain me dry? What’s the point of surviving if it’s not my life anymore?”

My patience cracks, just a little. “You think you’re the only one who hates this system? You think I enjoy acting as Wickersly’s lap dog, as you put it?”

She’s so close now that I can feel the heat rolling off her skin, can see the vein throbbing in her neck. “Then do something about it.”

“Like what?”

“Help me. Help me find the chamber. Help me break the Accord. Help me find a way to take away the Coven’s power. Unless you’re too much of a coward.”

The word lands exactly how Rose wants it to, and for a moment I want to shake her.

Instead I pin her wrists, fast enough that she gasps.

She tries to pull free, so I tighten my grip just enough that she knows she can’t.

We stand like that, the tips of our noses almost touching, her breath coming in quick little huffs against my lips.

“Say it again,” I dare her.

Her eyes flash with something feral. “You’re a coward, Lucien. A fucking?—”

I kiss her, and it’s not gentle, not sweet.

I sink my teeth into her lower lip, just enough to taste her.

She makes a sound like pleasure mixed with pain, then bites me back.

I feel her knee move, and I twist to avoid the collision, but she’s not going for my groin, she’s trying to climb me. I let her think she has the upper hand.

She scrambles up, legs around my waist, and I can feel her whole body trembling from fury.

It’s the rarest thing, to have someone want to destroy me and fuck me at the same time, and I am helpless before it.

I shift my hold to her hips, pinning her to the wall, not because she would fall but because I want her there, I want to see what she does when she’s finally got both hands free and nothing to lose.

She punches me, twice, in the chest. I realize, dimly, that I’ve never wanted anyone to hurt me before. That I’ve never wanted anyone to leave a mark.

The sound she makes when my lips find her throat is close to a sob, and it’s all I can do not to open her up and drink her down.

I want her so badly it’s a sickness, a fever in my bones that’s as powerful as any blood contract.

I want her angry, I want her clawing at me, I want her to punish me for every lie, every omission, every fucking time I did the Coven’s bidding.

I want to say I’m disgusted with myself, but it’s more complicated than that.

I want her, and I want to destroy her. I want her to destroy me.

I want to go back to a time before I was this, before centuries of servitude and blood oaths and the endless, endless watching made me hollow.

I want the ache in my chest to be something other than hunger and shame.

I want her to keep hitting me, so I let her. I want her to keep fighting, so I give her something to fight against. But the truth is, I want her, and not in the way I want anyone else. Not even in the way I used to want. I want her to be free, and I also want to keep her here, with me, at any cost.

She slaps my face, hard. “Let go of me,” she hisses.

“No,” I say, and I mean it in every way it can be meant.

She hooks her leg higher on my back, tries to use the leverage to flip us, but I’m done letting her win for now.

I run my mouth down her jaw, to the pulse point at the side of her neck. She tilts her head away, giving me access, but when I pause, she huffs out a laugh. “Go ahead. Bite me. You know you want to.”

She’s right. I do. I want to sink my fangs into her, drink her dry and fill her back up with myself.

Instead I drag my tongue over the skin, slow and deliberate, feel her shudder.

I can hear her heart pounding, can smell the rush of blood and adrenaline and arousal, so strong I could get drunk on it.

Immediately her hands are in my hair, yanking so hard it should make my scalp sear with pain, if I were not what I was.

She yanks my head back, exposing my own throat, and for a split second I see the madness in her eyes, the lengths she’s willing to go.

“You want to hurt me,” I say, and it’s not a challenge.

She bares her teeth. “Maybe I do.”

“Then do it.”

She bites, hard, right where the human jugular would be. I feel her teeth but she can’t break my skin. She bites again, lower, and for a moment I wonder if maybe she really will rip me open, or if she’ll make good on her promise to set me on fire and leave nothing but ashes. The thought thrills me.

She pulls back, panting.

She’s the one who kisses me this time, lips hard on mine, tongue forcing its way into my mouth. She bites my tongue. I reward her with a hand fisted in her hair, pulling her head back so I can look into her eyes.

My other hand slides up under her sweater shirt, skimming her bare skin. She arches into me, daring me to go further, so I cup her breast over her bra and squeeze, feeling the nipple harden against my palm.

We’re both shaking now, locked in a contest neither of us wants to lose.

I scoop her up, one arm under her ass, and carry her to the bed.

I toss her down onto the mattress, and she’s on her elbows instantly, daring me to come closer. I follow, crawling over her, penning her in with my arms.

She grabs the back of my neck and pulls me down for another kiss. I let my weight settle over her, grind my hips against hers. She’s already wet, I can smell it, and the knowledge makes my restraint snap.

I slide my hand up her thigh, to the zipper of her jeans, pulling it down and pushing my hand inside, fingers brushing the edge of her underwear. She’s soaked. She moans into my mouth, and it’s the hottest fucking sound I’ve ever heard.

I hook her panties aside, run two fingers along her slit, tease her clit until she’s writhing. She bites my shoulder, hard, but I don’t stop. I dip my fingers inside her, slow at first, then faster. She matches my rhythm, hips rocking against my hand.

“Harder,” she pants. “Stop holding back.”

I do as I’m told, driving into her with enough force to make her gasp. Her nails rake down my back, and I kiss her to swallow her scream.

She comes quick and violent, clenching around my fingers, mouth open. I don’t stop until she is completely spent.

“Motherfucker,” she gasps.

“I’m not done.” My hands slide under her shirt, up her stomach, and I push it higher, then pull down her bra, baring her breasts. I take one in my mouth, rolling the nipple between my teeth, sucking until she bucks against me. I give the other the same attention, then kiss lower, down her stomach.

I take my time, peeling her jeans down her legs.

Her underwear is ruined, soaked through, so I tear it in two, exposing her beautiful pussy.

I nuzzle between her thighs, letting her know with my mouth exactly how much I want her.

She’s still mad, but her legs part for me anyway, hips lifting off the bed.

She winds her fingers into my hair, yanks hard enough I have to work for each inch she gives me, but I love it, I adore her for it, I want her to never let go.

I lap at her slowly, just to torture her, knowing the anticipation will make her even more wild.

She tries to squirm away when it’s too much, still sensitive from her orgasm, so I pin her thighs to the mattress with my hands and feast on her, eating her like I’ve never tasted anything so fucking divine.

She curses me, calls me every name she can think of, but when I suck her clit between my lips she shudders and pushes her cunt up towards me, like an offering to the gods.

I look up at her from between her legs, and lock eyes with her. “Patience, Rose.”

She flips me off with both hands. I laugh, then spread her legs wider, my forearms braced on either side so she can’t close them, then lick her in one long, slow stroke from bottom to top.

She curses me, then begs, and I drink down every sound she gives me. She tastes alive.

I do it again, and again, until she’s sobbing. I suck her clit into my mouth, tongue flicking in an expert rhythm, and slip two fingers inside her at the same time. She’s so fucking wet, and the taste of her makes me dizzy.

She screams.

I don’t stop, just keep licking and finger fucking her until she comes again, then again, until she’s crying and cursing me and shaking like she’s going to fall apart.

When she’s finally done, I crawl up her body and kiss her, let her taste herself on my tongue.

She kisses me back.

I want to keep her here, like this, for as long as it takes for her to forget about the Accord, about Wickersly and the Coven, about every single thing that isn’t me. But that’s not how this works.

She licks my mouth her tongue hot and alive and so fucking human it hurts, then bites down on my lower lip. She’s still mad, and I want her to be, always. I want her to remember that I am the villain in this story.

“You’re not going to help me, are you?” It’s not a question. She already knows.

“I can’t,” I say. “But I want to.” I want so much I could split open with it.

It takes her less than two minutes to get dressed and leave, slamming the door behind her with so much force the windows rattle.