Page 40 of Wicked Vows (Cursed Darkness (DarkHallow Academy) #1)

Lysithea

“ W e need to get the grimoire,” I mutter. “It was on my desk.”

“I’ll go,” Dathan says.

I shake my head. “My wards, besides, the book has a hard-on for me. I’ll go.”

“Eww,” Verik mutters. “But not inaccurate.”

“We’ll all go. At this point, I don’t think Lysithea should be on her own.”

Dathan’s statement hangs in the air, a fact I can’t argue with. Solitude, once my sanctuary, has become as dangerous as a knife at my throat.

My life is now a group project.

We move out of the crypts, a four-person funeral procession for the girl I used to be.

The ghosts stay in the crypts as Dathan uses the cracks between nightmare and reality to transport us to outside my room.

My head swims with motion sickness, but I inhale deeply and it clears quickly. I unlock the door, and we step inside.

The black veins on my chest are a cold, ugly map of my impending death. I can feel them under my skin, a slow, creeping poison. Panic is a tight fist in my chest, but I shove it away. I won’t give them the satisfaction of seeing me break.

The Tenebris Vinculum is on my desk, its single eye closed. I walk towards it. The air around it is thick, heavy with a power that makes my teeth ache. I reach for it, my fingers trembling slightly. The leather is warm, a living, breathing thing.

The eye snaps open, and I see victory in its depths.

It knows the conclusions we have come to, it knows we will do whatever it takes to help it finish its pages.

I can’t think about the how or why, or what will happen when it’s done.

All I can think about is how I don’t want to die.

Not yet. A few days ago, I would’ve welcomed it, but now, surrounded by these three monsters who have been swept up in this nightmare with me, I’m not ready to go out yet.

“Miss Lysithea, I heard about your recent episode in Dark Magic. Are you well, or do you need assistance that consists of three men who should be in their own lectures?”

Blackgrove’s voice echoes through the room, and I shoot a glance at Verik, who was last in and didn’t shut it.

He grimaces and shrugs.

I position myself in front of the grimoire. “I’m fine. Thank you for checking on me. The guys were just heading to their lectures.”

His ice-cold eyes linger on each of us. “Be sure that you do.” He vanishes.

“Dammit,” I mutter. “He is going to be watching us.”

“Then we go tonight, and we don’t come back until we’ve found what we’re looking for,” Dathan says, knowing we can’t push our luck.

“You’re in danger,” Verik argues. “We have to go now.”

“No,” I say, turning back to the book and meeting its steely glare. “It knows we are going to help it complete its pages. It won’t harm me unless it has to. Right?” I lay my challenge bare to the sentient tome.

It blinks and flips open. It starts writing something.

The text appears, scrawled in the same fresh blood as before.

The corruption is a clock. Do not waste my time.

The words are a death sentence and a reprieve all in one. It won’t kill me now, but the clock is ticking.

I close the grimoire. The eye shuts. I glare at it with loathing. A constant, sleeping reminder of my impending doom.

“Go to your classes,” I say, the words an order. A queen on a contested throne. The thought is bitter, but I can’t deny the shift in power. My life is the currency, and that gives me a certain, terrifying authority. “I’ll meet you in the crypts after dinner.”

Verik nods, although his hellfire eyes bore into me. He doesn’t like being told what to do. Tough.

Evren steps forward and touches my cheek, his fingers a ghost of a touch, cold and promising. He won’t let me die. I know it.

Dathan leans in, his breath warm against my ear. “Don’t do anything stupid,” he murmurs, his voice a low, possessive caress that makes my skin prickle.

They leave, a forced, silent, unified retreat. The door clicks shut, leaving me alone with my ticking clock. I look down at my chest. The black veins are a stark, ugly truth against my pale skin.

Seconds later, the door reopens, and I look up to see Dathan stride back in. He closes the door behind him and leans against it. “I don’t have a lecture right now.”

I snort. “Okay, so why are you here?”

He stares at me, the seduction falling over him like a hot blanket. He pushes off from the door, and I gulp when he stalks towards me. He moves into my personal space, and I step back until I hit the wall behind me.

“What are you doing?” I stammer.

He reaches out to cup my face. I pull away from him, but he drops his hand to the back of my neck, clamping down so I can’t move away from him. He presses his body closer to mine. “Stop fighting me, Thea.”

“Stop trying to get between my legs and I’ll stop fighting you.”

He smirks. “I see your point. But do you see mine?”

I shake my head.

“We are meant to be together, Thea. Don’t you feel it in your blood now?”

“Stop,” I whisper because he is telling the truth, and we both know it. “Take your hands off me.”

“Do you really want me to?”

My breathing grows deeper as I stare into his star-flecked eyes. “Yes,” I whisper, but I can’t even believe it myself.

He knows I’m lying. He leans in, closing the small gap between us. My heart hammers against my ribs, a frantic, trapped bird. His scent fills my senses, a heady mix of night and old power. I should scream. I should shatter his bones.

I don’t.

His mouth crashes down on mine. It’s not a kiss. It’s a conquest. A claiming. His tongue invades my mouth, and I surrender. I whimper, a pathetic, broken sound. My hands, which should be pushing him away, fist in his shirt, clinging to him.

My body is a fucking traitor.

The mark on my back ignites with a searing, addictive pleasure that floods my veins. The black corruption on my chest recedes, a temporary reprieve granted by the god on my desk.

I kiss him back, a desperate, hungry thing. I hate him. I want him. The contradiction is a sickness that will consume me until there is nothing left.

He pulls back, his breathing ragged, his silver eyes molten. “See?” he whispers, his thumb brushing my kiss-swollen lips. “We’re not hurting each other.”

“Is that the only reason you’re doing this? Because you can’t drain me dry while you get your dick wet?”

He gives me a half smile that practically melts my knickers off. “It’s a fucking good reason.”

My heart sinks, and I shove him hard. He stumbles back, but steadies and is back in my space a second later, his fingers on my throat.

“But that is not the reason, Thea. I want you. I’m fucking craving the taste of you.

I want to bury my cock so deep in you that you will scream my name and not hurt me.

I want you to release that scream, that tension that has built up inside you.

I want you to use me to ease the frustration, to ease the suffering you endure every second of every day, to ease the suffering of your past. I want you to scream so loudly that the creatures who kept you silent feel it in their very souls. ”

My breath hitches. My pussy goes damp. I want what he is offering to me. I want to feel him inside me without fear of what I might do to him. This brand, this grimoire has twisted my thoughts, my emotions. It’s playing us all, seeing how far we will go to save each other. To save ourselves .

“Do you want that, Thea?” Dathan presses.

“Yes,” I growl, even though the rational part of my brain is screaming at me to stop.

He doesn’t ask again. He slams his lips to mine, pinning me to the wall with his body, his cock hard and insistent pressing against me.

My hands tangle in his dark hair as he kisses me with desperation. His hands roam my body, mapping the curves beneath my dress, and I arch into his touch, starving for it.

The corruption in my veins retreats further, the black lines fading as if his touch is some kind of antidote. The grimoire practically purrs with satisfaction. This is what it wants. This surrender. This intimacy that binds us tighter than any magical scar ever could.

“I can taste your fear,” he murmurs against my throat, his voice rough with want. “It’s intoxicating.”

“I’m not afraid of you,” I lie, my fingers working at the buttons of his shirt.

His laugh is dark, knowing. “You’re terrified, Thea. And it’s beautiful.”

He’s right. I am terrified. Not of him, but of how much I want this. How much I need it. The workhouse taught me that wanting things was dangerous. That needing people was a weakness that would be exploited until it broke you.

But his hands on my skin feel like salvation instead of damnation.

His hands pull up my dress before he grips my thighs and lifts me, pressing me harder against the wall, his mouth finding the pulse point at my throat.

I gasp, my head falling back as he nips at the sensitive skin.

The brand on my back pulses with heat, and I realise this is exactly what the grimoire wants.

It wants me vulnerable, desperate, clinging to them.

I don’t fucking care.

His hands slide under my thighs, supporting my weight as he grinds against me. The friction sends shockwaves through my core, and I bite down on his shoulder to muffle the moan that tears from my throat.

“That’s it,” he growls, his voice rough with hunger. “Use me, Thea. Take what you need.”

My hands fumble with his belt, desperate and clumsy. The corruption in my chest continues to fade with each touch, each kiss, each ragged breath between us. It’s like he’s pulling the poison from my veins with his mouth.

The rational part of my mind knows this is manipulation. The grimoire is rewarding me for giving in, for letting them claim me piece by piece. But the rest of me, the part that’s been starved and silenced and caged for so long, doesn’t give a shit about being manipulated.

I want to feel alive. I want to feel wanted. I want to scream without killing anyone.

His fingers find the edge of my knickers, and I gasp against his mouth. “Dathan?—”

He slides his fingers over my clit with a possessive growl, and I mewl, already trembling in his arms. The ground beneath us rumbles in response to the scream that is building in my chest. My orgasm hits me with the force of the academy coming down around me, and I scream out his name.

For one single moment, my body is relieved of all the tension, all the pain and suffering that I’ve endured over the years, but then Dathan is flung back across the room, his body slamming into the desk. The grimoire flies off and hits the floor at my feet.

I collapse against the wall, my legs unable to support me. The orgasm was everything I needed and nothing I should have taken. The corruption in my chest flares back to life, the black veins spreading further than before. A punishment.

“Fuck,” Dathan groans from across the room, blood trickling from his mouth. “What the hell was that?”

My chest burns as the poison races through my veins, darker and more vicious than before. I double over, gasping, as the corruption spreads up my throat like grasping fingers.

“Thea!” Dathan struggles to his feet, but I wave him back.

“Don’t,” I rasp. “We’ve angered it.”

The grimoire’s pages flip frantically, more text appearing.

The Siren’s scream must be earned. Complete the trials. Prove your worth.

I want to laugh at the absurdity. A book is cockblocking me. But the pain in my chest is very real, very deadly. The clock is ticking, and this book doesn’t want us wasting time fucking each other until it says so.

Perverted piece of shit.

“We need to go,” I whisper, forcing myself upright. “Now. Before it kills all of us and finds someone else to complete it.”