Mendax
So full of need the tiny woman was as she pressed against me. Not for long.
I was not a patient man, and I had hungered for this moment since the second my fingertips had grazed her soft human skin. She was perfect.
It didn’t matter how much I tried to hate her. I pushed her away because I wanted to pull her closer.
I let her take control with the kiss, curious where my little lamb would decide to go with it. I wasn’t normally patient, but for her, I would wait until the world froze over. I would do anything for her. Anything.
Callie kissed me hard, pressing every part of her soft body against mine, yet somehow there wasn’t enough of me touching her.
I quickly rectified that by winding my fingers into her unbelievably soft hair and pulling her against me. Her soft moan as she flattened into my body almost made me come right then.
My heart slammed against my chest with delight—finally feeling full. All I had needed was this woman—this tiny, powerful woman’s touch—and I felt like . . . I felt unstoppable.
Of course I had touched others; I was no stranger to bedding a woman. They shamelessly threw themselves at me, and a few times, I had played the game, attempting to feel something—anything other than a need to feel blood. But it never worked. The only thing that ever made me feel alive was killing. The feel of being the last person that creature saw before they left this realm. Hearing them beg, that was the only thing that ever made me feel anything.
Until now.
Her tiny hand crawled under my tunic, and I couldn’t help but melt at the way her hands seemed to grow more hungry and erratic the more of my skin she touched. It was delicious seeing her need for me.
I did my best to harness my control, but it was taking more than I had.
All it took was one tiny, needy moan from her and I couldn’t hold myself back any longer. Anything she wanted was hers as long as she was with me . . . and whether she liked it or not, that would be for forever. I must do something about her fragile human mortality—I could barely stomach the thought of her leaving me even in death.
I pinned her wrists to the wall above her head as I stepped into her, and my thigh parted her legs as far as her dress would allow.
I hovered just above her lips, unmoving. Her heavy eyelids fell as she panted. The fast up and down caused her cleavage to strain tight against the neckline of her dress. She waited impatiently for my lips to close the distance and touch hers. But I didn’t. I hovered, relishing the feeling of control and the need I could feel pouring from her through the bond. She moved forward first to press her mouth against mine, but I pulled back just out of her reach, teasing her.
She huffed and tried again to capture my lips, but I hovered just out of reach. She pulled back, defeated, and I pressed my mouth to hers, letting her know I was in control. I couldn’t hold back the approving moan that floated from my lips as I deepened the kiss and skimmed my fingers lightly down the arms that I still held above her head, down the velvety skin of her side, then down to her hip. She shivered in response, and I had to adjust myself. Iron blocks were not as hard as my cock in that moment. I’ve never been so strained as I watched my little lamb beg for me.
I wanted to torture her the way she had tortured me. The way that had stopped me from having the ability to think of anything else.
Grime and blood covered her filthy dress from the trial—
I shook myself out of the lust-filled daze to realize she hadn’t had a chance to sleep or recover from her second trial. She hadn’t even had a chance to bathe before I had pounced on her, unable to keep myself away from her any longer. Now that the poison and anything that could have been lying in wait was out of her system, I needed to get her cleaned up and rested. I would get a witch to finish healing the rest of her wounds from the first trial.
Mother had been furious when I told her I would not allow Callie to enter the third trial. The pieces just happened to fall together after I had forced our bond in my jealous rage. I killed the Seelie royal on neutral territory because he had wanted her, and the queen was rightfully furious with me for the war I had invoked.
But, in a second, I would do it all again.
When Prince Aurelius had tried to shuffle her away and take her to the Seelie realm, I could have burned the world down—and that’s exactly what would’ve happened had he not stopped.
No one would take her away from me. Ever.
I would murder every Seelie bastard alive if I had to, and then I would steal their yellow sun from them just because my Callie admired it.
Mother would retaliate by sending her to the trial before she had rested and healed from today’s burdens. No matter how much I needed to be inside her tight human body, it would wait until she was truly safe, for good. The queen was semi-barbaric like me, and I knew she would send her to the gridiron of the fates. She knew that would be the only place I couldn’t help her.
We would see about that.
After this trial, I would make Callie my queen and dethrone mother. If she didn’t go peacefully, that was on her, but either way, she would go. One way or another.
I lifted Callie into my arms and creased a smile so deep I felt it in my blood when she wrapped her tiny arms around my neck and nuzzled into my chest as I carried her down to our room.
“Where are we going?” she asked breathily, her body still thrummed with heat, and I could feel her arousal.
“To my room,” I said, squeezing her against me as if she were a pet mouse that might drop down and run away.
“Are you going to fuck me, Mendax?”
I nearly dropped her and came in my leathers, but thankfully I did neither. The sound of her voice rough with need for me—and only me—was almost too much. How was I going to get her rested when all I wanted to do was throw her to the marble floor and bury my hard cock so deep inside her that neither of us would ever think straight again?
Goose bumps racked my body at the thought of how my tip would feel parting her. Sliding ever so slowly into her slick—
“She’s dead, Mendax.”
A snarl rippled from me as I turned to face the queen. Of its own accord, my smoke wrapped protectively around the beautiful human I held in my arms, shielding her from the queen’s view.
“Then so are you,” I stated without feeling a thing. All my feelings were held underneath the smoke of my wings by a tiny human form.
“She is a human! You don’t even know her. You have brought a war to your people killing Prince Langmore,” the queen seethed. “One fuck, and you’ll be tired of her if you don’t kill her in the process,” the queen snarled. “You will not marry her, so help me.”
Callie’s body tensed against me with the queen’s words. It sent a rage through me that I couldn’t explain. I shifted my wings, making sure the smoke thickly shielded my love, and placed her protectively behind me. Her small hands bunched the fabric of my shirt as the smoke pulled her tighter against me.
“Still your tongue before I do it for you,” I rumbled, barely controlled. Mother’s eyes repositioned, seeing my seriousness. She took a step back, knowing I held no bluffs in my arsenal. “The next time you speak about my future wife in that tone, it will be your last. Mother or not.”
The queen’s eyes darkened. “She dies in the trial tomorrow. I will not stand by and watch you muddy our blood with a human. The same humans that ruined your father! The plan was to bond to her so that you could ascend the throne and kill her. Stop thinking with your dick and end her. You think she will stay with you? She will betray you the second she gets the opportunity. It’s what humans do!” she snarled. “Callie, my deal still holds. If you complete the trial, I will return you to the human realm unharmed. You can die with your friends there once we take over.” She smiled at the look on Callie’s startled face.
I shadowed in front of the queen before she had a chance to blink. Power pulsed from me like a fucking storm.
She was my mother, which is exactly why it was so foolish for her to push me. She knew that I would end her—just as I did my father—should she get in my way.
She may be smart enough to be frightened of me, but she was still the Unseelie queen and smart enough to know that my darkness had bled from her.
A wicked smile tugged at her cruel lips.
“The entire realm will watch tomorrow as your human either dies in front of you at the gridiron or turns her back to you and runs away into her world.” Her smile deepened. “Then you will finish the plan and descend upon the human realm. You will kill the rest of her disgusting kind, and the Unseelie Fae will take their rightful place, owning both sides of the veil. The Seelie don’t stand a chance.” The pale woman beamed. Her dark hair glinted off the hall lights like a pool of black poison.
I thrust my hand out to grab her throat and crush it.
She shadowed away before I had the chance to collapse her windpipe. I could have easily followed her, but the thought of killing my mother and leaving my hellhound alone was unappetizing, to say the least.
I shadowed behind Callie and grabbed her hand, pulling her toward our room.
“Come, you need to rest before tomorrow. Bathe and pick which side of our bed your body prefers. I will explain what the gridiron of fates is.”
After drawing her a hot bath and making certain she was safe and healed, I pushed a little magic into the bond to speed her healing as much as possible. I laid my softest tunic on the bed for her to sleep in and pulled the best men I had to guard Callie’s room while I went in search of the information that I needed.
I hadn’t even left the room before I wished I was with her.
