Surrender: A Lily of the Valley Novella Read online

  Silas tsked and snatched my right ankle. He wrenched it down, straightening my leg, then made short work of the left until I was stretched out before him again, naked, on a bed of stone and honeysuckle chiffon. Bare-chested, he towered over me, the juniper hooded and dark, a mirror to the storm rising around us. His acolyte knelt at his feet, working his belt as my eyes raked over defined pectorals and a sharply apparent V-cut that delved beneath his trousers. Prominent veins snaked down his arms, arms that rippled with muscle, that yielded the dark magic gifted upon him by his fallen angel. Strong hands. Calloused, black-tipped fingers. A broad chest peppered with obsidian hair that trailed down to his—

  I looked to the clouds when his follower peeled down his trousers, exposing muscular thighs and the cock I’d felt pressed against me an eternity ago. Heat soared within me, an unwelcome fire I had tried to ignore from the first snap of his presence. While I might have been fae, I was also a woman—a woman not quite as immune to chiseled masculine perfection as I would have liked.

  Naked and proud, Silas accepted a golden chalice from another acolyte. A quick sip stained his lips as red as the dried blood still marring his side. Pride tickled me too, briefly, at the notion that I had sullied masculine perfection just a touch.

  The warlock held the chalice up to his followers, ever the showman, then faced me—and spilled the contents all over me. From the tips of my toes right up to my neck, he doused me in a deep red that smelled of strong wine but was dark enough to be blood. I yelped, squirming and twisting as tepid liquid flooded over me, tainted my flesh. To my immediate left, another of the faithful held a second chalice to my lips, but I turned away, scowling as yips and shrieks sounded from the crowd, sharp cries punctuating the ever-present hiss. To them, this could have been blood.

  And it thrilled them.

  My belly looped as cold dread wove through the fires of rage, of indignation—of carnal curiosity. A carnality that piqued when Silas dragged a lazy finger from the dip in my throat down, down, down between the valley of my breasts. My nipples pebbled tighter, almost painfully, and my belly twitched against his caress, against the way he swirled his finger through the wine, circled around each hip bone. As though he could hear my warring heart, the warlock grinned, then swooped down to replace his finger with his tongue.

  A moan threatened to claw up my throat as warmth lapped across my flesh. I pressed my lips together firmly, refusing to give him the satisfaction, refusing to yield to my own damned curiosity, to the sharp and sudden interest in this monster’s darkness. Every other night of the year, I was content with my grove, my flowers, my trees, my leaves, my creatures of the wood. Yet tonight… Tonight my role as the forest shepherd fell away. Tonight…

  I was his.

  He knew it.

  I knew it.

  And I hated how it thrilled me, how it made me slick between my thighs, made my back arch against my will when he dragged that accursed tongue up. It swirled around a nipple, one and then the other, before closing over my breast as a long, low growl reverberated in his chest. His faithful wouldn’t have heard it over the hiss of the crowd, the constant beat of the drums, the swelling storm—but I did. Dangerous, that sound, paired with the devilish mirth in his juniper greens.

  I ought to cower, but…

  My chest trembled with barely controlled breath. My heart raced. My sex ached for the first time all season, desperate and hot. As Silas licked the bloodred wine from my skin, I fidgeted uselessly against my restraints. Slowly, leisurely, he made his way down my body, every flick of his tongue the most exquisite torture, until he had reached my feet. Once more my toes curled away from him, and before I could roll onto my side, he snatched my right foot and kissed the delicate arch. Our eyes met over the curves and valleys of my body—and I kicked him.

  In the shoulder. I could have gone for his head, but the wound on my throat stung as an aching reminder that he was in no mood for real defiance tonight. Still, the warlock scowled up at me, the mirth in his gaze twisting, darkening, and he responded with a sharp snap of his teeth.

  “Oh!” I winced against the bite, trying to pull away, but he held tighter and pressed an openmouthed kiss up my calf. Every so often, his teeth grazed my flesh. His hold was bruising, yet his mouth turned tender, and somehow, before I realized it, he had eased between my legs, each one thrown over his broad shoulders. Trembling, I tore my gaze from his, forcing it skyward, wishing the storm would just come already. Lightning danced across the black, followed swiftly by the crash of thunder, and still no rain fell.

  With aching slowness, Silas crawled along my body, kissing and nibbling a path up my legs, under my knees, across my inner thighs. His unhurried pace only made the flames crackling in my belly burn hotter, brighter, threatening to turn to hellfire if I wasn’t careful. When he reached the crest of my thighs, hovering just before my swollen sex, my deepest intimacy, the warlock paused. Our eyes met once more, and I licked my lips, breath catching as I shook my head.

  “No.” I knew what he intended. Our future read plainly on his smirking mouth, his hooded eyes, his rough hands. If he did it—touched me, kissed me there, of all places—it would be my undoing. In front of all these humans, these devotees of darkness, I would come apart at the seams.

  Calloused hands kneaded my backside, the hissing mere white noise now, the drums as distant as the teasing thunder. In that moment, it was only Silas and me—and I prayed for mercy, knowing I would receive none.

  “Don’t,” I whispered, my chest rising and falling in uneven beats, my body begging for him to just do it—ignore my words, my eyes, my fear. Do it, already. Put the bloody fire out. Situated squarely between my thighs, mouth a breath away from my damnation, Silas cocked his head to the side, and I swallowed thickly, eyebrows lifting ever so slightly. “Please, no—”

  My protests tapered off in a moan when his mouth closed around my clit, a moan that turned breathy with defeat when he sucked at the plump little bundle. Hot and firm, that sinful mouth worked me with practiced confidence. My back arched off the altar as the fire raging inside exploded into a damned inferno, threatening to devour me whole and reduce me to ashes. I strained against my bonds, squirmed against his mouth. Any attempt to peel my legs from his shoulders was met with failure, his hands on my thighs, fingers bruising as he devoured me—not the inferno.

  Instinct told me to fight. No submission. No surrender. Do something. Say something. Anything. Yet any further protests dripped from my tongue in an incoherent jumble, as whimpering moans and startled gasps. Silas drove me relentlessly, his tongue delving between my lips, stroking me, plunging deep inside before drifting back to torment my clit.

  And my body welcomed the torment with open arms. In no time at all, my muscles tightened. My belly rippled with pleasurable little flutters. My thighs trembled over his shoulders and my hands curled to white-knuckled fists. He brought me to the brink against my will, against my better judgement. My treacherous body adored his touch, his mouth, his tongue and his teeth. It relished the brutal force of his hands on my thighs, the firm sturdiness of his shoulders forcing me open.

  A small voice begged me, whispering at the back of my mind, to retreat from the edge, that I flee from the impending abyss.

  But I ran toward it instead, sprinted, every breath burning on the brink of oblivion—

  And then he stopped. Merciless as ever, Silas withdrew and crept up my body. Blanketing me with muscle and dark magic, he hovered close enough that every nerve ending responded to him. The hairs on my arms stood on end. My nipples ached to graze the hair-dusted planes of his chest. My eyes fluttered open; at some point they had closed, lost to pleasure.

  Tenderly, his mouth brushed mine just as he eased two fingers inside me. I inhaled sharply, whimpering and bucking beneath him. He tasted of red wine and my arousal, and his fingers were but a fraction of the hardness pressed against my belly. In that moment, fear and need and desire and outrage crashed together inside me, merging into one, lea
ving me lost, helpless.

  And there was Silas, pumping in and out, stroking my inner walls, rebuilding the pleasure slowly but surely. There stood oblivion, creeping ever closer, and damn it all, I craved the fall.

  “Come away with me, goddess,” he whispered, his voice low and gruff, tainted by lust and laced with an unnerving sincerity. The deadly combination made my chest tight, made my pulse flutter. He lingered there, lips a whisper away from mine, hand between my thighs, waiting for an answer. I knew what I wished to say.

  And I knew what I needed to say.

  Tears blurred his handsome face, and I blinked them back with a shake of my head.

  “No,” I rasped. “I won’t.”

  He flashed a dangerous smile, and in a breath replaced his fingers with his cock. Inch by inch, he filled me, claimed me, stretched me to accommodate for him. On their own accord, my legs folded at his side, then locked around his waist, ankles crossed, heels digging into the small of his back. The warlock tore a stuttering breath from me with the slightest pump of his hips, pleasure blooming, aching, taking on a mind of its own now that we were one.

  I fought my restraints with earnest now, the drums quickening, the hisses escalating. Nothing budged. Pinned between an altar and a warlock, rock at my back and unyielding muscle to my front, I was well and truly… fucked.

  Silas scooped one hand under my knee, hoisting my leg higher, spreading me beneath him as he started to rock. The other stroked up and down my side, softly tormenting any spots that made me twitch and dance and whimper. It soon wandered into my hair, which he coiled around a fist, forcing my head back for the first violent thrust. His hips pounded against me, his shaft plunged deep within me; I swallowed my moans, my cries, wishing my body despised him as desperately as it should.

  Wishing it didn’t enjoy this ravishing.

  Once he set a brutal pace, driving me into the altar, he showed no signs of slowing. Beneath his rocking frame of muscle, I felt both smothered and elevated, conquered and freed. The burn in my core turned sweet and vicious, blistering through my veins, dragging with it a pleasure that, when it finally erupted, would make me scream.

  Bearing down on me, Silas left no piece untouched. What his rough hands didn’t tweak, pinch, stroke, his mouth did. Teeth raked down my neck. His tongue licked the hollow of my collarbone. His lips trailed across my jaw. And with every torturous brush of that cruel mouth, his coarse facial hair marked me, scratching across my skin, almost as brutal as the rhythm he set between my thighs.

  With oblivion skirting the horizon again, all the rest fell away. The drums. The hellfire. Silas’s flock. None of it mattered as pleasure drilled into my brain, both parasitic and wonderful. I longed to break, to splinter apart in his arms, to truly come like the world was ending, drowned in darkness and death. My hips betrayed me, rocking up to meet him, to take every brutal thrust, and my cries soon spilled into the night, rising with the drums. Filling the clearing, the grove, the whole realm for all I knew. So close—

  Once more he stopped on the brink. A step away from the abyss, Silas reared back, stilling inside me, watching with dark eyes and a smirking mouth. He waited until my heart settled somewhat, until my breath slowed, until the wind kissed my tearstained cheeks. I swallowed hard, unsure of when I’d started to weep, unsure of what it meant.

  And then he started up again. And again. And again. Dragging me to the edge over and over, ruthless in his pursuit, licking my tears away and laughing darkly, softly, secretly in my ear whenever my body dared tighten around him. Every time he stopped.

  I caught his name before it spilled from my lips, pressing them tightly together the next awful time he stilled and biting down hard on the insides of my cheeks. Even if I tried to roll my hips against him, to chase my own pleasure, Silas merely bore down harder, stilling me, the hand in my hair twisting just enough to send a warning. Blinking up at him through watery eyes, I asked a question without uttering a sound.

  When will it be over?

  He loosened his grip on my golden-brown locks, smoothing his harsh hand down my jaw, my neck, thumb resting over my racing little pulse point.

  “Be mine, goddess,” he whispered. For a fleeting moment, he sounded just as tortured as I felt. Just as ruined, just as frayed, teetering on the edge of his own personal oblivion. Something soft nudged the corner of my mouth, and I flinched, suddenly aware of the chaos swirling around us—of the hand next to me, presenting me with the one thing that would bring this to an end.

  A pomegranate seed. Plump and juicy and deep red. Tart, from the smell. My mouth watered, but I turned away from the offering. I had to, didn’t I? Refusal was what he deserved, what they all deserved.

  “No,” I whispered, gaze sliding along the sea of grotesque faces, the grey cloaks, the black-gloved hands. The storm was here, all around me, and my resolve remained—but for how much longer?

  His hand returned to my hair. His scruff grated my cheek as he resumed his punishing pace, pounding into me, dragging me kicking and screaming to the brink. And out of the corner of my eye, the seed remained. I scrunched my eyes shut, trembling beneath him, arching up to meet his every thrust, unable to take a second more.

  “S-Silas—”

  “You want to come, Ríona?” Ree-in-ock. He snarled my name like a curse, like I was torturing him. “Eat the fucking pomegranate seeds.”

  I exhaled a breathy whine, heels digging into his back, so, so, so close. If he stopped again, I might just die. “But—”

  “Eat them, goddess,” he urged, licking up the column of my throat, nipping at my ear, “and I’ll give you my kingdom… I’ll give you what you need.”

  In that moment, my body seized control. My mind retreated and my body charged. And my heart… My heart ached. I tipped my head to the side, eyes fluttering open, mouth parted just enough for a sweetly murmuring acolyte to slip the first seed between my lips. I held it for but a moment before squishing it with my tongue. An explosion of tartness assaulted my taste buds, and a long, low, treacherous moan echoed deep inside me.

  Silas eased away, hips rocking slower now, and held himself up with hands planted on either side of my chest. Exposing me. Showing me off—delivering my surrender to his flock. After the first seed came the second, then the third. Soon, I was rising up to meet the hand that fed me, accepting the offering with my eyes wide open.

  Six pomegranate seeds I consumed.

  Six months of winter.

  Six long months of darkness.

  The warlock between my thighs stilled, then forced my mouth open, fingers crushing my cheeks. He examined me with his hooded gaze, with a probing thumb, confirming I had swallowed every last seed. It was only then, in the brief shock of lightning, that I noticed the toll this had taken on him. Every muscle stood taut, the strain painfully obvious across his sculpted torso. A thin sheen of sweat coated him, his body glistening in the dancing blue torchlight. But what struck me most of all was his smile.

  Victorious. Smug.

  Perhaps even a bit relieved.

  He had succeeded tonight—he had stolen the bride of spring, taken her, seduced her. He had sealed her surrender in pomegranate seeds and assured the impending darkness.

  Silas raised a triumphant fist, a little chuckle slipping free when the crowd roared. Victory. Victory for their devil god. Victory for their black magic. Victory for their shepherd.

  But this shepherd still owed me oblivion.

  I rocked my hips to remind him, squeezing my thighs around my glorious dark stallion and digging my heels insistently into his back. As the red-cloaked acolytes fell away from the altar, drifting into the shrieking, singing, cackling crowd, I didn’t care about Silas’s smugness. I didn’t care that he knew he had me right where he wanted me.

  I just wanted oblivion. He’d promised me his kingdom, but I only asked for this one small token.

  Hiking up my leg once more, Silas returned to me, his lips to my neck, his teeth to my flesh, his scruff grating with the fir
st violent thrust. I moaned in earnest this time and tugged at my restraints, wishing I could twine my fingers through those surprisingly soft locks. Instead, I settled for a sharp nip at his temple, little bumps littering my flesh when his dark laughter washed over me.

  He was a man of his word, this warlock, taking me hard and fast, driving me into the altar on a bed of wine-stained honeysuckle. Every buck of his hips grazed my clit. Every forceful thrust stoked the fires within, brought me one step closer to the abyss. I writhed and mewled beneath him, chasing the high for myself, not just relying on his skillful touch to take me there.

  And when I finally came undone, the darkness fled. Light and color danced beneath my lids, body racked with white-hot pleasure, the kind that tattooed this moment onto my bones. I had no control over the way his name tumbled from my lips, nor did I stop myself from nuzzling into his onyx waves. Both gestures, small acts of intimacy that only we would know of, seemed to spur him on, his pace frantic, his hands punishing.

  “Ríona…” No overenunciating this time. Silas murmured my name like a prayer, like I was his dark goddess and there truly was no other. My waning climax renewed, sweeping over me as oozing lava, slow and torturous and endless. Pain sliced through the pleasure, his teeth on my shoulder, and he bit down when his rhythm faltered, his body tensed, hips jerking as he spilled himself inside me.

  We stayed like that for some time, bodies entwined atop a black altar, chasing our breaths as the storm rolled in. The sky seemed to darken above us, the air cooling. Slowly, Silas drifted down my body, his cheek eventually settling on my chest, an ear to my heart. Blinking through the fading bliss, I squinted against the next bolt of lightning, bright white and fierce, as if cast by Thor himself—had the god not perished in Ragnarök. Thunder crashed heavier now, rumbling the foundations of the stone table beneath me.

  A twinge of pain itched in my wrists, radiating down my arms with the slightest movement. Breath reclaimed, pulse slowing, the rest of the world drifted back into focus. A quick glance around showed an empty clearing, the last of the grey-cloaked coven sauntering through the wedding arch. My fireflies had returned, illuminating the gnarled branches, the dried summer blooms. Nature crept back into the space: the wind, the clatter of branches, the mournful howl of a lone white wolf. Blue hellfire still danced atop its torches; it would paint my grove azure each night for the next six months.