THREE

Something should have flared in her: dread, fear, denial.

Something.

Maybe it did.

Just drowned beneath ravenous hunger. Pulled like a riptide, she couldn’t resist. Muted by the ache blooming low in her core, insistent and slick.

She rose slowly, testing the unsteady tremble of her knees.

He watched in silence, assessing. No gentleness. Not a glimmer of mercy. Only unspoken demand. Only the promise of damnation.

Mortals were short-sighted. Fragile. Easily unmade.

It didn’t matter.

If pleasure was what she wanted, he would gladly grant it. He would hollow her out. Erode every remnant of virtue before her soul could protest. Until all that remained was the sacred echo of her sinful desire.

The tremor in her legs was a confession her lips hadn’t formed. A signal her body gave before her mind could catch up. The air was brittle and jagged against her skin. Static bloomed beneath it, humming through every nerve.

She stepped toward him. No coercion. No demand. Only gravity, like the moon dragging the tide. Dark, ruinous clouds gathered on the edge of stillness, heavy with promise.

Her want curled tight enough to choke breath. She held it. Moved closer. Until the space between them crackled.

He moved.

A shift of weight. A slow drag of fingers along her hip, electric. Not a grip. Not a demand.

Not a suggestion either.

It was a threat, dressed as a promise. And the storm in her blood surged to meet it.

She shivered. A soul on the cusp of corruption—open, aching, ravenous. Step by step, she retreated. Not away, but pulling him with her. Her gaze locked to his. A gravity shared. Indivisible.

He followed. Not rushing. Not stalking.

Claiming.

The cold kiss of the wall met her back. A jolt against the heat simmering beneath her skin. She barely felt it. She felt him. The weight of him filled the space between them, nearer with every breath.

She tilted her chin, deliberately. Bared her throat again. Welcomed the corruption she no longer wanted to resist.

She watched the flare in his eyes, the tick of his jaw. Still, he didn’t touch. He let her choice settle into her bones.

Bare. Trembling. Offered.

Her pulse fluttered. A frantic staccato in the hollow of her throat.

The infernal bond didn’t hum. It didn’t throb. It sang—loud, unyielding. A hymn wrenched from the alter of her purity. A confession of what she had already done, and a promise of what she would yet surrender.

His hand rose again. Fingers slid higher, mapping the hollow of her waist, the fragile line of her ribs. Up. Until his palm cupped her throat—broad, steady. His thumb stroked the corner of her jaw like a benediction. He leaned in, breath molten at her temple. Lower, along the curve of her jaw, across the column of her neck.

His lips found the thunder of her pulse—

A graze. A taste.

A press of tongue, hot and open. A kiss that wasn’t a kiss. A threat in form, and maybe in intent. A promise of what he’d take.

She felt the heat, the weight of it. Not tenderness, but a claim pressed into flesh. It burned along her nerves, sinking deeper than skin.

A brand.

His forearm braced against the wall while his hand found her hip again, steadying her as he closed the distance.

Slow. Deliberate.

Predatory.

The heavy drag of his body was devastating. A form sculpted from heat and hardness. He was inevitability incarnate, and he moved like it.

Her gasp was soft, edged by want, laced with need. She arched instinctively, helpless and hungry, offering herself up like sacrament.

His hand slid lower, found her thigh. Fingers curled with care as he lifted her leg, guiding it around his hip. She followed, pliant and trembling. No hesitation. No shame.

Just heat. Just want.

The shift forced them closer. Bare skin to bare skin, breath to breath, the pressure swelling like a wave on the edge of breaking. His cock—heavy, aching, obscenely hard—slid through the slick between her thighs in a deliberate, maddening glide. A sound caught in his throat—part groan, part growl. His hips rolled, dragging searing heat across the seam of her without slipping inside.

Her hips pressed forward in desperation, hands scrambling across his shoulders, searching for an anchor as the storm of him surged. He adjusted, countering her shift to force him inside, and slid the head of his cock along her sodden entrance in another deliciously cruel tease.

He paused, pressed against her soaked, quivering center. Held there. Let the agony bloom. Let her seethe in the burn of her want for a moment.

A breath. A mercy.

A warning.

“You let me in,” he murmured, voice like molten honey poured over razor wire.

His eyes bored into hers: glowing, fathomless, consuming.

“Now I’ll show you what that means.”

Her gasp splintered the air—a raw, broken sound—as he breached her, thick and relentless, stretching her open inch by unyielding inch. Her eyes rolled back. Her head thudded against the wall. Throat bared. Breath choked.

He filled her completely, deliberately, until there was no space left that wasn’t his. Until her body remembered nothing but him.

When he bottomed out—hips flush, cock buried deep—he stilled. Let her feel it:

The weight. The pulse. His claim.

Let her understand.

“You’re trembling, little mortal,” his voice soft and smug, cruel with affection.

She groaned, lips parted, teeth clenched—feral and pleading.

“Need something?” The words were a lascivious purr against her throat. His breath scorched her skin, and she could feel the smirk curling his lips even before he moved.

He drew back, just enough to allow her to feel the loss. Then pressed forward again, still torturously slow, grinding deep.

“G-gods,” she gasped, breath catching hard in her lungs.

He chuckled, low and dark. “Your gods aren’t listening, darling. Not anymore. They’re eager to see how beautifully you’ll burn.”

His hand cradled her jaw, tilting her face until her blurred gaze locked with his.

“Tell me what you want,” he whispered, voice thick with shadow and sin. “Go on. A good pet knows how to beg.”

Another thrust—deeper, harder—ripped a sound from her throat so raw it tasted like surrender.

He stilled again, buried to the hilt, waiting for her plea.

“Please,” she choked. “Fuck me. Ruin me.”

She said it.

Ruin me.

And something in him snapped.

A savage, unholy snarl erupted from his chest. He slammed her against the wall, his hips driving forward with brutal, merciless intent. She cried out, a half-whimper, half-moan, as he bore down. His teeth scraped her throat, grazing her pulse—a wicked, feral promise burned into flesh.

“You begged for this,” he growled, voice rough with possession. “Now I’m not asking.”

The next thrust hit deep, stole the air from her lungs.

“You’ll take every fucking inch.”

He pinned her hard. One hand bruised her thigh as he hiked her leg higher, forcing her open wider. His other braced against the wall behind her, sealing her in. A cage of heat and hunger.

Right where he wanted her.

As if she’d dare to move. As if she wanted to be anywhere but coming undone beneath him.

His pace was punishing. Every roll of his hips was devastatingly precise, grinding into the ache he’d stoked into agony, each thrust engineered to unravel her from the inside out.

Her fingernails scored his shoulders, tore down his back—desperate, frantic, clawing for something, anything, to hold as he devoured every remnant of her virtue.

“Fuck yes.” His chuckle was low and wicked, pure sin spun into sound. “You can’t wait to make a mess on me, can you?”

Another grind of his hips, a ruthless press and drag.

“So fucking desperate…”

He caught her lip between his teeth. Bit down sharply, just shy of breaking skin. His tongue followed, sweeping over the sting as if to soothe. But she knew better.

It wasn’t comfort. It was pain as penance. A taste of prophecy.

His eyes burned when they met hers—feral, unholy, endless.

“That’s it darling, show me how filthy you are,” he snarled, shifting his hips, carving deeper. “Come on my cock.”

His next thrust was vicious. A sound tore from her lips—no thought, lost in sensation—as her orgasm struck like detonation. She clamped down around him, shuddering violently, unraveling in the space of a breath.

He didn’t stop.

Even as she sagged against him, boneless and twitching. Even as every nerve screamed and sparked.

He held her there, driving into her still-burning core with ruthless intent.

Then he moved, lifting her like she weighed nothing, still sheathed inside her. Still hard. Still pulsing. Still staking his claim.

He threw her onto the bed—and followed.

She hadn’t even caught her breath before he was inside her again. Hard. Deep.

Sovereign.

“So fucking tight,” he muttered, more to himself than to her, like the fit was proof she belonged to him.

His pace was slow now. Cruel. Unrelenting like an undertow, dragging her through every lingering tremor, every aftershock, grinding into her with a rhythm designed to torment.

His control was monstrous—restraint so inhuman it made her ache. Too much. Not enough.

He filled her completely, and she was so hypersensitive she could hardly breathe through it. Her body felt flayed open, nerves raw. Her thoughts scattered, fractured by the maelstrom of his body—splitting her open, again and again.

“You wanted desecration, sweetheart,” he rasped, voice like oil slick on floodwater, ready to spark. “This is what it feels like.”

His mouth found her ear—breath hot, corruptive.

“Say my name,” he whispered, dangerous and dark.

“Beg me properly—” His teeth grazed her lobe, a threat wrapped in promise. “—and maybe I’ll let you come again.”

Every move he made was possession, merciless and inescapable. Her nails scored deep, carving desperate red welts down his back. Her body seized around him, spasming in sharp, helpless flutters. Shaken loose from reason, held together only by the thrust of his hips and the brutal rhythm he refused to break.

His mouth found her collarbone, blazed lower. Tongue and teeth sought the peak of her nipple. She arched sharply beneath him.

“Vael—” she gasped, his name tearing out of her like a sob wrenched from somewhere holy.

“Good.” His voice burned like his breath against her skin, praise steeped in ruin. His lips grazed her pebbled flesh again, a demand in the scrape of his teeth. “Say it again.”

She did. Choked it out—his name, broken and reverent.

He rewarded her with a sharp, brutal snap of his hips, the force of it ripping through her like thunder. His hand rose to her throat. Not to choke, just to anchor her. Keep her right where he wanted her: shaking, pliant, his.

“Good girl,” he murmured. “You’ll forget your own name before I’m finished with you, but mine?” His hips delivered another stroke with devastating precision, as if to prove his point. “Mine you’ll scream like a prayer.”

There was no mercy in the way he filled her. Only the calculated pressure of restraint barely held be a man who could have broken her in half, and chose not to. For now.

She didn’t know where he ended and she began. Only the endless stretch of him inside her, the slick grind, the obscene heat coiling tighter with every plunge. She couldn’t hold onto anything. Not her breath. Not her name. Not her sanity.

“Look at you,” he said, with the quiet reverence of something that had never needed to ask permission. “Wrecked and willing. Coming apart on my cock, and your body’s still begging.”

His tongue traced the delicate curve of her throat, tasting the sweat and desperation he’d wrung from her, inch by inch.

“You think I’m done with you, sweet thing?” he murmured, all feigned tenderness, the words a surge of heat against her skin.

He kissed her—restrained control meeting breathless need, devouring the last of her resistance. His control caressed the edge of cruelty. His need blurred into dominion.

“Not even close,” he whispered, a promise steeped in sin.

One hand slid between her thighs. Fingers sank into the mess he’d made of her. He found her clit with the precision of a man who knew exactly how to break her, and meant to.

She cried out, full-throated and raw, her body clenching around him as the pain of it—perfect, mind-bending pain—cascaded through her.

He circled her clit with the same exacting rhythm he used to fuck her. Her thighs trembled, legs locking around his hips. Her breath hitched, already on the verge of breaking.

“One more,” he promised. His voice was the only thing soft, worship sharpened to blade, unsheathed. “One more for me. You’ll come again, and you’ll scream my fucking name when you do.”

His breath against her ear was hot, filthy, corrupted.

“But first…”

He split her wide again, sinking into her slowly, felt her shudder.

“You’ll beg for it.” A pause. A wicked vow in the graze of his teeth against her skin. “Beg me for your damnation.”

She was drowning, not in water, but in the depthless pressure of him. In his demand. Sinking too far, too fast, into a place no thoughts, no sense of self could reach. Only him. Only the unrelenting drag of his body against hers. Only the searing burn of his breath against her ear, holy in its promise of corruption.

“Take what’s left of me,” she whispered. A breathless offering. Not in fear, but in absolution. “Make it yours.”

He answered her plea with merciless precision, driving into her hard.

“I’m going to fall apart for you,” she gasped, turning toward him, desperate for his mouth, for the promise of her undoing. “Just to be rebuilt by your hands—piece by piece.”

Her voice cracked like glass under the weight of her own desire. “I want to belong to you.”

His answer wasn’t with words. Just a sound—low, guttural, carved from possession—and then he let go, dragging her with him into the abyss.

First to break. First to fall. She splintered into heat and sound and helpless release. His name tore from her lips, not a plea but a benediction. A curse made sacred.

The final thrust was savage, visceral. He buried himself to the hilt with a groan ripped from somewhere unholy, spilling into her as her body clamped tight around him. Still, he didn’t let her go. Pressure remained, his weight pinning her to the ruined sheets, their bodies fused.

Desecrated. Just as she begged for.

There was nothing but the sound of their ragged breathing, the pulse of the bond between them, and the obscene slickness where they remained joined.

He didn’t move. Didn’t withdraw. Just lay over her like a brand, breath still hot against the curve of her throat.

His teeth grazed her skin. A warning she didn’t flinch from.

The bite came sharp enough to hurt. Sharp enough to leave a mark. A small, broken sound escaped her lips, but she didn’t pull away.

She offered herself to it. To him. To the sting of pain.

A slow, deliberate lap of his tongue followed, tracing the bruise he’d left behind. Possessive. Final.

“Mine,” he growled against her. Not a question. A verdict.

She managed a soft groan in acknowledgement, her body still humming, hollowed out, but sinfully full.

He chuckled—an indulgent, dangerous sound—and only then did he shift, pulling out with a slow, wet drag that made her whimper.

But he didn’t go far.

Beside her, he stretched like a beast basking in the aftermath of inevitability. He propped himself on one elbow, his temple resting in his palm as he admired what he’d made. A hand slid low between her thighs, gliding through the mess he’d left behind.

His doing. His claim—still warm, still dripping. Stamped into her, sacred and obscene.

She shuddered beneath the weight of his stare. Her lashes fluttered at the filthy caress.

Then his fingers slipped into her mouth, past her gently parted lips, feeding her the proof of her desecration.

“Good girl,” he murmured, a dark purr of approval. “Still hungry for me.”

She sucked on his offering, slow and eager, tongue curling around the filth he fed her.

Not a drop wasted.

Sharpened canines flashed in the dim candlelight, his grin cutting wide.

“You’ll stay that way.”