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Lucan stepped closer, pushing his thumb inside her mouth.

“Perhaps.” His smile never faltered. “But it won’t be today.”

Fury burned bright in those pale, amaranth-pink eyes. Elarian tried to twist away, but the shadows writhing over her body held her in place.

“Now,” Lucan murmured as his free hand untied his drawstrings, “let’s see whether you’re as deadly without your silver as you claim.”

Muffled words escaped those deliciously wicked lips as she bucked her hips, the pathetic attempt to escape only goading his shadows into gripping her harder. Metal scraped over the floor as she backed herself against the wall. Lucan’s thumb remained in her mouth; she could have easily bitten him, could have used her unbound hands to claw at him to stay away.

But she did neither.

She continued pretending the chains mattered while her fury melted into a look Lucan knew well: desire.

“Lost your bite already, darling?” he taunted. “The infamous Ashen Blade.”

His thumb brushed over her lower lip.

“Show me whether your mouth is as dangerous as your knife.”

Nearly hard already from watching her struggle to pretend a part of her did not enjoy this, Lucan slipped his thumb from her mouth and began stroking himself. Elarian quivered at the sight, her pulse stumbling so often, he thought her veins might burst. Heat spread across her skin; Lucan stepped closer, legs pressing against her soft flesh. Embraced by her fire, he couldn’t help but groan.

“I can hear your body craving another taste,” he murmured as he leaned in close, fangs scraping across the soft flesh of her neck. “I’ll even let you be Eliyn again to ease your conscience and pretend this is not what you want.”

Elarian shivered at his words.

“And you think this could break me so easily? I spent decades of my life fucking every moon elf Reshva sent my way to fulfill my due to Melistra. I’ve survived worse men than you.”

She looked up at him, a war fiercer than that of the gods raging behind those pale crimson eyes. Saliva dripped from her lips as she bared her teeth. A wolfish thing, it made his cock throb. Her breath caught, and whatever words she meant to summon died.

“Is that so, Elarian? Perhaps then you enjoy the humiliation of knowing you’re now my plaything to do with as I please.”

Before she could answer, the shadows at her throat reached up and forced her lips open. Fisting her hair in one hand, Lucan entered her mouth with such force that tears welled in her eyes.

Metal scraped against her teeth. The sound elicited a deep thrill Lucan had never felt before. Even as she gagged on his thickness at the back of her throat, one hand wrapped around his leg. Her nails bit into his flesh until the scent of iron filled his lungs.

Thrusting faster and deeper, he buried his length in that wretched mouth he fucking hated more than anything—even Aurelion. Muscles seizing around his girth, Elarian’s throat trembled so deliciously, his stomach clenched. Every thick, golden bar rolling over her tongue sent surges of such intense pleasure through his body, he almost finished right then.

Panting, he forced her head away, sliding out of her mouth as she spluttered and sobbed for breath. That delectable mixture of hate and desire he so craved never vanished from her gaze. She stared at him as her chest heaved and saliva spilled from her plump lips to her breasts. The iron chains at her neck and wrists softly chimed as she knelt breathlessly on both knees.

“I sincerely doubt anyone has fucked your mouth like that,” he said, voice strained as his fingers traced her lower lip and wiped away a dribble of saliva.

Lucan hummed at the sight. His cock begged for more; even his shadows had wandered over her body as he fucked her rotten mouth. Gods, he could spend an eternity with this woman who reviled him. Love mattered not—that was a fragile, hopeless thing.

But defiling one another, making each other squirm with bliss one moment, then with pain the next? Now that was something he could rely on.

“You…” Elarian gasped for breath. “You are a fucking monster.”

Straining against the shadows at her hips that now strayed only a breath away from her cunt, she craned her neck to meet his gaze. An inferno blazed in those eyes, drawing him in until he wished to plunge himself into her darkness.

“But I’ve killed worse ones than you, so if this is what you want, shivaem—if this is what you think will dull my edge—then by all means, fuck me until I bleed.”

She opened her mouth, saliva glistening over her lower lip. Lucan reached over and unhooked the chain from the wall, looping it over his hand twice before drawing it taut. Grabbing Elarian by the back of the head, he held her steady as a wicked smile curled the edge of his scarred lip.

“That is an invitation I simply cannot ignore,” he breathed out.

Cock pulsating, skin drawing painfully tight over his scrotum, he entered her again slowly, letting her tongue greedily tease each long, golden bar just beneath his shaft. Back arching, her gaze never left his.

“That’s it, darling,” he crooned. “Eyes up here while I teach this mouth of yours a lesson.”