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Finally?after infinite heartbeats?Allysteir edges his mask lower till it touches the bridge of his nose to confess his eyes. One is glassy, vacant?hollow, and white as a ghost with withered skin and darkest shadows surrounding it. Cracks and black veins skitter upon his skull. But the other...oh, I sample the beauty in the realms of death he referenced. That lone eye is an orb of pure gold encircling a twilight speck. Gold as sacred treasure, as sunlight. Whenever I desire the sun, I will find it again. In the Corpse King’s eye.
“Forever,” I utter and nod, biting my lower lip when he blinks, then slides the mask into place, molding it to his face.
My fingers no longer tremble. I sink them into the pomegranate seeds, clutching six scarlet stars, mirroring the King’s grandmother. Before I raise them to my mouth, I press my lips into a mischievous smile and joke, “Unless I’m the Mallyach-Ender, of course.”
I place the seeds on my tongue. Close my eyes. Burst them between my teeth. Once the sweet, tart flavor soaks my tastebuds, I seize the bowl from Allysteir’s hands, and like the damned, greedy bitch I am, I bury my mouth inside and devour every last glorious ruby gem.
I didn’t believeshe’d accept. And never this soon.
While she licks the bowl with the juice staining her luscious lips and the upper slopes of her breasts and chest, I strive to dismiss how she referenced what the High Gods whisper?the Mallyach-Ender...the Curse-Ender. I put my mouth to her neck, wait for her to nod and arch to welcome me, and sink my teeth inside her flesh for Kryach to mark her.
Isla throws her head back and slams her eyes shut but does not scream. She snaps her teeth. Hisses a tempest. Then licks her lips to savor the Isle-fruit feast while I embark upon my Isla-feast, luxuriating in her flesh juice, marveling at its rapture. As ifnoneof my venom has ever touched her.
She is the first dream the stars ever blessed the world. And the deadly point of a blade thrust into the fire. An autumn rose biting through the ice of winter and surviving till the spring thaw. No other bride ever accepted the mark. Not even Finleigh.
Once her warmth engulfs my being, Aryahn Kryach roars his Death chant. His shadow power whorls all around us, his wind disturbing the blanket till he exposes the angyl-wing flesh of her legs to her thighs.
Inside my mind, I growl while lapping her sweet blood, ravaging a thread or two of flesh. His shadows coil around her legs, roaming, seeking, and hunting for the perfect location for the marking. She doesn’t unloose herself. No, she stiffens, locking herself. I snigger and lash my tongue upon her shoulder wound.
Good girl. Make himwork for it.I press my lips, stained in her blood, to her neck.
“Allysteir...” she whispers low and beauteous and drops the bowl. It clatters to the floor, droplets splattering. She arches her neck. For me. Thrusts out her chest.So sweet.
A godly snarl invades my head from her gesture.Hmm...it’s rare for Kryach to express jealousy. But I won’t let him rob us of these moments. While Isla’s blood trickles down the curve of her shoulder in a tiny stream to disappear beneath the blanket, my mouth lingers upon her pulse. It flutters like a trapped bird.
When Kryach’s vagabond shadows rove along her spine, she gasps and arches her back, but I steady her. Swallowing her flesh and blood remnants, I wonder what she’s pondering behind her closed, deep-set eyes?those long lashes, comely and dark. Infinite thoughts and images swirl in my head. Her dancing amidst the pomegranate trees. She’d pick as many ripe fruits as she desires.Oh, all the places I could bring her!
Again, Kryach growls. I shudder because he echoes my statement. A taunt of the riches of the Isles he would show her. But it’s impossible for anyone not god or god-spawn to enter the Isles. Ortouchthe gates.
For now, I trace my tongue along her exquisite shoulder curve. I lick the blood. She moans whether from pain or pleasure or both, I can’t possibly tell. Her lips have parted slightly, but her eyes remain closed as if she’s memorizing every moment.Sweeter.I brush my ruined mouth upon each of her eyelids, cherishing her whimper, how she trembles and pants.
By now, Kryach’s shadows have worked their way into her wild waves, scattering them around her neck and shoulders. But I study those blood droplets along her arm, blanket swallowing them.
“Oh!” shrieks Isla when the God of Death’s shadows invade her mouth, prompting her to tip her head back, granting me more access to her skin. As if Kryach longs to sample her early, to break his own boundaries, his law writ in the Isles.
Awed, I gaze at my bride-to-be. No bride in history has evertemptedthe God of Death. Never before the wedding.
His shadows nuzzle her throat, her collarbone. They linger on my teeth mark before descending to her cleavage. Isla clenches tighter.Yes,my dark rose. You know you are truly mine.
A snap of God teeth in a direct threat?wrathful but empty. Once my gloved fingers touch the blanket’s edge, she softens. Eyes not opening, she allows me to ease the velvet past the curve to the bloody line weeping down her arm. Scarlet fruit juice dampens her skin along her chest. It lingers in the crease of her cleavage, enticing.
She lowers her chin to me. In response, one lone shadow voyages to her pomegranate juice-stained lips, but she presses them. She forbids Kryach from entry. The God seethes. Cold and deathly, his shadow collars her throat. Another empty threat. Instead, she murmurs my name.
Blood and bones!
My hands ache to touch her long, fair legs where the blanket barely covers her lower regions. I can’t possibly call them her nether-regions; nothing about her mirrors the cursed world.
Fully aroused, my cock barrages the boundary of my breaches?uncomfortable but nothing I haven’t battled. A familiar war I’ve waged. And will wage again. Because Isla deserves to be worshipped like the Queen she will become. A beautiful irony how worship can exist in the same territory as torture. A territory, anartform I have mastered. I learned from the best.
The blanket sinks to expose her right breast: a full, white, floral offering with a single blood-rubied pomegranate seed resting atop her rouge, pebbled nipple. I fear I will defy Kryach. A threadbare crack in his law. An enmity of fire swirls in my stomach. Will I pay the price of his fury? In all my five hundred years, no bride has ever proven...irresistible. Obsessed with the image of the lone, piquant seed upon her ripened bud, I contemplate her forbidden fruit.
I don’t deserve this.
Hesitating, I crane my neck to my bride-to-be. She sighs through her nose, tipping her head to the side, wincing from the pain in her shoulder. Of course, she knows the blanket has fallen. Desire exhibited, her fingers tiptoe across her throat. Death’s wary shadows hover, his presence curling cold air across her breast to rouse the tantalizing tip. A silent, dark dare. Because my pain, mypunishmentis his pleasure.
For the third time, my name escapes her lips, covetous. I raise my eyes to Kryach’s mark forming. Death encroaches in my mind.We must go now or we will be late.
I cage the howl to the recesses of my mind, not granting him any emotions. Death sniggers. He always gets the last laugh. After adjusting my mask, I retrieve the bone powder pouch stashed at my belt. Isla opens her eyes in time to find me opening it.
