AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I looked up, snarling.
He snarled back, the two of us warring for dominance.
“You have taken my ichor,” he growled. “And for that, I will have yours in return.”
“Like I said, I don’t bleed gold,” I said, tugging on the sword. It felt like a mountain had fallen on top of it. Foolishly, I tugged some more, not ready to give up.
“LikeIsaid—” His fingers wrapped around my arm, and he hauled me to my feet as if I weighed no more than a feather. I tried to take the sword with me, but it remained trapped under his foot. “You will.”
With one hand, he dragged me towards the bathing pool while I struggled against him, my feet skittering to keep myself upright. My fingernails bit into his perfect skin, chewing into his flesh.
Skillfully, he twirled me so I was facing him and my back was positioned towards the bath. His hands slid to my waist, and he hoisted me into the air.
“Don’t you dare,” I growled, my jaw aching from how tightly I clenched my teeth.
I slapped and clawed at him, trying to break his impossible hold. He looked unimpressed, as if he regarded my strength similar to that of a child’s.
Without a word of warning, he threw me over the edge.
Midair, I caught sight of the pleased smile he wore—the satisfactory twist of his lips as he watched me fall in. But just before I went under, I flipped my middle finger at him.
Feeling the warm water encase my body was a blessing in itself, especially because the iron collar cut me off from my Curse. I took a moment, allowing myself to sink as if I were back home, back in my lake.
How greatly I had missed my connection with the element of water.
But like so many things in my life, that moment of peace was snatched away.
I felt the water shudder, breaking out into waves—a silent whisper thathewas coming for me. Heeding its warning, I pressed my heels down, my feet searching for purchase. When I found it, I pressed them into the smooth rock and mortar bottom and jerked myself upright, breaking through the surface.I inhaled a deep breath, my hands sweeping hurriedly across my face, clearing the water and my hair before my eyelids sprung open.
“Don’t—” his voice was in my ear, the warmth of his body a sudden caress against my back, “—move.”
And to my horror, I couldn’t. I was frozen in place, my traitorous body obeying his order.What in the Spirit Realm was this?
“We have rules, goddess. Allow me to remind you of them,” he said, coiling my hair and roping it around his forearm, cinching his hold. The roots of my hair were pulled taut, causing a pinch of pain at my scalp, just enough to make me uncomfortable.
Mentally, I was still at war with those two words—Don’t move.
“I’m sure you’ve heard the saying—an eye for an eye?” His free arm cinched around my waist, locking my frame against his.
An eye for an eye?Panic rode me hard, taking over the reins, but it was just the thing I needed to burst through his command that rendered my body his prisoner. I threw my elbow back and planted it into his iron-crafted ribs.
He didn’t even wince.
As for me? It felt like I’d shattered my elbow.
“In this case, it is ichor for ichor.” His tongue collected a bead of water from my neck before it could slip under the collar. “Because you gave me no pleasure when you took mine, I will return the favor. Perhaps it will help you remember what you are to me.” Forcefully, he yanked my head to the side.
“Wait!” I yelled, my voice echoing back at me, bouncing around the walls of the vast room. Like me, it had nowhere to go.
But there was no waiting. There was only feeling as he plunged his teeth into my neck, just above the iron collar. I could feel his incisors, feel them grow erect as they sunk deeper anddeeper into my flesh—reminding me of the time the snake bit me in the woods.
But this? This hurt much—much—worse.
His jaw clamped down even tighter and pain pumped into me—bolting through every nerve ending, making me feral and wild, like an animal prepared to chew off its own leg to free itself from a trap. Right now, I’d claw my neck from my body, just to make the pain stop. My hands tried, but he captured my wrists and locked them against my chest.
It was agony, and it just continued to build and build and build like an orgasm—but instead of the language of pleasure, all it spoke of was immense, scarring pain. The kind you never forget.
Beyond my screaming, I could hear him drinking from me—the slurping as he pulled my blood from my body, into his mouth, drinking me down.
