13. Forgive Me, Father, For I Have Absolutely Sinned

Pathetic, Ash cursed himself as his body reacted to her presence. A flash of sparking energy trickled down his spine, warm and cold at the same time.

His pupils shivered, trying to fragment, but he forced it back. His jaw clicked as he gritted it, teeth grinding. He wanted to taste her more than he wanted to ruin her. He hid it all behind his mask.

She was Hell and the blackest hunger incarnate. Whatever she'd done to them, it was as if she were the moon and he were the tides.

An elemental push and pull, almost impossible to resist. If she shifted, he mirrored her without realizing. He cocked his head. Her shadow snakes did the same.

She was a liar. A stunning little liar. He couldn't wait to crack her wide open. Her crown of copper braids was akin to arterial spray around her head. Violence was one thing.

This? This was performance art. Brutal and bloodied and beautiful. Something had thawed for good deep within him. He waited for her barbed words.

They never came. He bit down on the inside of his cheek, tearing the flesh. Metallic, buttery blood welled over the ragged edge and onto his tongue. Liora dismissed him with a tilt of her proud chin.

She turned her back, storming toward the altar, ass swaying like a metronome of menace. His fangs ached to sink into her.

He bit back a laugh instead. "What? No threats? No stabbing? After this spectacle," he toed a headless corpse, smirk intact, the neck stump glistening. "I'm wounded, Red."

Her claws flexed at her sides. The nerves in his back remembered their scrape. They wanted more of it. Her hunger swelled for a second, eating through his gut before she leashed it.

His chest flared with heat in response. It was a burst of flame in a caved-in mine. He watched in amusement as her shoulders squared.

She didn't turn, but she spoke. "They weren't after me."

Her pulse thrummed faster, but not as fast as it would be soon.

He inched toward her. "Oh, I know. They thought you'd drag me here like some lovesick mutt. Cute." He kicked a silver tipped bullet, watching as it skittered into a puddle of congealing blood. "But you didn't have to redecorate. A 'No Trespassing' sign would've worked fine."

She hissed, a tremor in her hands as she faced him at last. Her eyes spat flame, but he sensed it, the fractures in her restraint.

He would keep pulling at them. Ashton's smirk widened as a dark tendril lashed the air near his jugular.

He didn't flinch. Liora perched atop the marble slab, a blasphemous bride haloed by shattered saints. Her voice dueled itself. It was a low black widow rasp vs her rich seductress silk.

"They deserved worse. They were unworthy of the honor of dying on the battlefield."

Her hunger still shuddered through the space, and in him. He couldn't tell his own apart from it. He watched her fingers twitch toward him, almost ready to strike."For wanting me dead? Aw, that's sweet. You shouldn't have." He grinned, all teeth and arrogance.

Ash let his head drop, humming, adopting an innocent air as he said, "Or is this about the other night? Are you mad I didn't beg? Didn't break?"

She stilled, eyes fracturing with amber and bruised violet. Bingo. Her teeth bared and gleamed, even as her darkness quivered. They seemed torn, half coiling to strike, half curling to him, smoke to flame.

"You flatter yourself, leech. I don't keep pets.""Pets? Nah, you annihilate those." He nodded to the entranced mortal slumped beside the pulpit.

Still alive, untouched, his throat bared and whimpering weakly for Liora to touch him. His clouded brown gaze followed her every breath.

"But this one? He's still breathing. Why?"

You feel that little martyr? He's unrelenting. The rest ran hare-hearted.

Ash paused, his thoughts swirling around the internal voice he didn't recognize. He let it fade out and inclined his head, sniffing for dramatic effect.

The offputting stench of the mortal mingled with the iron tang of blood. "He's got vanilla body spray and the sour despair of crippling student loans. Not your usual vintage."

Liora's lip curled. Her hands gripped the marble's edge until her knuckles bleached white. "You mistake art for weakness, boy. Sentimentality bores me.""Bullshit." He took a step closer and her shadows recoiled.

He tapped his temple. "You're starving. I've run the numbers. You torched six hunters in 3.6 seconds. You could've drained him faster—could've drained them." He nudged a corpse with his boot. "But you didn't. I want to know why."

He knew why. He also knew she'd gone after the hunters to avoid him. To avoid having to extract from him the answers she sought. Her shadow cobras flew for him.

He held his ground, chuckling as they wound around his ankles. They breathed, licking altar wine off fragments of glass like a starved dog."I don't answer to mayflies. You'll splatter yourself off someone's window soon enough," she said and studied her claws.

Her words pierced him in every doubt he'd ever had. He clenched his fists. The urge to retaliate bubbled just below the surface.

Ash shoved it down. They hadn't told her why they wanted him so badly. Or they hadn't known.

Same thing. Same win for him. He pushed on. Smile mocking and eyes blazing."Mayflies don't leave scars," he said and pointed to his throat. It pulsed warmer as he eyed the matching mark on hers.

Her eyes dropped for a beat too long. Gotcha, demon.

He closed the trap. "You're punishing yourself. For letting me in." He let the quiet fall for half a blink. Glad he didn't have a heartbeat, or she'd catch it elevating now. " And for liking it."

Her growl shook the rafters. Dust and plaster fell like snow to dust his shoulders. It stuck to the impossible sweat on his nape."I've devoured Kings, men who were thought of as Gods. You're a footnote. A scribble in the margins of a book I'll burn," she bit out, voice singed at the edges."Footnotes don't make you shake. And margins are where all the best shit happens. Ask the illuminati." He twisted the knife in, and a rush of adrenaline flowed through him.

Igniting every inch of him. "Or was that trembling something you didn't mean? It's probably that thing you feel in your chest, that live wire—it's in me too. Felt it when I walked in like a fucking taser to the ribs. Now you're cold. I'm cold. And here we are... two liars in a slaughterhouse."

Silence enveloped them, she held her breath. Her face was a sculpture of frozen wrath, hunger, and disbelief. The air thrummed as though charged with something electric, something inevitable.

She stared at him like a tyrant on her throne, debating if she wanted to behead him.

He'd let her try. Allow her to get close enough he could test his theory, see how thoroughly she'd engraved herself into him.

Abruptly, she laughed, the sound was more like sundering ice than humor. "You want a confession? Fine. I spared the mortal because you reek of him. Bergamot and hubris. It's repellent."

She didn't look at the human, but her shadows forced the man to crawl further away. Staring at her all the while. His arousal, an unappetizing haze around him.

Ash's smug expression only brightened at the crimson light of rage in her gaze. Repellent, sure. That was why her shadows now grazed his wrist, feather-light.

"Uh-huh. And the hunters? They remind you of me, too?"

His fangs ached. The weighty need in her hollow core sinking under his skin, like a shared virus. He inhaled a lungful of her burnt sugar blended with his bergamot. He followed it, knowing it would clinch his victory once she gave into it."A message. Next time, I'll etch it into your ribs and hand you over to them," she said in a drawl thinner than her starved scent.

She stiffened as he entered her physical space. He held his breath, veins bioluminescent as they spiralled out of his collar. He braced his hands on the marble on either side of her hips. She arched away, the motion was almost feline.

But her thighs trembled, undetectable to the human eye. Good thing he wasn't human. He internally cheered.

Heat and nerves flickered low in his belly, black pants growing painfully tight. Her scent was more intoxicating than the bourbon he'd sunk before coming here.

Ash leaned into the glorious warmth of the wildfire under her skin. He caught her gaze locking on his scar, the spike in her pulse, too.

"Use your words, Red." His hand slid over the glossy fragments glittering atop the marble. Communion wine spilled on the cloth. "Or do you only speak in scars? We both know you're lying. To yourself, and to me."

The mortal fell silent. His heartbeat weakened to a dull throb. Ashton ignored him.

There was another pause as her eyes dilated. His jaw rippled, muscles coiling, and teeth grinding. I've never felt or read about anything like this, he thought.

He shook his head to clear it. Static fizzed in the inch of air between them. Lifting the hair on his charcoal henley covered arms.

In a murmur, teeth gritted to stop himself from biting her, he said, "You're not hungry for them... because you're hungry for me."

Pomegranate and grave dirt overpowered the caramelized sweetness of her desire. She blinked. Her black tendrils coiled close to her. Her claws screeched on the altar, but it transformed into another emotion entirely.

Her eyes turned into bottomless obsidian lined pits. Venom pooled under his tongue, and his gums hurt. Her lips parted.

He grinned. See, you can't lie your way out of this one, demon. But he wasn't immune, not even close.

His hands fisted, their taut skin crawling, craving the weight of her braids twisted around his knuckles. There was a fine scar like a broken star glimmering on her temple. Thankfully, her silence didn't last.

"I think I'll carve that tongue out first. You talk too much. It's tiresome."

His cold breath spilled onto her lips. "Feed then. Shut me up." A shiver coursed through him. The world around him disappeared until she was his only focal point. "Prove you're in control here."

He offers his throat as Wilde once did, but this one wants to own the knife.

The statement slipped into his mind without warning. He barely refrained from jolting, but it wasn't Liora's venomous voice. It was all satin and sultriness, as if it gloated.

Weird, what was it? She had stopped breathing. Invisible and lovely warmth glazed his body. It was addictive. Her legs subtly shook. Her heart picked up speed as his lay still but warm.

Oh, she'd feel heavenly, her cunt's hellfire grip on his cock, a cool balm to her fire. She'd push him to come before he got started wrecking her.

His breath crystallized in the air between them. Such a phenomenon shouldn't exist in her infernal heat. Frost fractals melted on her skin in a silent surrender.

His smirk faltered and the air got stuck in his lungs as her shadow slunk up around his calf. Inching up his leg as though to drag him nearer in. It was a traitor to her severe glare.

It took every ounce of will to not seize her waist and crush her against the marble. To see if her sneer would warp into a gasp, see if she would bend or break or beg.

That's the problem, he thought.

We'll always choose the burn over the numbness. She made no move to devour the mortal or attack Ash.

His hand closed around a jagged piece of stained-glass. Caesar. Eyes frozen mid-betrayal. "Fine. Starve."

He took a step back, shard clasped in his hand. Her mask dropped as he raised it. He ensured his smirk slanted as cruelly as his sainted shiv.

She'll either save me or kill me. Either way, I win.

He'd lost the Silverthorn knife in their struggle.

It didn't matter. He couldn't use it without risking everything too soon. Her eyes widened and her hands lifted as though to hold him off."No, you arrogant worm!" She roared.

He slashed it across his throat. He didn't even feel it. Adrenaline and triumph soared high and numbed him.

Black blood erupted and splashed across the room. Baptism by arterial spray. He smiled even as his legs weakened.

"Shut up and drink. Or watch me die, your choice."

Her responding growl shook the foundations of the church. It shivered over his paling skin. Stone and plaster cracked in its wake.

She quaked like an alcoholic at an open bar. His black blood seeped into the communion wine stains. It created a sacrilegious Eucharist only she could partake in. He wouldn't die forever.

It was only a piece of once holy glass. But the revival was a bitch.

Liora's pupils swallowed the room. They were caverns of fathomless hunger laced with slivers of amethyst and amber. Her shadows exploded as her control broke with an audible snap.

Her glamor slipped for a split-second, freckles on her cheeks, a cluster of scales at the hollow of her throat. Gold veins threading her neck and crawling up his jaw. Her talons quaked. Her unhinged animalistic noise echoed in his tattered soul.

There was apromise of agony, ancient, inevitable, and dangerous, limning every inch of her.

She flew at him, tackling him before he hit the floor. They collided with the force two rival Gods, smacking into the debris strewn ground. Her fangs sank into the wound, pulling him in deep.

Venom, acid and ambrosia and everything in between, flooded his arteries as she drank. He swallowed the moan climbing up his throat, hips jerking against her. Sensation was all he knew.

It was all he ever wanted to know. He didn't have to hold back with her.

And neither did she. What little blood he had rushed straight to his cock as her powerful thighs clamped his waist.

His veins kindled, flame melting the frost in him. Her arousal rose and rose, twining with his. His hands gripped her hips to keep her latched on to him.

Ash laughed breathlessly, a mortal-raw sound as his hands slid under her leathers. "Shit—there's the threat."

He groaned, head thrown back. It was part pain, all ecstasy as her shadows fisted in his hair. He needed to feel her from the inside. It was a life or death need. It didn't feel like a want anymore.

Liora fared no better. She couldn't keep still, her hips grinding down, riding his thigh. "Silence!""Make me." He flipped them, rolling, rolling, rolling as they crashed into the rubble.

She fought like a cat tossed in a bath. He fought her right back. Her fist punched his side, making him yank her hair. For once, she sheathed her claws.

He jammed his thigh between her legs and shoved her head. Fingers twisting her hair, forcing her fangs further into his throat. Her magic helped him.

It wound around them both, tying them tighter, cushioning her lethal blows so they only glanced off him. He didn't stop battling her until he had her pinned against the altar.

The marble cracking with the impact as he didn't have to check his preternatural strength. Her talons unsheathed and finally scored down his back.

Hot, slicing pain lit his nerves, turning to arousal hard and fast as his groan rumbled. He had the notion she let him win. She panted.

He was almost winded. It was an impossible sensation for him, but it was there all the same. Time to lock it in.

"You think this is one-way?" He seized her hair, forcing her gaze to his. The alchemical fire between them crackled."Run the script, Liora."

He bit her neck, not to drain—to sync. Seal the deal before she could even realize it was on the table. His fangs caught on a scar he hadn't given her.

It was a ragged slash she usually hid under her glamor. His eyes blurred with a scarlet haze, vision tunneling on the old injury. He filed it away.

Whoever did that better be dead. If not, they better hope I find them first. The useless thoughts rang like a distorted bell in his head as he fed.

Her blood hit his tongue and everything in him went still. Dark fruit and sugared wildfire. It was a supernova, as always. The church dissolved into static.

Her moan vibrated through him. The lust rough sound going straight to his cock as he bit harder. They were a tangle of limbs, fangs, and talons. Her leathers peeling open under his tearing fingers, heat pouring out like a furnace blast.

You're not denying yourself anymore, are you demon?

He lifted his head, breath ragged as it brushed the shell of her ear. The words were a graveled confession masquerading as a taunt.

"Closed loop. Your code's full of backdoors. You're all firewalls and fucking fire. Guess which one I'm better at breaching?"

She broke away, teeth blackened, confusion gnarled her face, as she ordered, "Speak plainly, leech, or I'll gut you."

He slid his hand further between her legs. Thumb and forefinger pinching her clit in time with the blood rattling in her neck. "Not now. Later," he said, voice plunging into a subsonic growl he rarely let loose.

That vampiric sound usually petrified, but not her. Never her. As the vibration skated over her skin, he plugged her with two long fingers.

She was a lightning rod struck bare. Her spine arching as a whimper split the air.

The last splitting strands of her control burning away. He held her gaze in his as he smirked, leaning closer, chest to chest.

His scars where they touched glowed almost imperceptibly, a flicker of unease hiding beneath his male pride. Her scent thickened, smoked honey laced with arsenic. He noted it.

It was a weapon he'd forge into her greatest weakness. If that growl turned her molten, what else could he weaponise?

Her pulse thrummed against his palm, and it said everything she wouldn't. He didn't care about the aftermath of his actions. Didn't care if she took her revenge. Screw caution.

He couldn't avoid the darker truth thrashing inside him.

She is feeding on this, on you. She isn't only surviving you. He hooked his hand under her pattern of braids and pushed it away.

Fuck it. She could be the pyre to burn them both, he thought. She could drain him dry if it meant she'd come back for more and he didn't have to spend his life hiding in sewers or running away.

"That's it, Liora. Let the choirboys know how much you want a monster."

Her claws punctured his shoulders as she let her hunger rule her, teeth almost crunching bone as she drew his blood into her hot mouth. His agonized gasp turned to one of pleasure so fast he was dizzy.

Her shadows shredded his pants. He didn't bother stifling the moan that clawed out of his mouth as he sank into her.

Scalding, vicious, a perfect fit and it only fuelled his resolve. His hands quaked on her thighs, short nails carving crescent moons into her leathers and tearing them more.

Pathetic, he cursed inwardly. He willed them to still, but it was no use. The tremor spread up his arms, into his ribs, and along his clavicles. It was a seismic hum that threatened to perforate his sternum.

He'd thought she wouldn't unravel him this way, not now he knew what to expect. He assumed his newfound symbiosis with her would help him keep a tight grip on himself.

But as he filled her, cock stretching her tense inner walls, he wanted to crawl inside her and never leave. His jaw clenched, fangs slicing his own tongue. He fought himself to bury the truth.

He was a fuse, and she was the spark he'd sell his soul to keep. "Fuck, Red." It spilled out unbidden. "Are you always this tight?"

It was a weak deflection. Her heat, her venom, was a brand. He wondered if it would match the one hidden under her high-necked leather gorget.

She didn't respond, too busy hauling her glamor back up, and acclimating to his invasion. Talons scrabbling for purchase on the broken altar.

Her shadows creeped around his thighs, guiding his movements. Chains he thought he might die to keep. Ash's scars glowed faintly where her magic touched him, etching invisible runes into his chest.

She would claim it was an accident if he asked.

He knew better. He withdrew and plunged back into her.

Working her open, setting a punishing pace. Each slam of his hips was a desperate scramble for control. Over her.

Over himself, over the fucking mess she'd made of his systems rhythm.

She snarled, hips rolling to meet his next grind, but he caught the hitch in her breath. The one that meant her darkness was fraying. His grip tightened, fingers blooming blue bruises into her waist.

"We're a closed loop. Your venom is the forge." He murmured, voice splintering as her claws scraped his jaw. "And my blood's the flame."

There was a flash in her ravenous eyes, something cold, aged, and pale. He thought it might be fear, but it was gone before he blinked.

And for a moment, he saw his own reflection in them. He was a man undone, a monster begging to be devoured, possessed... yes.

He fucked her harder, chasing the fault line in her composure. The way her sneer faltered as he hit that sweet, ruinous cluster of nerves high inside her that no one else had mapped.

He knew he was the first to make her crumble that way. She had looked both astonished and disturbed when he struck it the other night.

She arched, tone shaking with her legs, and her inner walls refusing to loosen their hold on him. "You're delusional. Ideas above your grand—""And you're a liar." He gripped her nape, forcing her to stare into him.

She should see. Bear witness to the way she scorched through him, a steaming embrace to combat his constant coldness. He let her see the way his eyes fragmented, black splotching the silver.

He allowed her to taste the desperation in his next thrust. It was a confession he'd scratch into his own bones before he spoke it aloud.

"If you're so sure I'm lying, prove it. Burn me, set fire to the ashes."

Do it. End this. If you can.

His internal dare hung like an axe above their heads.

The space between them was heavy with unspoken threats as her talons raked down his back. Drawing blood that crystallized where it dripped on her.

Sacrament or surrender, he'd accept both. His fingers tightened in her hair as an idea came to him. It seemed more akin to a glitch in his own code than anything else.

"You missed a spot."

And he kissed her. For the first time. Curious to know if she kissed like she talked. Centuries of disdain cracked her lips, yet they were softer than the lies she told. She froze, so did her darkness.

She was a statue of wrath and want, edged by a bit of wonder. His lips warmed as they coaxed hers, pliant and greedy, he let himself fall into it. Then she moved.

Her claws speared his arms as she grabbed him. Agony, smugness, and pleasure sliced through his straining muscles before she sheathed them. But her mouth... her mouth, was a revelation.

All fire and wire, and he couldn't get enough of it. Her snarl melted into a sigh, and her shadow fangs grazed his bottom lip. It was a question.

Possibly a lie or a ploy to get him to relax before she drove the dagger in. He left the thoughts unheeded as his blood pooled between them.

He'd bleed forever just to relive this night. Her tongue seared as it swept it away. Bingo. Full damn house.

He laughed, and the sound vibrated against her teeth and he swore her lips tried to mirror his smile. "There you are. Do it again."

She did. She kissed him like a blade seeking marrow, twist and thrust, no quarter given. It was an argument held in tongues.

It ached in the best way. She could take his soul with her kiss, he knew. He expected it, but she never once tried. Her shadows trailed up his legs, binding him, but their grip wavered, trembling harder than ever.

Her heart rate: 12 BPM. 60. 120. System override.

Usually, her heart was a sluggish, strong beat. This was almost mortal in its tempo. Even her magic couldn't smother it.

But he knew if his heart still worked, it would likely give out. He ravaged her more to outrun it. She gasped for air as he nipped her lip, just enough to taste her.

To taste himself in her, too. He chuckled as she writhed, mouth parting from his, and collapsed on the altar, cunt clenching and unclenching around his length.

Demon, thy name is fangs deep in denial.

He'd convince her. Show her the truth she ran from. She needed him.

He didn't want to examine the fact that he needed her now, too. He could use her human name now. Really rattle her.

No, wait, his inner voice said, wait for the moment her armor grew weakest.

A choked whine escaped her as she took his cock. He punished her with every emphatic glide inside her taut clasp. She rallied as her wetness joined their blood on the floor. He teased her."You're dripping down my thighs. Want me to call you 'sweetheart' or 'hypocrite' first?" He said, crooning in a low, lethal tone.

She arced up in response. Her clawed hands collared his throat, squeezing just shy of suffocation. He panted, grinning like the shameless bastard he was, and drove into her harder in response.

Every thrust pushed liquid nitrogen through her veins, and liquid flame through his, creating a haze of steam as fire devoured ice. Still, the prick of her talons in his skin never deepened.

His windpipe never crushed to dust. When her hands fell back to the marble, Ash still breathed."I hate you," she sobbed as she fluttered, more wetness seeped around his cock. There was a sensation like tiny flames licking along the length of him.

He smiled a serpent's smile. She thrashed her head, jaw locked against his onslaught. Bending down, fangs snapping at her lips, he said, "False. Your cunt's a shit liar, Red."

Almost as if he'd timed it, she clamped around him. The compression and heat were so intense, he moaned too loudly. Her shadows wove tauter around his hips to drag him deeper, to keep him from leaving.

His laugh forced a shiver from her. "Hate me? Sweetheart, your shadows are licking the blood off my clothes."

He swiped his thumb over her swollen, slick clit, cruel and deliberate. Dying to see her shatter for him again.

She keened, hips stuttering and inner walls flickering wildly. "Your venom's drenching my cock. Body singing hymns for me. Do you think I can't taste how bad you want this? How much you need it?"

Her claws sliced his chest, black blood welling, but her moan was a pure yielding. He hissed and plunged into her, pleasure and glorious pain glowing incandescent in him.

The temptation to let it eat him alive swelled too high, but he held it back. Barely. Liora's shadows coiled tighter around the church's ribcage, smothering the last dregs of stained-glass light.

Good, Ash thought.

No witnesses. Only us. Only this.

He grabbed her quaking thighs, locked around his waist, and slammed them down on the marble, spreading her wide and watching her glistening cunt swallowing his cock.

I am hunger made flesh. He is just a means to an end.

He barked a laugh as the unspoken claim registered in his pleasure soaked brain. This time, the intruding thought had a voice he knew. Hers.

Liora remained in obstinate denial despite her quivering stomach and the sweat trickling down her face. "You're just a parasite, a cockroach. You'd feast on scraps if it meant—" Ash interrupted, hips snapping, and voice a frozen growl. "Scraps? You're saturated in me, Liora. Hell, even your magic is begging for it."

Her pupils briefly fractured into his icy silver hue, returning to her own colors in the next moment. The primal thing in his ribs roared at the sight. He grabbed her wrist, pinning it above her head as she sought to stab him.

"Come on. Admit it. You've never felt this ruined, have you?"

Her silence rang louder than the shattered saints. It was a truth she'd carve into the stars before admitting.

The altar spoke for her. The stone slab could not withstand them. Crevices in the marble splintered toward the crucifix hanging overhead.

Even the shattered saints were blushing now. Or they were sneering. Same thing.

Above them, the thorn crowned Christ hung from his golden cross, his head tilted away. Or perhaps he leaned closer. His chipped eyes sunken with sooty shadows that looked like starvation.

Liora was close, her heart pounded as she keened, inner walls holding him captive, and the heat radiating from her was ten feet tall. The vulgar smack of flesh on flesh resounded, unable to compete with the racket in his head.

This is how I die, he thought.

It won't be in battle, it'll be in her.

He was a willing moth to her wildfire. He pushed a chuckle through his teeth, drowning it out, chasing her climax instead.

The altar groaned beneath them. Its spider webbing cracks harmonized with Liora's choked gasps. That thing in his chest sang along with the one in hers. It was a chorus of sublime devastation.

The air weighted down with charred sugar and iron, yes, but another scent lingered under that lay a heavy dose of musk. Decay already budding within the hunters' gutted cadavers.

He moaned as her shadow curled around his cock, pulling him in when he pulled back, faster, harder. Pleasure braided with lightning zipped down his spine, spreading its electric burst through his previously frost armored system.

He danced close to the edge of orgasm as his cock twitched inside her, his stones drawing tight. Pressure building to an implosion low in his abdomen. Her silken walls rippled as she sucked in air through gritted teeth. She'd fall first.

He'd make sure of it.

Her cunt clenched around him like a trap. Every snap of his hips lit a current that seared through their shared veins until they both trembled and gasped. Their scars glowed in counterpoint. Her amber burned, pulsing as his silver marks frostbit the air.

Ash laughed, a low, guttural sound as he lunged into her. He wasn't just claiming her, he was still hunting. His blood rewrote her venom's poison into a language only he could parse.

He memorized her tells.

How her breath hitched when he bit the junction of her neck. How she dripped even more when he circled his hips with every glide inside her.

Or the shiver in her shadows when he dragged her closer. Her venom was nicotine and whiskey, burning his throat in the best way.

He engrained the cadence of her pleasure into his skull. He told himself he was a predator cataloging vulnerabilities, nothing more.

He was telling himself a lot of things that sounded more akin to fables tonight. She didn't seem to notice, drowning in her own approaching release. He pressed his thumb to her clit.

Recalling how easily the touch unspooled her that first time, he'd been inside her. He pressed against her clit again and again, watching her body light up. Sweat beaded his face as he strained to hold his own release off.

She howled, fishtailing, her pretty face utterly overwhelmed as his cock ground deep and caught that spot again. He didn't let up as her every muscle tensed.

The surge of adrenaline as he pushed her over that cutting edge, flushing her face. She came violently.

Her back bowed off the marble, body shuddering. She curled around his front, her shadows doing the same from behind. Caging him in. Her tattered scream, a shockwave of sound, blasted through Judas's glass portrait.

The betrayer's eyes dissolved into dust that clung to her sweat like a lover's ashes. It was her silence after that undid him.

It was a tectonic hush, world altering, as her teeth penetrated his shoulder. The church mice held their breath as her cunt constricted around him and didn't let up.

Her shadows, frenzied by her release, snuck over to the unconscious mortal. His heartbeat almost flatlined as they slithered inside his mouth.

They pried his jaw wide in a yawn of finality. Ash cursed her name, bloody, raw, as the dust settled and he chased his own end.

A sliver of dawn breached the smashed rose window, gilding his scratched shoulder blades and nape. For a split-second, his skin glowed akin to forged bronze, no blisters to be found. He was too lost in her to notice.

This was her unmasking—ruin and revelation in one—and her truth. Shards of glass had rained down, slicing his back, and her thighs.

Their blood pooled black. Gold opalescence sheened hers, oil swirling into something volatile. Her magic stitched their wounds closed. The scars coiled like briars under their skin.

Roots, he thought, drunk on the way her venom turned his bones to kindling.

Her thighs trembled to clamp shut, but he pinned them down, thumbs tearing through the scraps of her leathers."N-no more," she said, even as her inner walls squeezed around him. She milked his cock with the insatiable demand of a thing already addicted, and he was done for."Liar," he said, as his climax ripped through them.

Her fire and his ice shimmering and scorching all his nerves. For three seconds, her pulse synced to his. Twin wolves circling and howling in the same throat, and he knew her.

The salt of her sweat when she lied, how her shadows whimpered when he said her name. All of it was his. His pulse died again, but its specter lingered."You'll hate me louder tomorrow, but you'll scream my name even louder," he whispered as his release hummed through him. He meant it as both a taunt and a promise.

She jerked, and he waited for her acidic retort. Only silence answered him. She collapsed on her back and he fell with her. His face submerged in the potent lure of her throat, his silvered mark prominent to everyone.

Unseen by him, Ash's shadow, stretched thin by dawn's light, didn't match his subtle movements. It curved toward hers, a black vine grafting itself to a thorn.

Liora pretended not to see it.

Ash grinned against her flushed skin, tongue tracing the raised bite he'd graffitied there. She smelled like him, he smelled like her.

All was right in his world now. She was his security detail whether she liked it or not. She gave a weak whimper as her talons pricked his back.

In his head, he said, the game has changed. Power, survival, control, and her—it would all be his. The hunt had only just begun.

This was just the warm-up. This was a psalm of bloodlust, fractured control, and shameless sin, their names the only prayer left unslaughtered.