31. ALL UP IN YOUR MIND

They landed in a tangle of cold and hot limbs on the chilled silk in the middle of her bed. She didn’t feel the softness of the mattress. There was only him.

Hard, unyielding, were the planes of him beneath her hands and body. He was her anchor point in the swirl of shadow, desirous scents, and frost. His grip on her tightened, grounding her now that the living room was gone.

They’d entered a new battlefield. His fingers pressed into the scar on her hip. The one she’d earned for him. Neither moved. His silver eyes blew wide and locked on hers.

Her mouth tingled from the kiss, lips swollen as he licked at his. She waited for the quip, the smirk.

It didn’t come. She almost stopped breathing.

Chest constricting, throat tightening with it. The realization was an open-handed smack in the face. He was waiting for her to make the next move.

The weight of it was an iron chain wrapping around her from head to toe. Her heart beat so hard and fast, as if it were trying to escape her body.

They both still panted as everything she felt poured through the bond, soaking him too. Every instinct screamed at her to run, to phase.

To shove him with two fists full of claws and take what she wanted with violence and urgency. That was the language they both understood and reveled in.

This... this quiet waiting—it was foreign, treacherous ground. Unfamiliar territory she had never considered mapping out, and now it was too late.

A succubus who couldn’t find a way to seduce her lover. The irony of it chewed at her exposed nerves. She saw the question swimming in his gaze.

The same one ricocheted through her skull.

What now?

She had no answer. Her shadows slithered over the bed and wound up the headboard and posts.

Before her mind could convince her to flee, find some place to hide in until the memory of this failure receded—Liora did the only thing she could think of.

She pressed her forehead to his. Her damp hair shielded them both again as a shudder wracked her frame and shook him too. No passion in it.

The move was all surrender. The overwhelming notion of being out of her depth, and this actually meaning something, held her hostage. But it was all Ash needed.

The air left him in a cold rush. A soft ” Oh,” ghosted across her feverish face.

It was as though he’d been holding it for a century, not mere minutes of her hesitation. He slid a hand from her hip all the way up her spine to cradle the back of her head.

Holding her. Tethering her and not letting her run.

“It’s alright,” he murmured, barely above a whisper, as if afraid to spook her. “We have all night. We have forever. Just... breathe for me, Red.”

As his frozen, ravaged command settled, she found her way in as her control slipped. She dragged in a ragged inhale; bergamot and burnt sugar infused her senses.

The tension in her aching and shivering, yelling at her to just move. Her claws unsheathed. Pricking through his clothes, into his skin.

A frail hint of pain—that familiar part of her monster was safe to unleash and always had been. He’d always leaned into the pierce of them. The tiny, sharp point of contact grounded her a little more.

Ash let out a low, approving groan. She exhaled and turned her head, mouth latching onto his again. He kissed her slowly—so slowly it was agonizing.

With one hand still gripping her hip, the one in her hair fell away. His fingers tugging on the knotted sash holding her silk robe shut made her bite down on his plush bottom lip.

He moaned, hips rocking into her as her clawed hands moved at last. Resting like a necklace around his neck, no pressure yet, but she felt his breath catching.

The heat in her swelled again, tension and want building as he slid the sash free and tossed it away. The slippery fabric fell down her shoulders as the kiss grew more hurried. Lips bruising each other.

Stubble scratched her, his tongue flicked against hers, and she ground down on his hard length. Gasping into his mouth as the friction fueled the flames of her liquid desire.

Her demon was so quiet, she almost missed its greedy voice telling her what to do. Even her shadows just moved like living ivy across the bedposts. Watching and waiting to be needed, but this part was all up to her.

Her tongue slid along his, her talons nicking his throat but not drawing blood yet. She broke the seal on his mouth and sat back on his lap. Her face and chest flushed, breasts high and heavy, nipples peaking through the thin fabric.

She gripped the hem of his shirt, pulling at it until he sat up and helped her take it off. Gaze devouring every scar that veined the marble of his torso. He followed her lead.

The robe fell to the floor; her skimpy camisole went with it. The awkward, mortal nature of removing the rest was over faster than she thought. He pulled her back down onto the bed.

He rolled her under him, nipping her jaw as his cock slid through her wetness in a frustrating tease. The ache in her opened wide, burning and begging to be filled. Her pulse skyrocketed.

Venom-laced essence trickled from her as she rolled her hips against his chilled hardness. There was a seriousness to him that said he wanted to get this right. That she wasn’t alone in it.

“What do you want, Liora? Say it, and it’s yours”

Her hands gripped his shoulders. His cold weight and the need in his eyes helped her find her voice. She didn’t want to waste anymore time. She wanted to let go.

She wanted to feel every inch of him splitting her apart before she was ready for him.

“You. Inside me... make me ache.”

It was the most honest she’d been yet. His rough growl prickled her skin, and he kissed her quickly.

It was a rapid, harsh kiss that made her cry out into his mouth. He swallowed it and broke away, pupils already fractured as he grabbed himself.

She whined as he pressed the fat head of his cock against her slick entrance. He seemed to brace himself, pushing past her resisting muscles in a gradual, rough grind. The downy pale hairs on her arms stood on end.

The sting of pain-pleasure and the rightness of him ripped the oxygen out of her lungs. She stared at him, mouth open in a silent moan as he stretched her tight cunt. He didn’t stop until he’d buried himself in her.

Bodies glued together, trembling as she absorbed him. It was a delicious sensation, inner walls spasming around him as she adjusted. He blew out a breath, hands quaking as they framed her face.

“Better?” He asked, voice utterly destroyed as she shifted her hips and her inner walls softened.

She nodded. Claws sinking into his shoulders and he jerked. Both groaned as the movement nudged him deeper. He usually fed from her as they fucked. She reacted on instinct.

She offered her throat, head turning for him to see her frantic pulse and understand. But he shook his head, a slight motion that set her pulse skittering.

Something cold wove through her veins, and it had nothing to do with his touch. Her spine stiffened almost imperceptibly.

A crease formed between his brows as her eyes shuttered. Her mind recoiled as one thought sliced through her like a shard of ice.

What did I do wrong?

Whether he read it on her face or not, he answered it. With his body first, a slow slide out and straight back in. Speaking as she shook under him and her talons clung.

“You don’t have to earn this. I don’t need your blood to want you. Understand?”

He waited for her unsteady nod. She frowned, mouth opening, but nothing came out. Everything came at a cost.

Survival. Eternity. Sex and feeding. Everything. All she could do was listen as he spoke again.

“Good. Let me show you I mean it.”

The frozen thing in her veins turned to steam. Her entire body went pliant. The crumbling wall between their minds fractured more.

He rose and sank back onto his knees, dragging her with him. Glacier-touched hands trailing along her thighs. Her heart bounced against her ribs.

Her claws came out of his shoulders. He gathered her legs, cock slipping free despite her attempts to lock him in.

He chuckled, short and gravelly, as he rested them against his shoulder. A position that lifted her ass and contorted her torso.

His free hand guided him inside her. He bent her body further backwards. Her knees almost touched her chest as she pulled him back in.

The angle was so steep she couldn’t think around the exquisite fullness of him. Her claws sank into the mattress as he planted his hands beside her head.

He’d twisted her so thoroughly, she’d have no choice but to take it. Until she stopped fretting about doing it all wrong and just drowned in the pleasure, she knew he’d give her.

Her cunt dripped at the thought, even as he was still. Then he wasn’t. He worked her open, slow retreats and plunges of his cock inside her taut clasp. Until she gasped and keened.

Her shadows reacted, twining up his straining arms to wreath his shoulders. He turned and kissed a dark tendril, and an ancient knot loosened inside her as her darkness shivered.

She bit her own lip bloody as arousal and pain and pleasure braided together. The layers of magic she’d hidden her horns under peeled away as his thrusts turned punishing.

Every glide ignited wildfires as his frost glittered over her skin to ease the furious heat. She couldn’t escape him and didn’t want to. His gaze focused entirely on her.

Focused on her moaning face as he hit a place that turned her wetness from a trickle to a stream. Inner walls clamped his cock and drew a groan from his chest.

She made the choice as he hammered into her. Her eyes closed, heartbeat a rapid countdown to a moment she’d sworn never to have again.

Liora held her sawing breath as the first curl of her horns breached her temples like blackened comets. The jagged obsidian crown she’d forgotten the weight of.

Heat swamped her as his hips stuttered. Ash froze, hilt deep inside her.

“Liora. Your horns—”

Her eyes opened at the crack in his voice. Part of her still expected revulsion, but he grew impossibly harder inside her. Mirror eyes swirling with swatches of black. Her pulse was a drill in her neck as he reached to touch them.

She braced for pain, the spear of frozen agony in her skull. He hesitated as she flinched, expression hardening and his gaze roiling with arctic fury.

“Who hurt you?” He demanded in a tone she’d never heard from him.

She shivered as the glacial threat within it caused a sprinkling of scales to streak free of her glamor. She moved her legs off his shoulder, wrapping them around his waist so she could breathe better.

He let her. He waited for her answer as if it were more important than any he’d asked yet.

She didn’t recognize her own voice as the words tumbled out of her in a tattered rush. Hips rolling to make him move again. Stop the crawling under her skin caused by his stillness.

“Rasputin tried to scorch them off. Byron screamed like a gutted pig when they first emerged. And the Witch of Marseille hexed them to rot... they’re hideous. Better to hide them.”

She twisted under him, unsure if she wanted to run from him or let him see as more scales wrapped her waist. His hand pinned her to the bed, frost numbing her and stopping her struggle.

Her shadows fluttered and coiled close as his face twisted and disbelief coated every syllable as he said, “What—no. They’re not. They’re stunning.”

Her head shook, heavier now. Her eyes stung, as the urge to retract them scorched every part of her. More ice bit her hip as her demon finally piped up.

Listen to him. He’s not lying.

Liora shuddered as Ash gave her a shallow grind of his cock. Hunger and anger warred in his expression. He slowly leaned down. His frigid breath grazed the twisted spire now curving from her skull.

“They. Were. Weaklings. All of them.”

She twitched and trembled. Tail lashing free as her body betrayed her. “You don’t understand—ah!”

His fingers had wrapped around the horn’s ridged base. Ice and fire colliding in a static burst.

Pleasure detonated in her clit. A shockwave of arousal rolled down her arching spine as he laughed. Shameless and delighted.

Unrepentant as her cunt clenched down on his cock. She violently flailed under him as he squeezed his hand around her horn. She hadn’t known... she hadn’t known that was possible.

“You’re a masterpiece. They tried to break you,” he said in a growl.

That damned subsonic growl. It burrowed into her honeycomb marrow and echoed through her very core. He bit down gently, fangs scoring the onyx, tongue searing snow over the edge.

Another blast of sensation ripped through her. And she lost control of her body. She writhed and dripped venom as her inner walls convulsed.

“Pathetic. They didn’t deserve to see them.” A horrible pause as she wordlessly whined for him to ruin her. “These aren’t flaws, Liora. They’re fucking art.”

She arched again, torn between denying it and begging for more. “Y-you don’t know what it’s like—to be this monstrous—” He chuckled, darker than midnight.

“Really? Do you think I don’t see myself when I look in the mirror?” He thrust hard, striking that cluster of nerves high inside her and stealing a scream from her withered lungs. “A corpse with delusions of grandeur?”

His hand fisted in her hair, forcing her to look at him. “You’re not monstrous. Not hideous, either. You’re mine.” Another merciless slam of his hips as her tail leashed his waist and dragged him nearer in. He didn’t even blink. “And I don’t collect fragile things.”

Her laugh cracked like porcelain under a hammer. “Arrogant bastard.”

“True.” He smirked, thumb circling the tip of her horn. Lightning shot down her torso. Her vision whited out as she came so hard she thought she’d gone deaf and blind for a second. “But look at you… coming apart on a vampires cock because he likes your sharp edges.”

Wetness slipped from her in scalding waves that saturated them both. There wasn’t a part of her that wasn’t tingling. Nerves fired under her skin, and her legs jumped.

“Ash—please.” She didn’t know what she was begging for. Freedom? Ruin?

Both looked the same to her. He smiled, something possessive and eternal shining in his gaze that made her stomach drop.

“Tell me,” he demanded, hauling her up into his lap. His arms bound around her boneless form. He scraped his fangs along the horn’s curve, each touch a live-wire to her nerves. “Who owns this fire?”

She still fluttered around his rigid cock. She needed him to banish the ache and make her hurt the way she liked. He bit down, marking her horn like he’d marked her neck.

She howled as her body lit up with a pleasure so blistering, even her hellfire heat couldn’t compete. It wasn’t fair.

It wasn’t fair how easily he undid her. Like she was a manuscript he’d memorized years ago.

“Who, Liora?”

She hissed as he laid her back down, her legs tied themselves around his waist as she canted her hips. He took the hint, thrusting deep.

Circling to grind against the spot that always made her thoughts die. Her mouth opened. And the truth came out. Raw and bleeding and desperate for more.

More of this, more of him, more of them.

“You. You fucking parasite!”

He grinned. Cock pressing so deep it was her only focus, everything in her turned inward. To the flawless feel of him locked within her. All of her creamy flesh changed to scaled armor.

They slid against each other, whispering like a beaded gown’s hem trailing over cobblestones. With the weight of dragon-hide. Each one was a tiny, perfect shield.

An onyx and oil-slick mosaic edged in gold so thin it was barely a breath. Smooth, subtly rippled. Cool to her touch, but thrumming as though a sun-warmed energy lived beneath them. Ash felt their heat.

He’d already given her an orgasm. The next one swelled so high, her inner walls flickered and tensed. He moaned her name in a way that seemed like salvation. His gaze turned reverent as her tail constricted his ribs.

“Louder.” His command was more like a prayer.

She inhaled. “You!”

The admission tore from her in an ultimate surrender. Tears streaked her scaled cheeks, breath catching.

Nearly choking on it. Centuries of starved loneliness combusted as he gave her everything she needed.

He roared in triumph. The relentless pounding of his cock banished the ghosts from her veins. Letting her enjoy herself without them breathing down her neck. He was a man unleashed.

Feral and more alive than she’d ever seen him. He stole her moan for his own. Hitting every spot to collect more. Her choked plea as another orgasm crested died in her throat.

Something had shifted deep inside her. Cunt gripping him, tail claiming him as it unlocked.

It was the final cage door swinging open. Ash noticed it first. He went motionless. Breath stalling and eyes wide. She flinched again. There it was.

Here it is, her mind agreed, the fear. You knew it would come. You trusted him anyway.

Stupid, he’ll run now.

She shook her head, chin trembling, sweat beading on her forehead.

“Christ. This is—”

He stared at her, slack-mouthed, posture stiffening. She didn’t know what to do. She wanted to phase away as her face burned hot under her scales.

The impulse to hide overriding the incredible arousal. Her muscles locked, and her claws turned brittle. Shadows slithering closer.

His hands tightened on her hips. Keeping her anchored. “No. Don’t you dare hide from me. I’m not afraid. I’m...” His tattered voice faded as he let out a long breath. His gelid touch soothed the heat bubbling under her skin.

His moonlight eyes fastened on hers, and she saw it wasn’t horror shining in them. It was frantic need for her to understand. The wall in her mind turned to dust as he opened the floodgates of the bond.

Everything he experienced washed through her. He was feeling the clenching of her approaching climax. But it wasn’t how it usually was. It had changed to a new, undulating rhythm.

A slow, ridged, possessive spiral that seemed to pull him deeper. To cradle him in a way that was fundamentally new. Her own pleasure merged with his, overloading her with it.

His thoughts were breathless somehow. Reverential. They whispered in her own head as she gasped and fishtailed under him.

It’s like a dizzying pull drawing me into you. It makes me feel like my dead heart is beating again. In my throat. It’s you.

All of you. The ancient, untameable core of you.

She sobbed as he remained still, blood shrieking in her veins as her orgasm rose to annihilate her.

“Why aren’t you scared?” She cried as his emotions refused to let her deny his words.

A ragged, awed laugh escaped him. “Because you’re perfect. I’ve already told you.” He paused, moaning at the velvet-fire vice of her squeezing his cock. “You’re the only real thing I’ve felt in years. The only thing I want to feel.”

She quaked as another surge of sensation punctuated every word through the bond. He diluted her fear with his undeniable wonder.

“If you believed their lies—believe me. Keep it fair, Red,” he murmured, voice wrecked as his fangs flashed in the dim light.

He moved at last. Sliding out of her only long enough to flip her onto hands and knees. Her tail bound around his throat.

He slammed home and fucked her raw. Deliberately now, chasing that impossible, spiralling sensation.

Worshipping the very thing she hadn’t discovered through her long life. The armor of her hips and stomach gave way at her core.

Seamlessly, the scales dissolved into a smooth, fever-hot satin, welcoming the brutal slide of him. The fortress of armor transformed into a sanctuary only for him. The rest of her glamor melted away.

Her eyes were galaxies unraveling, stars gone supernova. Copper hair transforming to void-black tendrils that defied gravity. It curled like snakes and sucked the weak light from the room.

Ash just chuckled even as he swore at the clenching of her cunt and how it kept reeling him back in. The sound was kerosene to the flames of her arousal.

One hand bruised her hip as she rolled into his thrusts, while the other spread black ice up her scaled spine until it reached her hair. She sensed the touch, but the strands had no substance.

His fingers curled around her horn, wrenching her head back. She screamed as pleasure exploded and he kept pummelling into her.

Cock harder than a tombstone and cold as hoarfrost. Ice shattered inside her with every thrust.

“Watch me wreck you,” he said, an order followed by the visual of her. Of her body swallowing his glistening length over and over. “Watch me stay.”

Stay. Stay. Stay.

She sobbed for real as tension and fire twisted and twisted inside her. On the brink of an orgasm so potent, she’d never get over it.

She couldn’t tell his pleasure and hers apart anymore. It was too much.

It was not enough. Her claws shredded through the mattress as she howled and thrashed her head. Through his eyes, she didn’t see herself as something shameful.

A terrible thing that deserved every ounce of pain she’d ever received.

She saw a monster unbroken.

Unchained, claimed and wanted by the fearless vampire, he lost his control at the sight of her falling apart for him. The tension reached its breaking point as his fingers bled frost on her horn and he yanked it again.

Her orgasm hit so suddenly, it was soundless at first. The spiralling inside her sped up and tightened around Ash’s cock. Dragging him down with her.

His startled, “Fucking hell—Liora!” was the only warning before he bowed and quaked over her. It was less like a climax, and more like an unmaking for her.

Every thread of her being had drawn taut, then unspooled by the fiery, bone-rattling force of it. Only to weave back together on a fresh, impossible loom.

The freezing silver thread of his pleasure inextricably tied to her own as it scoured away the last of her human form. And she wailed as it left behind the one thing she’d thought could never be.

The glorious, scaled, weeping truth of the demon, baptized in shared, obsessive sensation. She pilfered his pleasure to feed her succubus. It wasn’t the only thing she robbed him of. She stole his ice.

It crystallised her babbling of his name as he pulled out of her drenched cunt. She whined, and he shushed her.

Grabbing hold of her useless body, he rolled onto his back. She collapsed on his chest, eyes closed as she sensed him moving.

His hand grazed her swollen, hypersensitive sex, making her jump as the emptiness without him inside her gnawed at her. She forgot her mind was still wide open to him.

“I’m not going anywhere. Patience, Sweetheart.”

The pet name was so tender despite the horns and tail saying otherwise, she nearly laughed. He awkwardly angled his softening cock and slid back in. She stopped fussing, claws piercing his chest as she hid her face in his neck.

Her horns had dimmed to intangible smoke, copper hair returning, tail unwinding from him and sealing under her glamor. She wasn’t hiding.

She wanted to be herself, the human form only he had tasted. A gift she’d given him from the start despite centuries of it being her only shelter. He understood.

Thoughts, possessive and smug, as his hands massaged her scarred back. The wintry touch eased the wildfire heat, turning her skin wet with salt.

“Still think I’ll run?” He whispered, letting her just exist with him in that hushed moment.

She recalled the vision of herself as he saw her. How he relished it and wanted all of it. She did not fully believe his awe yet, but she was closer than she’d ever dared to hope. “...No.”

His arms tightened around her. “Good.” He released a long exhale; the cold air ruffling her damp hair. “Do you think I’d let anyone touch what’s mine?”

She gave a lazy roll of her hips, grinding his spent cock deeper into her. Smiling into his neck when he groaned. She lifted her head and kissed him before he could ask anything else.

His hands dove into her hair, holding her close as his fangs sliced her lip. Her shattered whimper as he savored the bloom of her black blood made her inner walls spasm.

After it ended, her eyelids had become iron weights, bones were weary and her heart rate was dropping. He watched her. Hands refusing to let her go.

“Stay,” he mumbled, eyes blazing.

Her muscles tried to stiffen, the old trying to poison the new as her usual retort to such a thing surged up her throat.

I don’t do mornings. I don’t stay.

She shoved it down. Swallowed it like a jagged pill. She didn’t run.

She lay there, his frost seeping into her bones. His silent heartbeat a phantom echo in the silence.

Her mind didn’t berate her. No demon or shadows muttered. But her thoughts weren’t silent. They’d found a new truth. One she’d feared but now appeared inevitable.

Love was a slow suicide. A violent claim. Or a corpse at your feet. But Ash...

Ash was a blade sheathed in her ribs. A vow without words. And a silence amidst her hunger’s violence.

Even when he riled her, questioned her, and incited another fight. Especially then.

Liar. Monster. False poet—mine. Only mine.

When she finally slept, her head pillowed on his chest, his fingers tangled in her hair, the succubus dreamed of glaciers.

And Liora, for once, didn’t dream of coffins and warlocks and past betrayals. She didn’t dream at all. Her last coherent thought followed her into sleep.

The wings could wait for another day. This was enough.