Once a Myth
It took every shred of pride I had left, but I let my arms buckle, surrendering to his control. “I’m not feeling very well.”
Any ordinary man would back off immediately. He’d ask questions, figure out my malady, and do his utmost to ensure I felt better.
This man…he just chuckled in my ear and trailed his fingers to brush against the lips of my sex. “Lies won’t get you free.” He sucked in a breath as he teased the tip of one finger inside me. “Just like lies about your wetness are bullshit.”
God, the pain.
I tensed against the sore, swollen muscles of my million orgasms yesterday. I flinched against the agonising oversensitivity. Every part of me had been brutalised, thanks to his elixir, and just the tiniest touch today was a talon, a claw, a machete.
“Sore, Eleanor?” he murmured, easing the entire length of his finger inside. “Were you a bit rough with yourself yesterday?”
I squeezed my eyes shut as he stroked me.
He didn’t drive his finger deep and ruthless. Instead, he feathered his touch as if fully aware of how excruciating it was for me.
His hand around my nape let me go, brushing aside my hair to press a kiss directly on the beads of my spine. His gentleness was totally unexpected after his unleashed fury from before.
My lack of food left me with no reserves, and tears bled from my eyes, splashing on the table.
“Do you concede that I was right?”
I didn’t reply. I kept my eyes closed. I tried not to focus on the spinning room.
His finger dived in and out, revealing, in very explicit terms, that there was lubrication. That I was wet—not drenched like I was yesterday, but definitely not dry.
I’d known the second he’d kissed my ear that I didn’t stand a chance. All women knew when they were wet, and I couldn’t deny he’d won.
But I couldn’t let him win.
Lying prone on the table with his hand between my legs, I hissed, “I’m glad I’m wet.”
His breath caught, his voice layered with black suspicion. “You are?”
I nodded, catching my hair on the lacquered wood. “At least my body has protected me from the pain of your touch. At least you can’t hurt me, no matter how hard you try. You could fuck me and call it punishment, but because my body anticipated something so heinous from you, I won’t have any lasting effects. No tearing because I’m too dry. No blood because I’m not ready. You would just be yet another bastard who took what wasn’t his to take, and I would forget about you the moment it was over. My wetness ensures you are nothing. Just a temporary nightmare that will be over soon. The moment you finish, I would never think about you again. I would never—”
“Fuck, you have no self-preservation.” His one finger became two in one deep, dangerous thrust.
I winced and cried out.
“Believe me, Eleanor Grace, if I ever fucked you, I’d be highly fucking memorable. I’d erase all other lovers. You’d never want anyone else. You couldn’t have anyone else.” His teeth snapped by my ear. “You’d be mine the moment I took you.”
He arched his wrist, diving deep.
I cried out again as my hipbones smashed against the table.
His hand drove between my legs, proving what I’d just said. He could stretch me, claim me, use me…but he couldn’t hurt me—not in ways past the pain of overuse yesterday. However, he could try. He could bruise and break and ultimately kill, but if he thought he could make me want him?
He was fucking delusional.
Natural biology ensured my body would be his plaything, but it allowed my mind to turn off. After all, this was good training. If I didn’t find a way off this island soon, I would no doubt be forced to sleep with one of his horrid guests.
Sex is just sex, Ellie.
Think of it as walking and running. It’s just an activity.
A start and a finish and then you’re done.
Sully yanked his touch away, ripped me from the table, then spun me around to face him. “Who are you?” He shook me, his fingers digging into my shoulders. “Who the fuck are you?”
The sudden motion of horizontal to vertical and spinning in a circle was the final straw on my already incapacitated nervous system.
No reserves.
No strength.
I wobbled as he grabbed my chin with the same fingers that’d been inside me, leaving a musky slippery brand upon my skin. “I should kill you right now…put us both out of our misery.”
I repelled away from him.
The room swam.
And I did something I’d never done before.
No…
No…
Too late.
I fainted.
Right there at his feet.
Chapter Sixteen
“HER LEVELS ARE DANGEROUSLY low. Her iron, glucose, sodium…they’re all way below what is required for a woman of her height and weight.” Dr Campbell snapped off his gloves and turned to swivel his chair to face me.
The vial holding Eleanor’s blood lay abandoned in the centrifuge machine. The droplets he’d tested all glowed in different stages of experiment in test tubes and on microscope slides.
“What has she had to eat since her arrival?” Without waiting for me to reply, he added, “I don’t think she’s sick or suffering a long-term illness. However, I’ll have questions when she wakes. It is worrying that she fainted, though. Her blood pressure is extremely low—that will be the cause of her blacking out, and the wounds left over from her relocation could also have drained her of energy.”
He paused, looking at me expectantly over his half-moon reading glasses. Pushing sixty, Dr Campbell came highly recommended and exceedingly expensive. But he was the best consultant and surgeon for my populated islands.
Leaning against the shelving on the other side of the small medical room, I kept my arms crossed. I didn’t glower at Eleanor as she lay prone and lifeless on the gurney. I didn’t relive the moment of triumph when I’d found her wet, then the frustrating annoyance of her crumpling at my feet.
At first, I thought it was a trick. A way out of our fierce debate.
But when I’d nudged her with my shoe and she hadn’t moved, I’d hauled her into my arms, stormed to the doctor, and demanded he figure out what the hell was wrong.
I didn’t like weak things.
I didn’t like feeling as if I’d caused her to collapse, all because I’d pushed her too far. I’d been pushing her since she fucking arrived. I’d hounded her and tortured her, and this was my penance.
“Sinclair…are you listening? What has she eaten since arriving? Maybe she’s intolerant to something? Perhaps she requires medicine that she hasn’t received? The sooner I know—”
“I don’t know her medical history, but I don’t think it’s anything to do with what she’s eaten…more like what she hasn’t.”
He stood, glancing at Eleanor. Her long hair cascaded off the gurney, a waterfall of gleaming chocolate. Her lips were slightly parted, her forehead smooth in slumber, her eyelashes feathering shadows on colourless cheeks.
She no longer looked like an avenging immortal but a hapless human who’d gone to war with a god and failed.
“You don’t think she’s eaten a thing since landing yesterday morning?” His white eyebrow rose in shock. “She arrived early. That was over”— he checked his wristwatch —“twenty-nine hours ago.”