Chapter Fifty-Two
Malek shifted behind her, maintaining his hold on her throat. Each brush of his chest against her back sent delicious shivers through Angel, and she hated herself for them. He moved to whisper in her other ear, his lips brushing her flesh. “Do you know Angel, I can teach you to find pleasure in absolutely anything I wish?” He spoke to her in that deep voice and striking accent, adding to her wanton discomfort. “All I have to do is make you feel what you’re feeling right now as you watch me torture and kill those you hold dear.”
His words paralyzed her soul. But her body was under his influence, shackled to him by his magic. She was beginning to know what horror was.
Your magic, Angel! She needed to focus! She needed to figure out what spell to cast to get out of this! He obviously didn’t think she had anything left in her after Jake’s hunt, or the cuffs she was in would have been magic-proof just like the middle-man’s.
Think, damn it!
Malek went on, whispering his sweet, horrible nothings in her ear. “You will be climaxing at my unspoken command,” he said, “associating their brutal suffering with intense and unforgiving bliss.”
Oh gods! Her spirit was crying inside, screaming and raving. But in his grip, her body only trembled. She wanted to move away, but of course lost the battle and as his free hand slid along her stomach to encircle her small waist and pull her further against him. His chest was rock hard behind her, his grip indomitable.
“The next few days can be terribly confusing for you,” he continued. She felt the beginnings of an orgasm work its insidiously delicious way through her body, and her skin flushed. He laughed darkly as he watched her. She could feel his gaze searing into her while he worked his dark magic. “Or you can cooperate. We can leave their suffering out of this.”
He laughed again. His fingers inched her shirt up over her taut stomach, exposing an abdomen tightened in mounting pleasure. Wanton fury was coursing through her heated veins. She fought it with every ounce of her mind, but her mind was losing. No, Angel! Use the magic! “The suffering will be all yours,” he added darkly. “Sex is empty without some degree of pain.”
Angel took a deep, quick breath when his fingers curled into her skin and his nails pierced her slightly, marking her. It was heaven.
Heaven… no. Wait. That was wrong. This was wrong.
He gave a pleased chuckle. “You see? You’re already mine, Angel. Why fight it any longer?”
Nooo! If she could just think, if she could just concentrate…. And then she had it. She knew what to do.
Iron was caustic to the fae. There was iron in a person’s blood. But the inherent magic of the fae negated the detriment of blood-bound iron so that those who needed that blood to survive could take it. The Taal were especially immune to the effects of iron in a human’s blood. And it would be worse for her since her blood possessed so little of it.
But if she worked a spell to take that single defense of his down – just that one – she might save herself. She couldn’t remove Malek’s safety from all iron; he was far too strong for her magic to have that kind of effect on him. He was so old and so powerful, his protections were probably permanent by now.
But if she concentrated on this alone, and maybe even on just the first few swallows of her blood – or even a single molecule of the caustic metal – she might just have a chance. It was a slight possibility. The slightest. But it was something.
Then he might pull away from her. He might give up on her.
Angel didn’t allow herself to think of what he would do when she surprised him in that manner. She refused to contemplate the fact that he’d probably just kill her outright. Instead, she focused on the magic. It was hard as hell to do.
Her body was on fire.
Malek’s lips brushed against her throat in a tender kiss that sent hard, sharp pleasure through her core. She bucked in his grip with the strength of it, but he held her fast. And the pain gave her a moment’s clarity. Enough for her to reach out for the magic that was there and hold on like mad.
She hissed rapidly, “E nochtum quis nanda plu-” but he covered her mouth with his hand, silencing her desperate spell at once, and yanked her hard against the solid muscle of his chest, squeezing so tight she lost her breath. She couldn’t even cry out against his palm as not only an intense orgasm ripped through her, but a hard, deep ache blossomed to life as well.
“You’ve forced my hand little warrior,” he hissed in turn, his tone relaying anger and surprise.
The deep, unimaginable ache intensified, and immediately she knew what it was. It was the pain she’d been warned about during her warden training. It was what the Taal men were known to inflict on their prey as punishment and coercion.
This particular pain was sexual longing at its foundation, but one so utterly intense and completely thorough, no sane thought was given free passage through the Taal-maddened mind. This was what she’d been afraid of. One way or another, whether like this or through his kiss, Malek was going to drive her mad.
His potent pain and pleasure were birthed in the same place inside her, agony riding the tailcoats of bliss through every atom of her being. But as the pleasure ebbed away, the pain grew stronger. Malek kept his grip firm, watching her from above as his punishing magic took over.
She felt her chest rise and fall as rapidly as her racing heart, and she knew it would please him to see it. She knew it would satisfy the dominant sadist in him to take in every tiny detail of how she reacted to his manipulations. So she tried to reel it in, tried desperately to shield herself from his perceptions, to hide the primal effect he had on her. But he had silenced her strength in more ways than one. And in that moment, as his infamous punishment grew to an incessant, throbbing ache deep inside her that demanded attention, she writhed in his tight grip, realizing that she had never felt so helpless in her life.
Fractures of incoherence were rupturing her thoughts. She was losing her mind….
He was winning. This time there were three strikes against her. He’d made every preparation. He’d planned out every careful step. And she’d pushed his final button. Now he exacted his plan with Machiavellian ruthlessness.
Her wrists were bruising in the cuffs he’d placed on her, despite their padded lining. She was simply pulling too hard, too violently.
“I imagine you’re feeling a little uncomfortable right now,” he said softly, so very softly, his accent-lilted words sliding across her skin, his lips at her ear. She sobbed quietly, the sound hushed by that same hand over her mouth. “But I can help you. I can take that pain away.” Now he whispered, and his breath against her sensitive flesh was laced with more insidious magic. “I know what you need. And I can make it all better, Angel.”
It was too much. As his evil magic rose to a crescendo of suffering, she went still in his arms, overwhelmed by her inescapable need. She moaned long and low, and he slowly removed his hand, letting the sound free. It ended in a heart-wrenching sob.
“What do you say?” he asked her, still whispering like a lover into her ear.
But she couldn’t say anything at all, and he knew it. All she could do was nod. Just once.
That was all it took.
“That’s my girl,” he said, and she could hear the smile in his words. The hand holding her throat slid along her skin, grasping her chin. He tilted her head to the side, exposing the column of her throat. She should have been terrified then, but she could not feel any more fear. Her entire body was a long, lithe vessel composed completely of flexed muscle and heated desperation.
So she squeezed her eyes shut and hoped her teeth wouldn’t crack against each other as he parted his lips and his breath again caressed the side of her neck. Her heart was a rapid-fire witness to her misery. It was no doubt calling to him, speeding her blood through that vein so close to his lips like a fast-flowing river of temptation.
And then the wait was over, and his very sharp fangs were sinking carefully but deeply into her throat.
Angel’s brown eyes flew open. She could feel them heat up, her captor’s fae power surging through her in complete domination, no doubt forcing them into amber light. It was probably very pretty – and she couldn’t have cared less. The need was changing inside, the ache inside her transforming. It continued to grow, but its pain was laced with the promise of absolution, with the almost-threat of culmination, and she had no choice but to welcome it with weak and open arms.