TWISTED (Eternal Guardians Book 7) (22 page)

He was blaming her because she was an easy target. She recognized that, but his words still stung because a place inside knew he was right.
 

Her heart beat fast against her ribs. “If I’d known—”

“Don’t even say it.” He flung her arm away in disgust, and his eyes grew dark. As dark as her heart. “Get as far from me as possible, because right now I want you as dead as the Prince of Fucking Darkness you chose to serve.”

He turned for the crumbling archway that led back into the castle. “Run hard, female. Run fast. This is the only chance I’m going to give you.”

E
nergy tingled in the tips of Nick’s fingers, fed by a darkness he only just held back. Skipping steps, he quickly dropped to the lowest level of the colony and headed for the tunnels that fanned out beneath the massive structure.

The twisting maze was a point of entry, designed to disorient and confuse any enemies who managed to get close, but Nick knew every turn, every corner, and today he needed the solace the tunnels had always given him. Needed the break from responsibility. Needed the freedom.

Only there was no freedom to be found here. Not when visions of what his people had endured played behind his eyelids like a movie set on repeat, every agonizing scream for help booming like cannon fire in his ears.

He bypassed bent, broken lockers with doors hanging askew in the anteroom, didn’t even stop to see if any weaponry had been left behind, and stepped over the mangled steel door that had once formed a barrier between the castle and the cavern beneath. Moving on memory, he walked deeper into the tunnels and didn’t stop until he reached the wide room where a myriad of corridors opened in all different directions.

The cries grew louder. The visions spun faster. He pressed his hands against his ears, hoping to drown out the sounds, slammed his eyes shut, and ground his teeth against the darkness.

He was breaking. He could feel Krónos’s energy inside feeding off his anger and hatred and pain. Churning in his chest. Rushing through his limbs with an all-encompassing power. A power just waiting to command and destroy and annihilate.

He fought the pull. Pressed harder against his ears. Opened his mouth. And roared.

His body trembled. The sound of his scream echoed in the caverns.

“Nick.” Cynna’s soft, warm fingers brushed his shoulder.

He dropped his hands and whipped around. This deep in the tunnels, there was no light, but his senses were so heightened right now from Krónos’s energy churning inside that he didn’t need any illumination to see her standing a foot from him, her silky hair falling to her shoulders, her wide chocolate eyes alight with sadness and…pity.

The pity pushed him right to the edge. Who was she to pity him? Who the fuck was she to care?

 
“Don’t let them win.” She moved closer. “Fight it. The way you fought it these last few months.”

Those months spun in his memory. Reverberated in his ears. Rushed through his veins. The crack of a whip snapping in the darkness. The sting of the leather slicing into his flesh. The cold metal of the shackles tightening against his wrists. The chains jerking his arms high over his head. The hot, wicked sensation of those nymphs’ fingers gliding along his overheated skin. And a release he hadn’t known he’d craved hovering out of his grasp, impossible to reach. All thanks to her.

 
Blood pounded in his veins. Anger and rage and desperation coalesced. That energy snapped and sizzled in his hands until he couldn’t hold it back anymore. “Stupid move, female.” He closed his hand around her wrist and yanked. “I warned you.”

She gasped and fell into him. But before she could pull away, he turned and dragged her behind him.

“Nick…”

He headed for the tunnel on the left, wrapped his fingers around the first set of steel bars he came to, and threw the door open.

He flung her into the dark holding cell and stepped in after her.

She hit the stone wall, turned quickly, and looked back, her wide eyes searching the darkness, trying to find him. “Wh—what is this place?”

“Our version of a drunk tank. Never used until now. Fucking poetic, if you ask me.”

She sucked in a breath as he drew close, but didn’t struggle when he grasped her arm, yanked it upward, and snapped a metal cuff high on the wall over her wrist. Didn’t once turn away while he reached for her left arm, jerked that one up as well, and snapped the second cuff over her other wrist.

That shadow energy hummed and rolled inside as he stepped back. Thanks to his enhanced senses, he could see her. See her well, even in utter darkness. His gaze slid over her newly dark hair, the white, almost angelic sweater falling open at her chest, the tips of her breasts pressing against the soft cotton, and her slim hips and long legs encased in the formfitting jeans. Arousal stirred in his belly, mixed with the darkness, then slinked downward until he was hard as stone.
 

“Nick. Listen to me.” Her hands curled into fists. “I—”

“What did you say to me in that cell when you brought those nymphs to me?” Power rippled in his veins as he braced his hands on the stones beside her head and moved in so close his body was a breath from hers.

“I—”

He brushed the tip of his nose against her ear and lowered his voice to a menacing whisper. “I think it was something along the lines of…this isn’t a game.”

She swallowed hard.

He drew in a deep whiff of jasmine that supercharged his blood. And when she shivered at the slight brush of his nose against her neck, that arousal grew inside until it was a roar in his ears, blocking out everything else but her.

 
“But it is,” he whispered, letting the edge of his lips skim her lobe. “The gods fuck with our lives because to them we’re nothing more than a game. And I’m finally ready to play along. I wonder, how long will you be able to hold out? When will you break? How long do I get to torment you before you give in and beg me to finish you for good?”

She swallowed again, then shifted her weight, standing more upright against the rocks at her back. “You can do whatever you want to me. We both know I deserve it.”
 

She did. She was right. But the fact she’d admitted it drew him back, just enough so he could see her eyes. So he could see the lies brewing in the depths of her soul.

They weren’t there, though. What lingered in her unfocused gaze as it darted around the darkness was excitement. And determination. And just a hint of fear.

 
The excitement and fear aroused him even more. She wanted this. She liked being manhandled. But her defiance confused him. And his inability to read her set off an odd tingle in the center of his chest.

He pushed away from the wall. Gave his head a swift shake and reminded himself she’d
chosen
to be with Zagreus. She’d directed torture. She’d kept him from his people. She was at the root of every bit of pain and misery swirling inside him.

He reached for the hem of her sweater, jerked it up her arms, and yanked it over her head, letting it bunch between her shoulder blades. She held her breath but didn’t move. And as his gaze ran over her once more, his body pulsed with a wicked thrill while he took in every delectable inch of her caramel skin contrasting against her stark white bra and the waistband of her fitted jeans.

“You do deserve this.” Shifting his legs to the outside of both of hers, he placed his fingers on the soft skin of her belly. Her muscles jerked, and her stomach caved in. He wrapped his hands around her rib cage, lowered his nose back to her neck, and drew in a deep breath. “I just wonder how much you can take.”

He bent his head, blew hot against her sensitive flesh as he trailed his nose along the length of her neck, over her collarbone, then down into the valley between her breasts. A tiny tremor ran through her. Opening his mouth, he bit into her bra and ripped the fabric with his teeth.

She gasped, but he was too caught up in the succulent globes of her breasts falling free of their confines to care. Brushing his nose over the inside of her left breast, he worked his way toward the straining tip. When she swallowed hard, he drew his nose over her areola, extended his tongue, and dragged it across the hard nub of her nipple.

A moan rumbled from her throat. Glancing up, he did it again and watched as her eyelids drifted closed, her hands fisted in the cuffs, and her head fell back.

“You like that.” He laved his tongue all around the tip, cupped her other breast, and skimmed his thumb over the other nipple.

She groaned again, and her hips pushed forward, seeking his, but he angled his body away so she couldn’t reach him. “Tell me you like it, Cynna.”

“I…I like it.”

“I bet you do.” He breathed hot over her, then captured the other nipple between his thumb and forefinger and pinched. Hard.

She jerked in the restraints and cried out.

“How about now? Still like it?”

She shifted her feet back until they hit the wall, as if trying to get away. The movement only gave him resistance, and he scooted in closer, until the length of his body brushed hers and his cock pressed into her belly.

He released the pressure. Pinched again. “Tell me. Still like it?”

“Yes. I still like it. Don’t…don’t stop.”

Either she was lying or she was as twisted as he was. The second revolved in his mind as he scraped his teeth over her nipple then shifted to her other breast, drawing the tip into his mouth to taunt and torment while he rolled and played with the first.

She groaned. Rested her head back against the rocks. Lifted her hips, trying to rub against him.

“Eager, aren’t you?” He rolled her left nipple in his fingers, damp from his mouth. “Tell me how badly you want to come.”

 
She bit her lip, rocked into him. Her body trembled and jolted with every touch of his skin against hers, every pinch of his fingers, every scrape of his teeth. Not from pain anymore, he was sure, but from pleasure. Wicked, white-hot, forbidden pleasure.

She was every man’s sex fantasy. Gods knew, she’d been his for months. But it was way past time she suffered the way he had.

Releasing her breasts, he skimmed his hands down her slim rib cage, over the indent of her belly button, then flicked the clasp on her jeans. “I bet you’re wet.”

Her breaths grew heavy as he placed his palm against her belly and slid his fingers beneath her waistband. Moving slowly, he inched his way into the silky soft hair at the apex of her legs.

“Wet and aching. Are you wet, Cynna?”

She pressed her ass back against the rocks, giving him more room in her jeans. Bit down on her lip to keep from groaning. He watched her carefully as he slid his fingers lower, between the soft lips of her pussy, and into a river of arousal.

“Holy fuck.” He braced his free hand against the rocks near her head and lowered his mouth to her neck, breathing heavily as he stroked her sex, then found the hard, tight knot of her clit. “You aren’t just wet, you’re fucking
drenched
.”

She groaned, unable to resist lifting to meet each stroke. Zeroing in on her face, he watched while he flicked her clit again and again, while he trailed his fingers lower and teased the entrance to her pussy. While her eyes rolled back in her head and the first stirrings of her orgasm began to take hold.

“You’re gonna come, aren’t you?” He pushed one thick finger into her slick channel, drew out, and pressed back in with two, pumping slowly, dragging her closer to that ledge. “Tell me how bad you want to come.”

Her eyes squeezed shut. She bit her lip. Shook her head. Moaned when he hit an extra sensitive spot.

“Tell me, Cynna.” He twisted his fingers inside her and rubbed his thumb over her clit. “Beg me to let you come.”

He stroked faster. Pressed deeper. “Do it. Beg for me.”

“Oh gods.” Her head fell back. Sweat slicked her skin. Her breasts pushed forward, and she rocked her hips against every thrust. “Yes, I want to come. It’s right there.
Skata
, don’t stop.”

She opened her mouth to cry out. But before the wave crashed into her, he pulled his hand free and stepped back.

Cynna fell forward in the restraints. Groaned at having been denied what she so desperately wanted. Whimpered.