Chained to the Devil’s Daughter (Mating the Elements #1)

27

Ash’ren

I nstead of nightmares stirring me in the middle of the night, it was usually Searra backing that ass up on my stiff cock. This night, I snuggled deeper, coating myself in her post-sex scent, like lavaberries and cream. She made one of those sexy fucking sounds in her sleep and I caved, letting my inner primal beast claim her again. Her body yawned open easily thanks to the sheer number of times I’d taken her while we were supposed to be sleeping.

We dozed back to sleep and woke entangled, my knot throbbing with need. I nudged it against her opening, but she mumbled and rolled away, dick slipping from her cunt’s warm embrace.

I growled and pulled her against my chest, grinding my cock and knot through the slippery area of her thighs.

“No, Ash. We don’t have time for your knot.”

“I never want to hear those words again,” I warned. Granted, my knot required a considerable amount of time, but I was never disappointed by the immense pleasure of stuffing her full and swelling her with seed. One of my favorite pastimes forever henceforth would be rounding her belly and holding it like she was with child, then suckling her teats like they were heavy with sweet motherly cream. I had all the time in the world when it came to that.

“Then my cock,” I compromised as I slid through her slit again. Her answering moan jolted through every vertebra of my spine, straight to the tip of my leaking cockhead.

“Y-yes.”

I roughly twisted her to face me and grabbed thick handfuls of her ass. She liked being manhandled, and I was too gone for this woman to hold back. Tilting my hips, I pulled her leg over my hip, claiming her mouth at the same time as slamming inside her cunt. The tunnel I’d paved myself was still open and ready, the tight velvety heat milking me with every thrust.

It didn’t take long for my dam to burst. Her inner walls palpitated, strangling my cock in waves as she came, her nails digging into my chest. I ate the cries straight from her throat and rocked them together until the last drops dribbled inside her and her body stopped convulsing.

“Quick enough, Firefly?” I growled at the sight of her glossy, post-orgasm eyes, my gaze dropping to her lip stuck under her teeth. “Don’t look at me like that unless you’re ready to retract your request.”

She giggled and pushed me away. As she crossed to the washroom, beads of white raced down her thighs. I grasped my knot and squeezed to release more pressure.

“Coming?”

“We don’t have time to fuck, but we have time to bathe?” I grumbled.

“Time for you to bathe, my big stinky warrior.”

“Don’t try to come up with nicknames. You’re shit at it.”

“Like Princess Tootsie is any better,” she called.

“I was a novice.”

Water splashed from behind the partially closed door. I grunted as I sat up, swiping my hands over my face. I followed at a leisurely pace. Searra’s insane washroom was fit for a king, and after fucking my Firefly crossways all night, I felt pretty fucking royal. Nothing like the tiny bucket in my tower cell, it was wide and long enough to fit a demon with an extra three feet on me, plus a guest or seven.

“You look as though this is the first bath you’ve taken since returning.”

“You tease me, but there are many things I’ll never look at quite the same.” I’d meant it good-naturedly, but she hummed and turned away, a twinge of pink on the back of her neck.

If a bird crashed into her window, she would take responsibility for its shortened lifespan. I’d yet to devise a plan to effectively relieve her of the burden she assumed for my banishment, but I would. Somehow.

“In the tub,” she commanded.

I typically preferred my baths so hot they boiled, but when she perched on the tiles behind me, I could’ve been in the tepid water of the tower for all I gave a shit. Her feet splashed into the water, gently clasping around my center. She massaged the muscles of my shoulders, my nape, even ran through my hair to the crown of my head and back down. I didn’t realize I’d been making noises until I became aware of her giggling.

“What’s so funny, Princess Tootsie?”

The laughter abruptly stopped, and she tugged my horn, jerking my head back for a clear view of her scowl. “No.”

I grinned and rested my head back against her perfectly pillowy thigh, gazing at the love of my life. I could fucking die, could drown in this tub right now, and die a happy man. But she wasn’t smiling anymore. She looked troubled.

“What’s on your mind, Firefly?”

She shot me a look that said, that’s better , but darkness quickly shadowed her features again. For a while she remained silent, massaging my sore muscles. She picked up a bar of cardamom soap and worked it into a lather. Starting at my horn, she worked the suds from the top of my head to between my shoulders.

“Lean forward.”

I did. Her loving hands never stuttered. She paid each crevice special attention, the caress of her hands soothing to the mottled skin that had long since healed but would forever live on as my shame.

“You asked what’s on my mind,” she said, her voice a whisper against the fortress of my dark heart. “May I ask you a question?”

“Of course.”

“These scars. They’re from more than just the overseers.”

“Yes.”

She didn’t have to ask the question her statement implied. I hadn’t told her my side, opting to let the rumor mill do its job. She’d let me keep my silence until now. I’d told myself it was to shield her from the misplaced guilt she would feel, but that was another example of my fucked-up ego. Even with Kien and the others’ reluctant camaraderie, acknowledging the evil deeds I committed to keep my selfish ass alive felt dangerous. Like I’d be admitting why my own magic had turned on me, judging my soul as empty as the void. I’d refused to forfeit my own life to save another. The definition of evil.

I tried to find my voice, but it hid in my diaphragm.

“It’s okay,” she soothed. “You can tell me when you’re ready.”

Selfish fucking bastard. She deserved to know what kind of monster had wrecked her kingdom to reach her. What kind of evil she’d invited in her bed, had likely planted babies in her womb by now.

“They would get bored. At first, it was rare. Once I won a few times, they got more interested. Then it was every few weeks.” My jaw clenched around the words, my body trying to lock them in.

“They made you fight each other.”

I nodded. Behind closed lids, I saw their faces. It was too much, so I opened them and stared at the other end of the tub, where bubbles had clustered along the edges. “It was sport to them. They’d been forcing prisoners to fight, taking bets on the winners for a long time, it seemed. But I’m stronger than them.”

She took a ragged breath I probably wasn’t meant to hear. I couldn’t bring myself to meet her gaze.

“I had something to live for.” The words came out defensive, vehement. I shook my head, glaring down at my fists. Instruments of a killer. “So did they.”

Searra was quiet. Her hands hadn’t stilled their soothing ministrations, their soft sensation the only thing tethering me to reality.

“The first time. . . The first time, they picked a man I’d been friendly with. I told them he’d had enough. But the guards, they. . . They wanted blood.” I didn’t have to close my eyes to visualize dead emerald pools staring up at me, so similar to a pair I now sparred with daily. “So they took mine. Within an inch of my life. Because I wouldn’t kill him. When they were done with me, they moved on to him. It was brutal. Anything but swift. He was kind to me, and I got him killed.”

I took a deep, ragged breath. Searra’s hands sifted through my hair, putting light pressure on my temples. Rings, I didn’t deserve her. Not after what I was about to admit.

“From then on, I played along. I did what I must. To stay alive.” I sighed. “Whenever I tried to be lenient, the guards were happy to remind me. They were unafraid of causing unnecessary pain. Fucking reveled in it, I think.”

“You granted them mercy.”

“Death is not mercy.”

She was silent. Her hands had finally stilled. Suddenly heavy, my head dropped back onto her leg. I braved a glance at her face, which was full of compassion.

“You survived,” she urged. “And now we are together.”

“My soul be damned, I would do it all again.”

She embraced me from behind, clasping her hands around my chest, elbow-deep in the water. Even upside-down, her kiss was full of all the warm, happy feelings I knew in my bones I didn’t deserve, least of all from her.

“I would have done the same,” she murmured against my lips. “I would become whatever monster I had to, to see you returned to me.”

“Am I a monster?”

“Whatever you are, you are mine. I won’t ever let you go again.” Her hands dipped low in the water, trailing down my abdomen. My cock twitched to attention, uncaring of the trauma-dump that just occurred.

“I’m yours,” I breathed as her long nails traced each muscle, growing closer and closer to the swelling bulb of my need. “You are mine.”

“Yours. Always.”

Delicate nails finally grazed the taut skin around my knot, which quivered with the need to fill her with my seed, to keep her seated upon it until she was with child.

“Don’t start something you don’t have time to finish, Firefly.”