House of Mages and Raven (Shades of Ruin and Magic #4)

Chapter 27

27

Barbie

T he unwelcome liquid fire licked my core, searing hotter.

My body trembled, my pussy ached, and sweat broke out on my forehead.

With a snarl, I dropped to the cold stone floor, but I wasn’t getting cooler. My whole body was burning.

My panties were completely soaked, wetting the ground. I rolled away to another spot, and it heated beneath me as well.

What the fuck did you do, Sy? I snarled.

How is it my fault that you went into heat? she barked back. You fucked Killian, then you stopped.

He stopped! I shouted. He initiated it and he stopped it. He should be the one to be punished.

It’s useless and negative to point fingers and assign blame, she said, as if she was suddenly a logical being rather than more primal than anyone else. Even if he stopped, you should’ve kept it going. You should’ve fought for him. I’d never back off if any bitch tried to take my man.

It’s not that simple, I yelled at her. I do not want a man who betrayed me. Don’t you get it?

You think you can just walk away after fucking the chaos prince? There’s a dragon in him. The dragon can call for his female to go into heat.

Then you should’ve refused his call and gotten me out of this pickle, I barked.

Now you sound unreasonable, Sy said. Maybe I shouldn’t talk to you until you calm down. You’re his female. He mated you. He marked you, and now he wants you to return to him.

How do you know? I sneered.

Oh, I know, Barbie, she said smugly. I know all about sex and feeding and heat.

I moaned as the heat kept rising, as if there were no ceiling to it. My pussy was on fire, throbbing with raw need.

Something’s got to give. Just go fuck him. Sy doled out another piece of bad advice, as usual. And all this will go away.

Like that was going to happen.

I could take care of myself.

I rolled to the other side of the bed, which provided some privacy. It was a small comfort that I was alone in this basement. And now I was thankful for the mage wardens’ laziness and lack of responsibility.

Hissing in humiliation, anger, and lust, I spread my legs wide and inserted a hand into my panties to rub my sex roughly to offer myself some relief. When my stockings got in the way, I shoved them down my ankles and tossed them to the floor.

Heat expanded within me like a live wire. Liquid fire seared the flesh between my thighs. A sense of urgency washed over me, and I thrust two fingers into my tight passage, yet I felt no relief, only pain.

My own fingers wouldn’t do.

I growled and kept trying, pushing three fingers into my aching channel, desperate to get off, but no relief came. Pain bloomed in my core. Breathing out my frustration, I pulled my fingers out and put them to work on my swollen clit. The pressure hurt. It might not be common knowledge, but many women didn’t need to be penetrated to climax. Stimulating her clit would do the trick. I set to work, brushing my clit—the way Killian had pleasured me. Only I didn’t feel any pleasure, just an increasing ache that pulsed from beneath the bundle of nerves. I pulled my lips back in a snarl and rubbed the apex of my clitoris hard, and pain sparked. Hissing, I pinched my clit and had to double over as a wave of burning sensation crashed into me.

This wasn’t getting better. Why did I have such low tolerance to pain?

Sy couldn’t stand by anymore. She lunged to take the pain into herself, but to no avail. She widened her eyes. For the first time, she couldn’t absorb my pain.

It’s from the mating heat, Barbie. It’s you, not me in heat. It’s going to get worse unless you get fucked properly.

I inserted my fingers back into my pussy, but it felt like being penetrated by a serrated blade. Cursing, I yanked them out and resorted to rubbing my clit again. But every stroke only brought more pain.

My pussy was slick. I was so aroused, yet I couldn’t get off, no matter how hard I tried. As soon as I touched myself, pain arrived in spades. The cursed heat sank into my bone marrow, and there was no escaping it.

I writhed on the floor and breathed laboriously through a haze of heat, need, and piercing pain. It was purgatory. Sy tried again and again, but there was nothing she could do either.

We’ll need a plan B, Barbie, she said, sweating as well.

What plan B? I groaned, flooded with arousal and searing pain all at once.

You need a cock, and not just any cock, but Killian’s.

I sneered. Yeah, right.

You’ll come to your senses . She sighed, rubbing her temples.

I scrambled to sit up, fueled by rage that rained down on me like acid.

I didn’t ask for this.

I wasn’t the type to stay down, but there was no getting up swinging while I had no control over my body that wanted my betrayer’s cock.

All these years, I’d shoved down fear, hatred, and wrath at what my father had done to me, so those damaging emotions wouldn’t find a footing and turn me into a victim. Sy and I had carried on with a single purpose driving us—to be powerful enough to take down Ruin one day.

But now, every emotion that I’d carefully locked down broke through the dam, crashing into me. Worse, before I could even fight back, the flood of emotions turned on me and fueled the mating heat.

There was no fighting against this brutal force. I wasn’t prepared for this.

No one can be prepared. No one can beat mating heat, Sy said without sympathy.

I wanted to scream, but I didn’t want to draw attention to myself while I was in such a pitiful condition. At least the lazy mages weren’t around to witness my going into heat, or I’d be the laughingstock of the entire school.

What was happening to me was Killian’s fault. It was the vile doing of his asshole dragon.

Fuck that dragon. Fuck Killian.

Now you’re talking. Sy smiled. That’s the perfect solution . Let’s get out of here and find Killian to fuck. Life waits for no one.

Then a second wave of mating heat hit me. My swollen nipples pricked against my uniform shirt, needing to be sucked, and I cursed the chaos prince and his beast profanely. Lust turned to pain, and pain leveled up to agony. Then agony fueled lust. The vicious circle sped up.

I pounded on my flesh in fury, but there was no alleviating my condition.

Arousal, heat, and pain blended into a cocktail of suffering. I needed to get out of here. I needed to escape to Underhill to survive this hell. But the lustful agony was so great that I couldn’t even make myself stand up. I crawled toward the iron door. Sy tried to pump her strength into me, but her effort doubled my agony. At my hiss of pain, she withdrew and watched helplessly.

I reached the bars. As soon as I grabbed them, the iron burned my palms. I yelped and jerked back my hands. The mating heat was sentient. For whatever fucked-up reason, it was preventing me from leaving this cell. All the while, images of Killian mounting me and impaling me with his massive cock bombarded my mind.

I snarled. Of all people, Killian would be the last one to come for me. What was the point of caging me and punishing me with this maddening mating fever?

Let me take over, Sy offered. We’ll find Rowan and fuck him. It’s the only other option to get over this mating fever.

Why didn’t you think of that earlier and spare me the inconvenience? I hissed, but I’d never been so eager to surrender the reins.

Sy hissed back and lunged to take over.

A blink. I was still here, crouching in front of the bars, panting in lust and pain, like a lioness in heat.

C’mon, Sy. Get it done! I barked.

Sy tried to surface again but only rammed into an invisible wall. A cold sense of panic hit both of us as we realized that the mating heat was preventing her from taking over. It wouldn’t allow us to shift, and I was doomed to suffer through this.

I let out a low howl.

Lust turned to agony and then turned back to raging lust.

I clawed at the bars. Sy whined, her golden eyes glowing, yet the more she tried to break out of my skin to expel the heat, the worse it got.

The air rippled and vibrated, then its fabric tore open.

Killian stepped through amid a burst of starlight.