Heavy is the Crown: A Gothic Grove Novel, page 7
Before I can shove him back, my dragon pushes outward, taking control of my body for a moment. She lets out a gasp as I push her against the wall, my massive body crowding in on her small one. I burrow into her neck, inhaling her scent deeply, a low rumble building in my chest.
Pulling back, I lock eyes with her again, then flick my gaze down to watch her lips part. She drags her bottom one between her teeth. “Name?” My voice is a deep growl, more animal than human now.
“Ava,” she practically whimpers, her voice soft in the space around us.
“Mmm. Ava.” I let the name roll around on my tongue.
“Who are you?” she asks tentatively. I’m aware I’m still crowding her, my arms bracketing her body. Her silver eyes are wide, and if it weren’t for the change in her breathing and the way her pupils have blown out, I would think she was afraid. But that's not fear I smell.
I smile wickedly. “I’m the monster in the dark.”
I crash my mouth into hers and instantly moan at the taste and feel. It only takes a moment before she yields to me and allows my tongue to sweep in. She grips my shirt and pulls herself closer, hunger pulsing through those actions. Her breasts press against my chest, that thin shirt doing nothing to hide her hardening nipples. I roughly palm her breast, earning me a gasp that gives way to a long moan. I huff out a laugh against her lips.
Pulling back, I push up the flimsy shirt before covering her soft mounds with my mouth and ravishing her with my tongue. She moans out louder, and for a moment, I worry someone will hear us, but I can’t seem to stop myself. Can’t stop my dragon. A desperation claws at me to find out what she tastes like, what she’ll feel like when I push my cock into her. Dropping down onto my knees, I begin to pull down the shorts she’s in, when her hand grips my hair, pulling my eyes to her face.
“I like you on your knees,” she purrs as she leans down to eye level. “Every princess should have a monster willing to bend the knee just for her. Willing to worship her as she deserves.” She licks up the side of my face before standing back up and spreading her legs slightly.
The confidence in her voice makes my eyes roll back in my head, the little resolve I was still pretending to have snapping. I rip off her shorts, and my mouth waters at the sight of her pussy. “Fuck, you smell good,” I mutter, my voice husky. “I bet if I touch you, you’ll be soaking wet. Dripping, all for me.” My fingers trail up the inside of her thigh, then back down her leg. The red blood still painting them stands out brightly against her unnaturally pale skin. She lets out an inpatient groan, her fingers tightening in my hair.
“Stop playing with me. Eat my pussy like a good boy,” she demands. My cock hardens to a painful level. My dragon preens at the idea of fucking her right here.
The first taste on my tongue as I push through her silky folds has me ready to build temples and worship at the altar of her cunt. And as I move up and swirl around her clit, I’m certain I could die a happy man in this moment. She grinds into my face as I lap at her wetness. I push one finger in and marvel at how tight she is. I continue my slow assault on her tiny bundle of nerves and feel her pussy flooding around my finger as I pump it in and out.
“Oh, fuck, yes, that feels so good,” she cries out. “Just like that. You're going to make me come!” She continues to ride my face, her arousal dripping down my arm now. “Oh, God!” she screams.
I can feel her pulsing around my finger, squeezing it as she pours herself over me. I drink her up greedily, like a desperate man for water. When she is just coming back down, I pull my finger out and push her onto the shit mattress. Working my pants off quickly, I notch my hard dick to her center.
“My name is Shadow, but I can be your god tonight,” I say, and I push my thick cock into her, giving her no time to adjust. Looking down at her, I see discomfort lying on top of the arousal. “Shit,” I mutter. Reality crashes around me as I regain control from my dragon.
As I move to pull out of her, she wraps her legs around me, holding me hostage. “If you even think about stopping, I will fucking kill you.” She pushes her hips up, impaling herself fully on my hard cock. She breathes in and out deeply as she adjusts to my massive size. Panic starts to claw its way into my chest as I realize she’s hurting, but the little hellion under me refuses to allow me to back away. “Fuck me. Now,” she demands, rolling her hips.
My body moves without permission, just a puppet willing to obey its master. I push my hand down and circle her clit with my fingers, and her body loosens under me until we are both writhing in pleasure. Her moans fill the dark space around us with bright light and evaporate my control once more as I become more beast than man. A tether of that light stretches between us, attaching to a space in my chest that has felt so cold and alone.
“Mine,” I bark. “You are mine.” I latch onto her neck, teeth scratching the skin. The deep ache pulsing in my chest, the push to sink my teeth into her, is overwhelming.
“Yes. Make me yours. Yes, Shadow.” My name on her lips as that breathy prayer is my undoing. I feel my canines extend, my mouth partially shifting. My dragon forces my jaw to close around her neck, biting down to put our mark on her. The taste of her floral blood invades my mouth. I rip my teeth out and see the savage mark marring her neck in a messy fashion. It gives me, and my dragon, great satisfaction to know that’ll scar.
Just like that, I’m pushed over the edge, my climax flooding me with such intense pleasure, the only thing I’m aware of is her body. Rope after rope of my release fills her as she finds her own. She’s panting out my name repeatedly as we ride the waves together. Nothing matters other than the feeling of being inside her, the taste of her blood, and the sound of my name on her lips. I don’t care that we are in the place that shattered my already dark soul and remade me into the demon I am today. Don’t care that two feet away is the rotting body of the guard I just killed for daring to put his hands on her. Don’t care that I’ve only just met her.
She’s mine. Now and forever.
This stranger whom I’ve claimed, for better or worse, for the rest of our lives.
EIGHT
Power belongs to those who take it. And we will take it back.
– Mori Family Grimoire
A few weeks later . . .
Shadow
“Why won’t you look at me?” Ava pleads. Her voice sounds so broken, so unlike her. “You haven’t looked at me, much less touched me, in so long. But you keep coming here. It’s fucking torture, Shadow.” Tears well in her silver eyes. I back myself into the wall, arms crossed, desperate to keep distance from her. The savage claiming mark on her neck is a beacon to remind me why I need to stay away. Every time since that first claiming that I’ve touched her, I’ve barely been able to hold back completing the bond. It’s why I stopped.
The weeks have not been kind to either of us. We look strung out, the incomplete bond riding us into the ground. I know it’s my fault. I should stop coming here to see her, but I can’t seem to give it up. Can I die from this? Can she? Because fuck, it feels like we might.
“I can’t, Ava. Just, please, eat the food.” I push the meal forward with the toe of my boot. “It was a mistake.” The words burn as they leave my mouth. My dragon thrashes against me inside that cage he’s locked up tight in.
It’s not a mistake! You are being a fool! he seethes.
We’ll hurt her, I snap back at him.
No. We won’t. And if you ever stopped for a moment, you’d realize we never hurt our mother, either.
Grabbing the food, she throws it at me, narrowly missing my head. Angry tears stream down her face. I’m thankful for the distraction, because it pulls me from that dangerous line of thought my dragon keeps pushing at me. This fucking narrative that we didn’t kill our mother.
“Fuck your food,” she growls. “I know what this is, Shadow.” She points to the bite mark on her neck. “You claimed me.” She pushes forward and comes to a stand directly in front of me, her hands grabbing onto my crossed forearms. Her anger softens, and that feels worse. “Shadow, please. You claimed me. I want you. Want this. I know you feel it, the connection we have, or you wouldn’t have bitten me. I’ve dreamed of you every night, that grove of trees out there, the only thing that's kept me sane during the darkest parts of my life here. I knew you would be the one to take me away from here. It’s why I let you take me, because I understood our connection on some level already. You're my mate. Please don’t deny this.”
Everything in me stills at the confession. Words clog my throat, emotions start to suffocate me as they press into my chest. Panic clouds my vision, and I shove away from her at the same time my arms want to reach out and hold her close to me. The mention of my old home rips my mind to shreds as I relive the terror and horror of being in that aviary. What’s almost worse is the look of utter devastation on her face when I go back toward the door.
“This was a mistake.” It isn’t lost on me that I’m doing the exact same thing to her that Drago did to me.
The tears finally leave Ava’s eyes, her thin body collapsing to the ground as silent sobs wrack her frame. “Just get me out, at least. If you don’t want me, fine. But get me out.” Her arms fold tightly around her body as she asks to be saved over and over again. I’m at war with myself as I watch her break apart, because I want nothing more than to scoop her up and ease her suffering, but I know where that will go, so instead, I force my body to leave the small cell. Leave my mate broken on a cold floor.
I have been selfish. I’ve kept her here so I could see her whenever I wanted. The reality of it hits me square in the stomach, knocking the wind from my lungs. I’ve allowed her to suffer for the simple fact that I know once she is out of the prison, I’ll never see her again.
A plan starts to form in my head. If I cannot mate her, at the very least, I can save her from that hellhole.
Even if it demands the steepest price yet.
My portal opens into our penthouse. Ciaran looks over at me from where he lounges on our gray couch off to the side. I barely stop to tell him to go check on Ava as I race to my room. I slam my door, the motion making me feel like a teenager pissed at his parents. My movements are jerky as I’m assaulted by emotions and thoughts that I would rather avoid, my hands shaking as I grab the Eufori off my nightstand.
The anxiety is a living beast, devouring me from the inside out. The thought of keeping Ava in my life is just as distressing as not. Both thoughts are parasites, chewing away at the little sanity I hold. My throat feels too tight to breathe properly, as if the anxiety is trying to suffocate me. A slow, painful death. One that I will get to relive over and over again because I’ll never be free of Ava and therefore never free of this anxiety.
The Eufori finally lights and the crimson smoke worms its way into the quicksand taking up residence in my chest. The relief is almost instant, the darkness locked back behind a cloudy piece of glass only one crack away from allowing me to sink into the depth of that agony. But not today. Today, the glass holds and keeps the quicksand locked away. Just another predator waiting to be unleashed when I’m least expecting it.
“What is going on?” Ciaran pushes through the door, ignoring that I had closed it. His tone makes it worse—worry. I don’t deserve his worry or the empathy currently plastered across his face. I deserve to suffer, particularly after what I just did to my mate. But you won’t even allow yourself to feel, you just escape into the drug. If you truly wished to suffer, you would stay sober. You would feel all those things. “Shadow?”
Ciaran pulls me from the spiral. Pulls me from where those dark thoughts will go next. A reminder of how lovely it feels to bleed.
Taking a deep inhale, I finally speak my shame: “I fucked up.”
Ava
It's been a week since Shadow fled from me, denying our bond, and I feel like crawling out of my skin. Everything in me is begging to be in his arms again, but I can’t leave this cell. He is my obsession, an addiction, and when I don’t get a hit of my drug, I feel like I’m going to lose it. Until last week, he had become a constant in my life since the day he killed that guard. I never asked what happened to the vampire, but since that day, no one has dared come near me. I see vampires pass me by, disdain clear on their faces, but no one enters my cell.
Shadow. The man who has taken over my body and soul. The man who owns me completely but won’t finish what he started. The claiming mark on my throat pulses with need to be finished, yet he won’t do it. I let out a long sigh as I lie on the shit mattress. He may have friends in high places, but I'm still stuck here. Still waiting to be freed.
It's the soft footsteps that pull my attention toward the doorway. It’s late in the evening, a generally calmer time in the prison as vampires head out into the city to get their kicks at the local nightclubs. So, hearing someone in my hallway causes me to frown. Sitting up, I press my back against the wall and watch my door. The key pushes into the old lock, and I see a blond head in the light as the door opens. A massive Viking-looking man moves in, and for a moment, my heart stutters in fear because he emanates power similar to my home. Those blue eyes of his widen just a fraction when he meets my silver ones.
“Ciaran,” he says by way of greeting. As if that name should mean something to me.
I raise my eyebrow at him. “Ava,” I respond. “Do you speak in full sentences, Viking?”
He chuckles darkly. Moving into the room, he shuts the door behind himself, leaving us with only the light from the sliver of moon that hangs just outside the window.
I kick my legs back out in front of me, an attempt to look at ease despite the continued discomfort that my body is in. Either from being in these conditions so long or being away from Shadow, it’s unknown. “What can I do for you?”
He assesses me, my already small frame even smaller now that the guards have decided I’m not worth feeding regularly, given they can’t seem to touch me. Shadow had been bringing me food, but given I haven’t seen him in a while, it means I haven’t eaten either. It’s not like you were even eating before that. Ciaran frowns. I can tell he doesn’t like what he sees. “Shadow sent me.”
Fear and anxiety lance through me, the mark on my neck practically burning. “What happened?! Is he okay? Where is he?” My questions come out lightning fast. I’m practically tripping over my tongue.
“He’s fine, but the wrong people were noticing him being around you too often.”
My stomach bottoms out. “And who would those people be?”
He crosses his massive arms across his chest, those eyes still searching over me. “My father, for one.”
Fuck. “Ah. So, you are Alexi’s son I’ve heard so much about.” My back stays propped up against the cool stone wall of my prison, but my hands fiddle nervously with the frayed edges of the moldy blanket.
Ciaran lets out a long sigh. “My father is a piece of shit. I try to avoid being like him at every turn, but alas, sometimes you have to be a villain.” His eyes shine bright for a moment, as if he truly regrets what he just said, but just as quickly, the emotion is gone. “You're almost free, Ava. Shadow just wants to make sure you’ll be safe when you leave, that's all.”
I feel my eyes narrow. “Anywhere is safer than here. Why couldn’t he come himself?”
Ciaran holds up his hands in surrender. “I’m not here to fight, just deliver the message. And you would be surprised what’s safe and what isn’t in Gothic Grove now.”
“So, he sent you? I feel like this is below you, Ciaran.” I try to laugh, but the thought of escape feels like a fever dream, and I don’t dare to hope it’ll work.
Ciaran shrugs. “Shadow is my brother. I would do anything for him. And you . . . I was curious about you.” He turns to head back to the door. “I’ll get you some more food but know that he’s working as hard as he can to free you. We both are.”
He’s out and gone before I can say anything. The oddity of the interaction begins settling in my chest. Ciaran Helvig radiated power, and not just vampire power. No, he smelled of witch and something akin to home. But if he was from Hell, he would have said something. Right? The question bounces around in my head. I wasn’t hidden from people, so most know who the royal family is, and the silver eyes I have are only a mark of royalty.
I sit against the cool wall for what feels like eternity before finally lying down. The stupid wool blanket is still barely hanging onto life as I cover my body with it. Just as my eyes close, I hear the door open again.
“That wa—” The words turn to dust in my mouth as I see three large vampires enter the room. I can’t catch their movements fast enough, and suddenly, they are on me. Holding me down to the mattress as I thrash.
“Alexi wants Shadow to know he’ll never be free of this place. Tell him this is his fault,” one breathes into my face. True fear lances through me as the third one, the one not holding me down, brandishes a knife. In a sweeping arc, he cuts open my stomach. A scream erupts from my mouth as I feel my warm blood spill out across my skin. The three laugh as I try desperately to press my hands to the giant wound, to stop the blood from pouring out. My vision goes in and out, their forms hazy as they move out of the room. I try to grab for my magic, a desperate attempt, but the blood is leaving too fast.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I cry.
I hear someone come into the room, the sound of their boots echoing in my ears. My vision blacks out, and I swing my arm up in a lazy attempt to fend off another attack. Panic forges a path through my chest as darkness surrounds me. Open your eyes, Ava. Come on, open them up. Despite the heaviness of them, I manage to force my eyes to open for a moment longer, to look my attacker in the face before they kill me. But familiar blue eyes meet mine.
Ciaran.
He’s the last thing I see before I pass out.
Something is tugging on me—no, not something, someone. I can hear my name being called in the distance and feel hands tugging at my body as if they are trying to pull me up. I think it should hurt to be moving like this, but my body is numb. That can’t be good. I hear my name called again, and I try to open my eyes, but I can’t.
