Property of the Fae Read online

  He tilts his head forward until his breath mingles with mine. “I am so sorry I can’t give you what you want…but I can show you what it is to be possessed by an alpha. My way, Fire, you ready for that?”

  His eyes blaze at me. His look is intense, serious, and maybe that worries me more.

  So far it had we’d been playing a game, but now when he’s about to complete the act and possess me, I find…that I can’t wait.

  I flick out my tongue to touch my dry lips. His gaze darts down to my mouth, and his nostrils flare.

  I nod, and his chest muscles go solid.

  Then he drags a palm down to the curve of my butt, angles me just so, and nudges his dick into the entrance of my dripping channel.

  20

  Tristan

  Heat, moist heat and so soft. My dick is enclosed in liquid lust. Silk and velvet, the textures lap at my skin, the kind I have never felt before. I try to describe it, and the words stutter in my head.

  Her pussy clamps around the head of my shaft, and a groan boils up. “You are so tight, Fire.”

  I grit my teeth and stay poised at the entrance to her channel.

  She moans. Her muscles ripple with fear, with desire. And something more…that anticipation that leaches from her pores and bleeds into mine. The scent of her arousal wafts around me, going to my head and driving me a little mad.

  I yank her thighs apart until she’s completely bared to me, then I plunge into her.

  A scream is torn out of her. Her back rises off the bed.

  She throws her head back, baring the long, creamy column of her neck. My canines lengthen further. The vein beating at the base of her throat is so tempting.

  The tip of my dick scrapes the soft walls of her channel.

  A ripple of lust sizzles down my back. Moisture slicks my shaft; the sensations pour into my skin. Too much. Too fast. Every part of my skin stretches and throbs.

  My blood heats at once. I want…need to mate her physically, emotionally, on every level. So what’s stopping me?

  She’s showed me how much she wants me to do the same. And yet…I can’t. There’s something inside me that’s making me pull back. The fact that I am…tainted. I am filth, and she is someone who deserves better. When I first saw her, she’d seemed so vibrant, a flame, one who’d light up the dark corners of my heart.

  Who’d finally soothe the beast inside me. That ravenous hunger that had consumed me, filling a need to take and possess. To tear into her. To ruin her. To mark her pristine skin and own her. And I still want to, but I cannot hurt her the way I’d intended to, and whoa, hold on. What am I thinking?

  Seems inside this hardened, no-good heart of mine there exists a morsel of decency. Yeah, the food metaphors keep bleeding into my vocabulary, just the way I am. And she…she is my salvation. The only one who can redeem me.

  The one for whom I’d give up everything. Even my career at the Fae Corps, the only thing that has kept me grounded for so long. Why doesn’t that shock me? Where Fire is concerned, I seem to be predictably unpredictable. My pulse thuds at my temples.

  She goes still under me. Her belly quivers; her chest rises and falls. “Chef?”

  “Tristan.”

  “Huh?”

  “Say my name, Fire.”

  “Thought you wanted me to acknowledge that you were my master?”

  “Yeah, about that…”

  She tilts her chin up.

  “I am not sure I should go through with it.”

  A furrow appears between her eyebrows.

  “Thought that was my dialogue.” Her lids half close, until only a glint of amber spills through the cracks.

  She contracts her inner muscles around my dick, and my groin hardens. “Don’t do that,” I grind out the words.

  “What?” Her gaze widens. All innocent. She gnaws on her lower lip. Her pupils flash vertical, and the combination of it sends a fresh surge of heat shuddering down my spine. My balls draw up. And I so want this. Want her. So need to mark her. A primal need coiled inside me snaps, and a roaring fills my ears. My blood pounds in my veins. The pulse beats to life on my eyelids, at the tips of my ears, even in my fucking balls.

  My canines elongate farther, tearing through my gums.

  Every part of me seems to tighten in anticipation. I harden inside her, filling her, straining against her walls, needing, wanting to possess her.

  She inhales sharply. Her pupils darken. “You are too big for me.”

  “I am.” I bare my teeth.

  A red haze fills my vision. The last remnants of the rational man I’d pretended to be, trying to fit in with the populace, melts away. The only time I’ve felt this loss of control was when my father had killed my mother. I’d descended into that same place, a numb space in which I’d floated, aware of what I was doing but not acknowledging it. I hadn’t stopped until I’d hacked his body to pieces. I’d been seven.

  That same part of me warns me that I am losing control. This is why I’ve tried to hold myself back. This is what has been stopping me so far. I set my jaw, trying to wrest back some semblance of control. Trying to push back the darkness that coils at the edges of my mind. I can’t do this. I am not my father. I am much worse. I am a monster.

  “Now you are scaring me.” Her voice comes out high, a little wavering.

  “Good.” A vicious satisfaction fills me, sweeping through me. It feels so fucking good, and that in itself sets my instincts jangling.

  “You want to hurt me?” She raises her head and holds my gaze.

  The gold of her irises ripples. Color flushes her cheeks.

  “Yes.” I force the word out through a throat gone dry. My insides lurch. All my muscles scream that this is wrong. I should get the fuck away from her. And when have I ever done the right thing? When have I ever stepped away from danger? That’s what she is. A threat to my sanity. My life has been turned upside down by her since I’d first laid eyes on her. It is time to put an end to this hold she has on me. Take her, fuck her out of my system. Drop my walls and show her exactly how depraved I am, and then she’ll never want to see me again. How strange that I had come here harboring a possibility of some kind of relationship…even, dare I say, a future with her, and now…now I want it more. Which is why I cannot have it. I cannot let myself have it. It’s why I am going to do this.

  I pump my hips forward and plunge into her.

  She screams.

  I pull out of her, and she tries to wriggle away from me.

  I grip her hips and hold her down, then slam into her again. Her back arches up and off the bed. Her eyes roll back, and she pants. I’ve done it now. This is it. She’s going to hate the fact that I’ve shown her exactly how merciless I can be, and isn’t that exactly what I wanted?

  I jam my elbow into the mattress and stay curved above her. My shaft throbs inside her, aching with need. My balls feel so fucking heavy I am sure they are going to fall off. I pull out of her again and stay poised at the opening of her swollen slit.

  Her breasts heave. Her eyeballs move behind her closed eyelids. She bites down on her lower lip again, and that sends me over the edge.

  “Open your eyes,” I growl. Right, do it. Go all the way, make her acknowledge who is fucking her, making her feel all kinds of emotions, making her feel used. Just complete this already so she can abhor you.

  She shakes her head.

  Anger squeezes my gut. Why is it that I need her to acknowledge it is me who is punching through all her defenses, stripping naked her body and soul, just as I am mine?

  “Look. At. Me.” I enunciate each word as if they are my last. As if this is the last time, I will be inside her. After this, there is no going back. Surely, she will want to walk away. Turn her back on me. And I have completely screwed any chance of peace between the Fae Corps and the dragons, too. All that fun stuff I’ll have to deal with later.

  She swallows, then cracks open her eyes.

  I can’t stop the chill that sweeps through me.
r />   Her pupils have darkened into pools of lust. Everything carnal that I have experienced, wanted to experience in my life stares back. My heart twists. My muscles freeze. I stay where I am, not sure when the power in this exchange had changed hands.

  “Fuck me already,” she rasps.

  My skin tightens, my shaft grows more rigid inside her. That last remaining sliver of reasoning fades. That energetic part of me coiled against my rib cage unfurls and seeps through me. Adrenaline spikes my blood, and my vision narrows. I hold her gaze, then pull back, all the way back to her entrance.

  Then I plunge into her.

  21

  Jess

  White. Hot. Too much. His dick fills me up, throbbing inside me. Hurting me. Making me feel alive.

  The swollen head of his shaft bumps up against my cervix, and the shock waves from the contact ricochet up my spine. My nipples pebble, and more moisture oozes out from my core. My chest feels full, and my heart drums so hard I am sure it’s going to break out of my rib cage.

  It shouldn’t feel so intense.

  He wants to punish me. He wants to punish himself for feeling what he does for me. His gaze narrows, and the skin around his eyes stretches. His shoulders hunch forward, and I can feel the anger that radiates off him.

  He hadn’t expected to feel the plethora of emotions that twist his features. Lust. Need and something more. A raw desire. The kind that is pure and adulterated. Unvarnished by anything. He’d wanted to hurt me. He’d wanted to control me…and I should have resisted more. But I didn’t. What does that make me? Greedy for punishment?

  One who’s been abused in the past and who needs to feel something? All the time I had tried to be with other men, it had felt wrong. I had forced myself to be with them. Shifters, humans…vampires. With each encounter I had tried to feel. But none of them had gotten under my skin. Until him.

  His muscles tremble. Heat plumes off him and slams into my chest. Every part my skin flushes with heat. He swallows, and the beautiful cords of his throat move.

  He’s feeling it, the intensity of that contact, and it shouldn’t be like this, it shouldn’t. I don’t like this man…no, that is too tame a word for him. What I feel for him is not something I can put into words just yet. I want him. I hate him. I need him to shatter the coldness that grips my heart. That numbness at my center which has made me an addict, always in search of my next sexual fix yet always unable to find release.

  Strangely, it’s with this man from whom I have no expectations—other than the fact that my dragon insists he is my mate… But the human part of me hasn’t quite acknowledged that yet. Not that it matters. Women like me, we don’t get to have mates. If we’re lucky, we find someone who makes us feel, and that…that’s what he is.

  Someone as damaged as me, who thinks he can hurt me, who doesn’t know that is exactly what I want. Someone who’ll shove aside all my barriers and simply take me. He'll pound me into oblivion and insist on my submission.

  My pussy clenches.

  Blood rushes to my cheeks, and my leg muscles quiver.

  He seems to sense the direction of my thoughts for he pauses over me. His lips part, and I know he’s going to say something, and I don’t want that. If he speaks, I’ll lose courage. If he says something soft and nice, I’ll burst into tears, show him the vulnerable part of me that’s just hiding out of sight, and I don’t want that. I don’t want him to see what I am. Talk about disguises. I want him to strip back my walls, but I don’t want him to see what I am. Go figure.

  He lowers his head. “Fire, are you—?”

  “Is that all you’ve got, Chef?” I drawl, making sure to keep my voice low, infusing a touch of disdain into my tone.

  His brows draw down. “What are you getting at?”

  “I’ve been fucked by vampires who’ve brought me to climax with more satisfaction.” Liar! I’ve never come before. Not a surprise since I’ve always retreated into my head during sex. I'd watched how I’d offered myself up to others, had tried to chase the next high, to feel something. Everything that I've felt with him. So why am I insulting him? Why am I goading him on?

  His nostrils flare. Sparks burn in those blue eyes until I am sure they are going to burn into me, and he calls me Fire? He doesn’t know yet who is the more dangerous in this thing we have going on between us. That I may burn him, but he…he can shatter me. He is breaking me right now the way he looks at me.

  A vein throbs at his temple, his cheeks flush with color, and…my stomach flip-flops.

  “I know what you are doing.”

  “Yeah?” I pretend to yawn, then bring my fingers up to my lips and pat my mouth.

  “You are trying to push me over the edge. You want me to punish you, Fire. Want me to take all choice from you so your conscience can rest easy. So you can go back to being the helpless victim you’ve made yourself out to be.”

  Anger greases my insides. The acidic taste of bile swirls up my throat. I pull back my shoulders, try to put space between us, but he only follows me down. He lowers his chest to mine, crushing me to the bed. Only then do I realize how he’d been keeping his weight off me all this time.

  “You don’t know what you are talking about.” My voice emerges cold, distant, while everything inside me screams to get out of there. To not let him go through with the intent I sense in him. That I had been wrong to provoke him. And now? It’s too late.

  “Don’t I?” He snarls. The skin stretches tight over his cheeks. He raises his arm in a fist and brings it down.

  I’d misjudged him again.

  I feel the thud as his fist slams into the mattress. The entire bed shakes with the impact. A jolt of shock sweeps through me. What have I done?

  His eyes spark, and the blue lightens until they resemble ice chips. Colorless, diamond-hard, the kind that would take me cruelly and not care one bit. My fingers quiver, my hips twitch, and a bead of sweat runs down my back.

  “You are using me, Fire.”

  “Yes, I am.” My voice quakes.

  “Why?” He sets his jaw. “I mean, I am more than happy to oblige, as you can tell.” He angles his hips, and his dick surges forward, bumping against my cervix again. “I can take you now, I can ram into you, all the way inside. I can show you what it means to be truly taken by a Fae, and there’s nothing you can do about it, but…” The tendons of his throat flex. “I’d rather find out why you’ve been baiting me since the very moment we met.”

  “I want you to make me feel,” I surge up until my breasts slam into the hard wall of his chest. “Is that so difficult for you to understand?” I smash my fist into his shoulder. His breathing doesn't even alter. How powerful is this alpha? Pain radiates up my hand and I gasp.

  “You shouldn’t have done that.” His voice is soft. Careful.

  I swallow. I have gone and done it now. My insides quiver. My nipples harden.

  He flicks back his ears, then smiles.

  No…it’s a grimace. An acknowledgment that he’s accepted my challenge. That I’ve finally awoken whatever monster he has been hiding inside. My dragon stutters to life then flares through my blood. It takes one distorted apparition to know another.

  My thighs spasm, moisture drips from my channel, and I clamp my internal muscles around his shaft.

  His biceps expand. Every vein under his skin seems to pop in relief. He lowers his head until his breath sears my cheek. “Congratulations, Fire, you got your wish.”

  22

  Tristan

  That man she knows as Tristan is dead. All that is left is this burning, fuming mass of need. This twisted thing that has only one goal. To possess her.

  Red fills my head. All thoughts fade away. My vision narrows in on her. Her mouth. Her throat. The vein that beats there. The blood that flows under her skin, so sweet. So potent. And all mine. She raises her hand, and I don’t hesitate. I swoop down, grab her wrist, and pin it above her head, then the other. Shackling her wrists with one palm, I bring the other to her throat. “
You want to see what you do to me? What I had in mind from the moment I first saw you?”

  Her breathing grows erratic. “No.”

  “Yes.” I thrust into her so hard her body slides up, and the headboard slams into the wall.

  Her shoulders stiffen, but she doesn’t pull away. She holds my gaze. Blackness swirls in her pupils, her vertical irises fixed on mine.

  “Did that feel good?”

  She doesn’t reply, just sets her jaw and thins her lips.

  “How did it feel Fire?" Something hot floods my chest. I need her tell me how much she craves what I do to her. How only I can bring her to climax, again and again.

  I pull out of her, all the way out to the edge of her slit, then ram into her with such force that my balls pound against her flesh.

  The breath wheezes out of her, and the color fades from her face.

  “Say that you want it.” That you want me.

  She sucks in her cheeks. Her eyes grow stormy, and flares of gold spark in the black. Still, she doesn’t look away. Doesn’t reply.

  That only angers me more, and I can’t explain it.

  I’d wanted to hold back a part of me, I’d only wanted to break her. I hadn’t realized that I’d have to smash all my barriers to do that. That in trying to bare the soul of this woman I’d have to let go of my past, too. That this would be as healing for me as for her, and where had that thought come from? “There is no redemption for me. For us.” Only when I hear my voice do I realize I have spoken aloud.

  “I agree.” She smiles, a turning up of her mouth. Her lower lip quivers.

  I swoop down and bite it.

  She shudders under me.

  I nibble small bites, to the base of where her shoulder meets her throat.