Pure Requiem Read online

  The moment we’re inside our chambers, we’re tearing at each other’s clothes. Both of us are bloody and sweaty, battered and bruised, but it only makes us feel more alive.

  We’re fighters. Survivors. We live.

  And now we’ll “fuck each other’s brains out” to prove just how alive we are.

  Both of us naked, I lift her up with one arm around the waist, snap my hips back and bury myself balls-deep inside her in one lunging thrust.

  She growls wildly and attacks my mouth with her tongue and teeth, thrusting herself between my lips just as aggressively as I take her below.

  I back her into the wall of windows overlooking the city from dozens of stories above. Sophia said that no one can see through the glass from the outside; only we can see out.

  It doesn’t matter. I don’t care if the whole world sees me taking my Mate.

  She’s mine. This is my Claim.

  I’m hers. Always and forever.

  I pump my hips hard up and into her, nailing her against the window, long and deep, splitting her open with my thickness, keeping her right where I want her with punishing jolts that make her body shake and quake.

  She’s already convulsing helplessly around my cock and milking me with such vicious strength, a thousand stars explode before my blind eyes at the incredible wet, silky, clenching pressure.

  “Oh Dark Goddess…” Ishtar moans low and guttural. “Oh Tal…Tal, Tal, Tal…”

  I don’t stop thrusting, but I change the pace of my movements and draw them out, pulling almost all the way out to the tip, then agonizingly slowly screwing back in, reaching impossibly deep, grinding against that place that no one but me will ever touch. Making her shudder uncontrollably with ecstasy, her pussy drenching me with the evidence of her passion, the sounds of her wetness and the feeling of her juices dripping down our bodies, making me insane with primal lust.

  I splay my hand against her hip, then rove it over her waist and ribs, up to her full, perfect breast to cup it and squeeze possessively, flicking the pad of my calloused thumb across her distended nipple, before lowering my head to take it into my mouth.

  “Baby…oh my fucking gods!”

  Her sex clenches around me hard enough to make me groan in pain-filled pleasure, but I don’t let up on her nipple, tonguing, sucking, softly biting it between my teeth.

  Her hands claw my hair, pulling, scraping her nails across my scalp.

  I move to the other breast and give it the same thorough treatment, all the while never faltering below, undulating slowly in and out of her, making her orgasm endless, controlling the intensity and pace.

  I wish I can see myself thrusting into her body. I wish I can see the most intimate part of me Claiming the most intimate part of her.

  In my mind’s eye, I see the bulging head of my cock parting her tender wet folds. She’s tall for a female and extremely strong. But her sex is small and tight. I recall that it’s a blushing pink like the petals of a fragile rose.

  I imagine my cockhead working past those delicate lips like a meaty fist. The image must be as obscene in reality as it is in my head—that something so large and hard and brutally powerful should enter something so soft and small and vulnerable.

  But she’s no victim. She’s not the only one being taken.

  I see in my mind’s eye how her voracious pussy swallows the sensitive, plump head of my cock, how her tight, clenching channel devours my length as I feed it to her, inch by thick, steely inch.

  She owns me as much as I own her. Pulling me deeper, pushing me to go faster, harder. Squeezing unrelentingly around me like a silken vise, pumping me for my seed, sucking me deeper and deeper until all I want to do is live inside of her and never leave.

  Gods! I never want to leave.

  Her hands move from my hair and travel down my chest, her nails carved slightly into animal claws, raking thin bloody streaks in my flesh, adding to the wounds from training I already have.

  The pain excites me. Thrills me. Making the pleasure and pressure of her pussy convulsing around me even hotter, better, so fucking addictive.

  Her hands travel lower, until one hand circles my base, her fingers unable to meet around my thick girth, and the other hand reaches down to grab my balls in a tight fist. Kneading, pulling, squeezing.

  She wraps her strong legs tighter around me and uses the glass wall as leverage to push and pull against me in counterpoint to my thrusts. Curling her body tight, almost perpendicular to the wall, she revs the rolling power of her pistoning hips, her core sucking on me like a “vacuum.”

  I groan and growl helplessly, lost to the euphoric lightning in my veins, chasing the paradise that only she can ignite.

  She lowers her face into the crook of my neck and scrapes the tips of her fangs along my jugular vein.

  I tilt my head to give her better access, biting lightly on her shoulder.

  Her hand leaves the base of my cock to push and rub against my perineum while her other hand clutches my balls tight, stalling my release.

  I slow the undulations of my hips until I am merely pulsing inside her vagina, short bursts and long grinds against her voracious core. With the relative stillness of my upper body, she can slowly, painstakingly sink her fangs into the thick vein at my throat without tearing into it.

  At the first deep draw of my blood, I clench and unclench reflexively, helplessly, my body on the precipice of release, but her tight fist around my balls prevents it.

  When next my body squeezes tight and opens again, her longest two fingers push beyond my perineum to sink into me, burning me from both ends.

  I hiss at her invasion—her fangs in my neck, her fingers in my hole—it hurts so fucking good.

  I’m drunk on the pain. And the mind-numbing pleasure that follows it when her venom sets my blood on fire, when her fingers rub relentlessly against that raw, hungry, secret place inside.

  She sucks on my vein and thrusts into me in sync with my cock’s burrowing inside her core.

  You’re mine, all mine! She growls in our linked minds.

  My cock. My balls. My ass. MY TAL!

  All of a sudden, she releases my scrotum and pulls out of my throat. My orgasm barrels down upon me like an avalanche, and I shoot in hot, jerky pulses inside her, filling her up. So much, that it overflows us both, leaking down our thighs in milky rivulets, mixed with her own juices.

  Her fingers stay inside my ass, keeping the pressure and friction against that spot.

  Gods! It’s too much. She’s breaking me apart. Over and over and over, I shudder and quake against her, inside her, all around her.

  But I don’t want it to end. I love the way she destroys me. I love that she’s the only one who can ever put me back together.

  I can destroy her too. Only me.

  I shift against her in one smooth undulation, like a mountain range reforming after an earthquake. She slips her fangs out of my neck, not bothering to lick the puncture wounds closed. But my body is strong enough to heal on its own, my blood sizzling as my skin knits together.

  Lower, her fingers keep pushing and searching inside me, working me until my knees threaten to buckle. They’re curled tight against the center of my pain and pleasure, loathe to release me.

  She loves to enslave and own me this way. Any opportunity she can be inside me, she takes it ruthlessly.

  Takes me ruthlessly.

  I love it too. I never could have imagined it, but I do.

  She’s taught me over the past weeks since our rooftop rendezvous that by letting her take my body, touch all the parts of me inside and out that are broken, she’s owning my pain, healing it, stretching it into pleasure, and giving my self back to me.

  Now, when the nightmares come, when Medusa’s demonic laughter rings in my ears, Ishtar’s husky groans and sighs overpower those shrill, grating sounds, submerging them with tidal waves of passion.

  And when my mind teeters to the violation, the countless depravities the serpent forced upon
me, the memory of Ishtar’s touch in those same places, her kisses, her fingers, her tongue…the pleasure and pain that she gives me by my own desire…I now have the arsenal to fight back the darkness.

  I’m free. I’m still broken. But I’m me.

  And this is us.

  Gods, Tal, you’re so tight and hot. You’re an inferno inside. I want to live inside you forever. Soft and tender, encased in steel.

  Her fingers reach higher, caressing, her palm cupping my sacs lovingly.

  I give in to her possession of me for a few more moments, pulsing more cream into her body as she works that tortured gland inside.

  But she needs to let me go for a while, so I can wreck her right back.

  Let go of me, baby, I command her in our minds.

  No, she denies stubbornly, twirling her fingers ruthlessly.

  I shudder all over as the orgasm she wrings from my body builds anew, making me drench her with my seed in endless jets. I’m sore everywhere, but most especially in my cock, balls and ass. They’re all hers, as she claimed. Hers to kiss, touch, suck, eat. Hers to fuck however she wants.

  But she’s mine too. And it’s time I showed her.

  Now, Ishtar. Release me.

  Hearing the dominant edge in my tone, she finally obeys. Ever so slowly, she pulls her fingers out of me, rubbing circles lingeringly around the tender hole on her way out.

  The moment she does, I pull out, flip her around to face the wall of glass so fast and hard she has to brace her hands on the window to keep from falling. In the same breath, I thrust back inside of her from behind, plowing through her tight, wet tunnel like a “bulldozer.”

  Merciful gods! She shouts in our minds.

  But the gods won’t show her mercy. If she wants any relief, she will be praying to me.

  I grasp both of her wrists in one hand and keep them pinned over her head against the glass. With my other hand, I start at her throat and work my way down, while my cock pistons long and slow up inside of her, making her feel every inch of me, branding her with my scorching heat.

  Down over her breasts, my hand travels, palming one roughly, making her whimper, then soothing the other one with teasing gentleness, making her moan. I twist her nipple just as I slam deep, jolting her on both ends, making her come apart on a hoarse scream.

  Her unbelievably strong core muscles clench around my sex, milking, squeezing, clamping down hard. I don’t give in, gnashing my teeth from the effort of holding back.

  I want her to beg for it. I want her to sob for it. Only then, when she’s a mindless slave to my passion will I let her have it.

  My hand keeps traveling, smoothing down her belly, over her mons, to cup her pussy from the front while I work her relentlessly from behind.

  She shudders and shakes, helplessly convulsing all around me, orgasming so hard I can hear her teeth rattle.

  But I’m merciless. Just as merciless as she was with me.

  I cup her sex in my palm and press my thumb against her hardened bud, flicking restlessly over it, fluttering like wings. Her body locks tight with the onslaught of another high, and when she crests over its peak, I insert two fingers inside her, curling them high up against her frontal wall, stretching her even further while feeling my cock plow ceaselessly into her at the same time.

  “Tal… please… baby… please…”

  Yes, she’s begging me. Music to my ears.

  But that’s not enough to satisfy my beast. I want her writhing, thrashing, exploding in my arms. I want to hear her scream and cry and shout with ecstasy that only I can give her.

  When she’s at the edge of yet another monsoon of a release, I suddenly pull out of her, rendering her pussy bereft, pulsing achingly around emptiness.

  “No…nononono… come back! Love…inside!”

  She shakes her head from side to side, but I keep the rest of her immobile, my hand still owning her crotch, my fingers thrusting deep.

  She pushes her firm, muscled ass against my groin, seeking the fullness of my stalk, her back arching to open her pussy lips around my cockhead, trying to take me back inside.

  I keep myself just out of reach, thwarting her, but maintain the maddening friction and thrusting of my fingers and thumb.

  My seed leaks out of her and into my hand, slowly running down her thighs, making her sticky yet slick. I slow the penetration of my fingers inside her to collect the cream in my palm, and then I rub it into her sex, over her bud, over her belly, breasts and throat, to drip it from my fingertips onto her lips.

  She responds immediately, licking my palm and sucking each and every one of my fingers deep, hungrily consuming my seed until the last drop is gone.

  My hand travels back down her torso, and I start the process all over again. Playing with her pussy, toying with her sensitive lower lips, pushing the cream that leaks out of her back inside, rubbing it into her hot, sweaty skin.

  Branding her as mine.

  “Please, Tal. Please,” she sobs. “Inside…I need you so bad…”

  A shudder rips through her, and the edges of her form shimmer with aggression.

  She’s summoning the strength of her Great White Beast. She’s going to force my hand if I don’t give her what she wants.

  I pinch her clit in rebuke and make her gasp, just as I thrust deeply home once more.

  It’s a pounding, merciless ride after that. She’s going to be sore for days, and so will I.

  But gods!

  The pain will be glorious. The best kind of torment.

  I bite down on her shoulder to add another sting.

  She growls low and twists her head to the side, seeking my mouth.

  I devour her with my tongue and lips as I plunder her below.

  As one, we shatter against the glass. Souls, hearts, bodies and breaths united.

  Time after time, I come inside her. Live inside her. Reborn and remade, beneath her scars.

  Just as she lives inside of mine.

  Chapter Twelve: This Could Get Rough

  *EREBU*

  Dear brother,

  It’s time I blow this shindig.

  It’s been fun, don’t get me wrong. Great food, soft bed, all the Pure blood I need, interesting company (if a little boring). Apart from the years we had together back in those bygone Persian days, this little bubble of fiction has been the best.

  But all good things must come to an end.

  You didn’t think I’d stick around, did you? I have work to do. Schemes to plot. Mayhem to spread. People to betray…

  It’s what I do best, after all. (On second thought, if I had a do-over, I wouldn’t be a staid history professor. That would just be a cover. I’d sign up to be a secret agent, one of those double-triple-quadruple ones that you never know where his loyalty lies).

  I usually don’t leave incriminating evidence, but I’ll stash these letters I wrote to you. (Yes, I actually wrote them down.) I’ll make sure you find them when you’re back in the bosom of your loved ones. Sophia’s bosom, in other words.

  What? You don’t think you’ll be back? You think you’ll be stuck in Medusa’s experiment cage forever?

  Oh ye of little faith. I said I had a plan, didn’t I? It’s time to execute it.

  But back to me, since I am far more interesting and important than you.

  I wrote my fairytales in a sketch book for Benjamin, with drawings, embroidered calligraphy and everything. Please make sure he gets it. From his “Uncle Ere.” Titled: The Adventures of the Clever, Capricious Cuckoo. It’s a masterpiece of wit and unparalleled storytelling, I tell you. You can’t miss it.

  Now, I just have to find the perfect moment to get my plan rolling. Wish me luck.

  Toodaloo!

  E.

  The thing is—I don’t want to leave.

  And that’s when I realize—I have to leave.

  I’m no use to anyone here, coddled and pampered in a nest of phoenixes. I can’t fly away like they can (figuratively, that is). I can’t fight, and I
don’t have other useful Gifts. I’m just getting fattened up eating their food, taking up space like a great lump of lard in the corner.

  I need to leave before I overstay my welcome.

  But first, I want to soak in more of the addictive fiction so it can tide me over when reality crashes upon my head and suffocates me all over again.

  Friendship. Comradery. Affection.

  Love.

  I recruit Benjamin as second-in-command as I execute Operation Picnic. Ishtar gave us permission to use the private terrace garden above her and Tal’s apartment. My boy and I are in the massive chef’s kitchen piling all kinds of finger foods into his handy red wagon.

  “I think we need another wagon,” I say, looking at the veritable mountain of snacks and sandwiches teetering precariously in the plastic conveyance.

  “You can take this one up first, and we’ll come back and get more,” he instructs matter-of-factly.

  Bossy little thing.

  “I can?”

  “Well, you’re the Immortal, after all. I’m just a human boy. I don’t have the strength to carry all that up those spirally stairs.”

  “Makes sense.”

  “Of course I do.”

  I give him the side eye as he goes to the pantry to sort through juice boxes and napkins.

  “You know, dear Benjamin, there’s a thing called humility. Just because you’re the smartest boy in the world doesn’t mean you need to point to it with a neon sign.”

  “I didn’t,” he says readily. “You made a reference to my logic, and I merely agreed. Besides, you’re never humble.”

  “That’s because I’m not the smartest boy in the world. And because of that, I can afford to be sarcastic.”

  “If you say so,” he shrugs. “Or, it could just be that you have a bad habit of putting yourself down because you don’t like yourself as much as the rest of us do.”

  The devil!

  This eight-going-on-eight-hundred-year-old is going to be the death of me.

  Having lost that argument spectacularly, I obediently carry the wagon full of food up to the terrace garden, Benjamin following behind me with an armful of amenities.