Chapter 5: The Morning After
He woke to the scent of frost and old paper. The furs were warm, but the air in the chamber was a knife’s edge. Rumi was already up, seated at her cluttered table, a single candle throwing wavering shadows across the planes of her face. She was utterly still, watching him with an expression he couldn’t parse.
“You snore,” she said, her voice cutting the silence. “A wet, human sound. It’s revolting.”
Benno pushed himself up on his elbows, the fur slipping to his waist. “You don’t breathe. It’s like sleeping next to a statue. Creepy as hell.”
A flicker in her crimson eyes. Almost amusement. She looked back to the page before her, but her attention wasn’t on it. The silence stretched, comfortable in a way that unnerved him more than her threats.
He rose, naked, and walked to the tall, lead-paned window. The world outside was a monochrome study in white and gray, the sky a solid sheet of cloud. No sun. Just eternal, frozen twilight. He pressed his forehead to the cold glass.
“Do you ever miss it?” he asked, not turning around. “Daylight? Warmth that comes from a sun and not a hearth?”
“I don’t remember it,” she said flatly. “I was born into this. The cold is what I know. The dark is what I am.”
He turned. She was still looking at the book, but her finger wasn’t tracing the words. It was pressed hard against the parchment, as if trying to feel the ink. The loneliness in that small gesture was a physical weight in the room.
He crossed the space between them. She didn’t acknowledge him until he was right beside her chair. Then she looked up, her gaze guarded.
He cupped her cheek. Her skin was like polished marble, cool and seamless. She didn’t pull away. She leaned into the touch, just a fraction, her eyes closing.
“You’re thinking too loudly,” she murmured.
“What am I thinking?”
“That you’re a fool. That this is a sickness. That you should be running for the rusted gate even if your lungs burst from the cold.” She opened her eyes. “You’re thinking you should want to escape me.”
“Yeah,” he admitted, his thumb stroking the arc of her cheekbone. “I am.”
“And do you? Want to escape?”
His answer was to bend and kiss her. It was slow, deeper than he intended, a tasting. Her lips were soft, yielding. She made a small sound in the back of her throat, a sigh of surrender, and her hand came up to grip his wrist, holding his hand to her face.
He broke the kiss, breathing her in. “No,” he said against her mouth. “Not today.”
He saw it then—the fragile, terrifying hope that shattered the ice in her eyes for just a second before she masked it with a familiar slyness. “Good,” she whispered. “Because I’m hungry.”
It wasn’t a demand for blood. It was a question. An invitation.
He pulled her up from the chair. She came willingly, her body flowing against his. He walked her backward toward the great canopied bed, the black silk curtains pooling like spilled ink around the posts. He laid her down, her hair fanning out across the dark fabric, a splash of violent red.
This time, there was no frantic collision. It was a deliberate dismantling.
He started with her mouth, kissing her until she was pliant, her cool limbs loosening. He moved down, his lips charting a course along her jaw, the column of her throat. He lingered at the base, where her pulse should be, feeling nothing but smooth, immutable skin. He bit down, not hard enough to break it, but a possessive pressure. She gasped, her hips lifting off the bed.
“You want that?” he asked, his voice rough. “My teeth? Here?”
“Yes,” she breathed. “And no. Not yet.”
He smiled against her skin and continued downward. He took a nipple into his mouth, teasing the tight peak with his tongue until it was a hardened bud. He sucked, gently at first, then with more pressure, rolling the other between his fingers. Her back arched, a silent plea.
He worshipped her breasts, his hands and mouth claiming every inch of her pale torso. He moved lower, his tongue dipping into the shallow well of her navel. She was trembling, a fine, constant vibration. Her hands were fisted in the silk.
“Benno,” she said, his name a prayer or a curse.
“I’m here.”
He hooked his hands under her knees, pushing her legs apart. She let them fall open, granting him access. The sight of her, laid bare in the gloom, was obscenely beautiful. Her cunt was a slick, pink contrast to the pallor of her thighs. The scent of her, musky and sweet, filled the space between them.
He didn’t dive in. He made her wait. He blew a soft stream of air over her glistening folds. She jerked, a sharp intake of breath.
“Please,” she whispered, the word torn from her.
“Please what?”
“Taste me. Fucking taste me.”
He obliged. He leaned in and dragged his tongue through her slit in one long, slow, filthy stroke from her entrance to her clit. She cried out, a raw, unraveling sound. The flavor was dark honey and salt, uniquely her. He did it again, lapping at her like a man dying of thirst.
He focused on her clit, circling the swollen nub with the tip of his tongue, then flattening it to apply firm, rhythmic pressure. She was writhing, her heels digging into the mattress. “Right there, oh god, right there,” she chanted, her voice breaking.
He pushed two fingers into her, curling them, searching. He found the spongy spot inside and pressed. Her whole body clenched around his fingers, a vice of silken muscle.
“You’re so fucking wet,” he groaned against her, his words vibrating through her. “You’re dripping for me.”
“More,” she demanded, her hand tangling in his hair, not pushing, just holding on. “Don’t stop. Make me come on your tongue.”
He redoubled his efforts, his tongue a relentless instrument on her clit, his fingers pumping in and out of her soaked channel. The sounds were lewd, wet, intimate—the suck of his mouth, the slick slide of his fingers, her ragged, escalating moans.
He felt her tighten, the coil springing. Her thighs clamped around his head, but he held firm, drinking her in as she shattered. Her orgasm pulsed around his fingers, a series of fierce, fluttering contractions, and a hot gush of her release flooded his mouth. He milked it from her, lapping and sucking until she was limp, twitching with oversensitivity, her grip on his hair going slack.
He crawled up her body, his own need a painful ache. He kissed her stomach, the valley between her breasts, her throat. She was panting, her eyes glazed.
He positioned himself at her entrance, the broad head of his cock nudging her wetness. He looked into her eyes. “Mine,” he stated, a raw claim.
“Yours,” she echoed, her voice wrecked.
He sheathed himself in one deep, relentless thrust, burying himself to the hilt. They both gasped. The fit was perfect, exquisite. He braced himself over her, his arms trembling.
He began to move. It was a deep, pounding rhythm, each stroke a full, wet retreat and a hard, claiming return. The bed groaned in time. He fucked her with a focused intensity, watching her face. Her lips were parted, her eyes half-closed, lost in sensation.
“Harder,” she urged, her nails scoring his back. “Fuck me harder. I can take it. I want to feel you in my spine.”
He obeyed, driving into her with brutal, beautiful force. His balls slapped against her ass with every thrust. The heat between them was a furnace, defying the cold of the room.
“You feel that?” he grunted, his breath hot on her neck. “That’s me. All of me. Remember it.”
“I will,” she moaned, her head thrashing side to side. “I do.”
He felt his own climax coiling, a tight spring in his gut. He shifted his angle, grinding against her clit with each descent. Her eyes flew open, meeting his. A second wave was building in her, he could see it, feel the renewed tension in her body.
“Come with me,” he demanded, his pace becoming frantic, sloppy, perfect. “Now, Rumi. Come on my cock.”
It was the command that broke her. Her body seized, a silent scream on her lips as her inner walls convulsed around him in rhythmic, gripping pulses. The sensation tore his own release from him. He plunged deep and held there, roaring as he emptied himself into her, jet after hot jet, spilling inside her cool depths.
He collapsed, his weight pressing her into the mattress. They were a mess of sweat and spent passion, slick where they were joined. He didn’t pull out. He couldn’t. He nuzzled into the crook of her neck, his breaths coming in ragged gulps.
Long minutes passed. The candle on the table guttered.
Her hand came up, her fingers tracing the new scratches on his back with something like regret. “My sisters are hunting tonight,” she said quietly, her voice humming against his ear.
The warmth fled from his skin. “What does that mean?”
“It means the castle will be loud. It means they will be sated, and drunk, and looking for sport.” She turned her head, her lips brushing his temple. “It means you will stay here. You will not leave this room for any reason. Do you understand?”
He understood. The fragile peace of the last few days was an illusion. The real world, her world, of blood and screaming, was just outside the door.
He lifted his head to look at her. The softness was gone, burned away by the flames of their coupling. Her eyes were ancient again, hard as garnets. The predator was back, giving orders to her possession.
“And if they come to the door?” he asked.
Her smile was thin, sharp, and full of a terrible promise. “Then they will learn why I am the one who keeps what is mine.”
A thunderous, distant crash echoed through the stone corridors, followed by a peal of laughter that was all teeth and malice. Katarina. Or Lilith. It didn’t matter.
Rumi’s gaze snapped toward the sound, her body going taut beneath him. The moment of vulnerability was over, sealed away like a tomb. She was listening, calculating, protecting.
Benno held her tighter, and knew, with a certainty that was both comforting and horrifying, that the rusted gate was no longer an option at all.