Chapter 2: On Your Knees, Princess
The word “mate” hung in the air, a brutal, biological term that stripped the act of any ceremony Camilla might have imagined. His cock was a brand against her palm, impossibly hot and rigid. The sheer, animal vitality of it was a shock to her system, so different from the cool, still power that flowed in her own veins.
He didn’t give her time to process. His grip on her wrist tightened, and he used his body to steer her, backing her up until the edge of his mattress hit the back of her knees. She sat with a soft gasp, looking up at him, her eyes wide in the dim light. The grainy image of herself on the monitor watched over his shoulder, a silent, ghostly witness.
“Simon?” she tried again, the name a question, a plea for context in this whirlwind.
“Quiet,” he rasped, his voice rough. The command was not unkind, but it was absolute. He loomed over her, a tower of scarred flesh and intent. His hand, the one not holding hers, came up to cup her jaw, his thumb stroking over the line of her cheekbone. The contrast between the gentle caress and the violent tension in his body was dizzying.
Then he applied pressure, his thumb pressing against her lips. “Open.”
A flicker of ancient instinct, of predator’s pride, made her hesitate for a fraction of a second. But he was her handler. He was the anchor in this bewildering new century. And the heat coming off him was a siren call to the cold deep within her.
She parted her lips.
His thumb slid away, and he guided the head of his cock to her mouth. It was slick with his own fluid, a salty, musky taste that was wholly, undeniably him. She flinched, her fangs—those delicate, deadly instruments—instinctively extending a fraction, scraping lightly against the sensitive skin of his inner thigh.
Ghost went perfectly still. A sharp, hissed breath escaped him. His eyes, dark and blazing, locked with hers. There was no fear in them. Only a hotter, deeper intensity.
“Careful with those,” he murmured, his voice a low thrum. His hand moved from her jaw to her hair, tangling in the pale strands. It wasn’t a violent grip, but it was firm, possessive. “Now. Learn.”
He pushed forward.
The feeling of him filling her mouth was overwhelming. It was an invasion, a claiming. She gagged instinctively, her body recoiling from the intrusion, but his hand in her hair held her steady.
“Breathe through your nose,” he instructed, his tone shifting into something closer to the one he used on missions—calm, directive. “Relax your throat.”
She tried, her eyes watering as he slid deeper. The taste of him was everywhere, a primal, masculine flavor that made something low in her belly clench. She could feel every thick, veined inch of him, the brutal reality of his arousal. This was nothing like the chaste, political unions of her time. This was raw and filthy and real.
He began to move, a slow, testing rhythm. His hips pumped gently, and she felt the head of his cock hit the back of her throat. She gagged again, tears welling in her eyes.
“That’s it,” he breathed, his voice thick with a pleasure he was barely restraining. “Just like that. Take it. You’re taking me so fucking well, Camilla.”
The praise, crude and tender all at once, did something to her. The initial shock began to recede, replaced by a strange, burgeoning sense of purpose. She was doing this. She was pleasing him. She let her jaw go slack, allowing him to set the pace, her tongue flattening against the underside of his shaft.
He groaned, a deep, ragged sound that seemed to be torn from his chest. “Fuck. Yes. Just like that.”
His thrusts became less controlled, more urgent. The room was filled with the wet, obscene sounds of her mouth on him, his ragged breathing, the creak of the bedsprings. He was fucking her face now, his grip on her hair tightening, guiding her. Her fangs were a constant, perilous presence, and the knowledge of their sharpness, so close to the most vulnerable part of him, sent a thrilling, dangerous current through the act.
“Look at me,” he grunted.
She forced her tear-blurred eyes up to his. The sight of her—on her knees, mouth stretched wide around him, utterly submissive—seemed to shatter the last of his control.
“I’m gonna come,” he warned, his voice a guttural snap. “Swallow it. All of it.”
He drove deep, holding himself there as he pulsed. A hot, bitter flood hit the back of her throat. She swallowed convulsively, the unfamiliar act making her throat work around him as he emptied himself, groan after wrecked groan leaving his lips.
When he finally stilled, he didn't pull away immediately. He stayed there, buried in her mouth, his body trembling with the aftershocks. He gently withdrew, his cock sliding out with a soft, wet sound. He looked down at her, her lips swollen and slick, her eyes dazed.
He sank to his knees in front of her, his hands coming up to frame her face. His thumbs wiped at the tears and spit on her cheeks. The fury was gone from his eyes, replaced by something unreadable, something dangerously close to awe.
“Lesson one,” he repeated, his voice hoarse. But this time, it sounded less like an instruction and more like a confession.
His breath was still ragged, his chest rising and falling in a rhythm that matched the frantic beat of her own dead heart. He didn’t move away, his thumbs still tracing the damp paths on her cheeks, his gaze holding hers with an intensity that felt like a physical touch. The air between them was thick with the smell of sex and sweat, a pungent, human intimacy she was only beginning to comprehend.
“You listened,” he said, his voice a low rumble. “You took it all.”
A strange, warm feeling bloomed in her chest, something entirely separate from the cold logic of her nature. She nodded, unable to form words, her tongue still tasting the bitter salt of his release. His eyes dropped to her mouth, to the faint hint of elongated canine that had scraped his thigh.
A slow, deliberate smile touched his lips, something she had never seen before. It wasn’t kind; it was possessive, proud. “Good girl,” he murmured, the words a rough caress. “That deserves a reward.”
He shifted his weight, bringing one heavily muscled arm up between them. His other hand moved to the back of her head, his fingers threading through her hair again, but this time the grip was inviting, not demanding. He tilted his own head, exposing the strong, corded line of his neck, where a pulse throbbed just beneath the skin.
“You want this, don’t you?” he asked, though it wasn’t really a question. He had seen the way she watched him, the subtle flare of her nostrils when a fresh cut bloomed on his knuckles after training. “I can feel the hunger in you.”
Camilla’s breath hitched. The primal urge, the one she fought to keep leashed around the warm, living bodies of the task force, surged forward with a dizzying force. Her fangs fully extended, a sharp, aching pressure in her gums. “Simon,” she whispered, a plea and a warning.
“Do it,” he growled, his voice dropping to a whisper against her ear. “Drink.”
She didn’t need another invitation. She lunged forward, not with the graceful precision of a hunt, but with a desperate, clumsy need. Her mouth found the hot skin of his throat, her lips sealing over the frantic pulse. She sank her fangs deep.
The skin gave way with a soft pop, and then his blood flooded her mouth.
It was an electric, copper-hot rush, so much more potent and alive than any memory from her past. It was him—his strength, his fury, his hidden tenderness—coursing into her, filling the cold, empty spaces. She moaned around the wound, her body shuddering as she swallowed greedily, her hands clutching at his shoulders.
Ghost grunted, a sharp, pained sound that quickly morphed into a deep, guttural groan of pleasure. His hand tightened in her hair, holding her fast as she fed. “That’s it,” he rasped, his own hips pressing forward against her stomach. “Take it. Fuck, Camilla.”
The metallic taste was intoxicating, a drug more powerful than any the modern world had shown her. With each pull, she felt more connected to him, the line between handler and asset, between human and monster, blurring into irrelevance. He was giving her a part of himself, and she was taking it with a ravenous gratitude that bordered on worship.
He was panting now, his body trembling not from fear but from a shared, visceral high. “Enough,” he finally breathed, the word strained. He didn’t push her away, but his grip on her hair loosened, a gentle suggestion.
She reluctantly retracted her fangs, her tongue lapping at the twin punctures to seal them, a reflexive, caring gesture. She leaned back, her lips and chin smeared with crimson, her eyes wide and dazed. The world seemed sharper, the colors in his Spartan room more vivid.
Ghost looked down at the blood on her face, his expression unreadable for a moment before he swiped his thumb through it, wiping it from her chin. He brought his thumb to his own mouth and licked it clean, his eyes never leaving hers. The act was more intimate than anything that had come before.
The taste of his blood was still a copper kiss on her tongue, a shared secret that hung thick in the air between them. He didn’t speak, just stared at her with those dark, fathomless eyes, his chest still heaving. Then his hands were on her again, but this time they were not guiding or demanding. They were stripping her.
He tore the soft fabric of her shirt, buttons pinging against the concrete floor. The sound was violent, final. His calloused palms scraped over her cool, pale skin, mapping the delicate architecture of her ribs, the surprising softness of her breasts. “You’re so fucking cold,” he grunted, his voice rough with awe, as he pinched a pale nipple, making her gasp.
He pushed her back onto the rough wool blanket of his bed, his body covering hers, a furnace smothering a marble statue. The heat was immense, shocking. It seeped into her, a feeling so alien it was almost pain. He kicked his own trousers off, his cock, already hard again, pressing insistently against her thigh.
“Look at me,” he commanded, his face inches from hers. She did, her ancient eyes wide, reflecting the single bare bulb overhead. He reached between their bodies, his fingers finding her core. She was wet, a slick, unexpected heat that made him groan. “Fuck, Camilla. Already?”
He didn’t wait for an answer. He positioned himself, the broad head of his cock pressing against her entrance. He paused for a single, suspended second, his eyes searching hers for any hesitation. There was none. Only a bottomless, curious hunger.
Then he drove into her.
It was a single, brutal thrust that filled her completely, stretching her, claiming a space that had been empty for centuries. A sharp, broken sound escaped her lips, part shock, part pleasure. He was so deep, so impossibly hot inside her coldness. He stilled, letting her adjust, his forehead dropping to hers. “Breathe,” he rasped, his own breath shuddering.
She let out a shaky exhale, her body slowly accepting the invasion, the feeling of being utterly full. Then she moved, a tentative, experimental roll of her hips. It was all the permission he needed.
He began to move, setting a slow, devastating rhythm. Each thrust was a deliberate piston, grinding against a spot inside her that made her see stars. Her cool legs wrapped around his waist, pulling him deeper, her blunt nails digging into the scarred skin of his back.
“Is this… mating?” she gasped, her voice strained, as he angled his hips and hit a new, breathtaking depth.
“This is fucking,” he corrected, his voice a raw scrape against her ear. His pace quickened, becoming less controlled, more animalistic. “Hard and raw. Just like you fucking take my blood.”
The crudeness of his words, paired with the intense, physical connection, shattered something in her. Her composure broke. A low, guttural moan tore from her throat, a sound she didn’t recognize as her own. Her hips rose to meet his, each collision a wet, slapping echo in the sparse room.
“That’s it,” he growled, his control fraying. “Come on. Come for me. Let me feel it.”
His command, the relentless friction, the memory of his blood on her tongue—it was too much. Her body convulsed around him, a silent, shattering climax that locked her muscles and stole her breath. Her eyes rolled back, a pale, ethereal statue coming undone.
Feeling her internal spasms, Ghost lost his rhythm entirely. With a final, brutal thrust, he buried himself to the hilt and came with a choked, guttural roar, his own release hot and pulsing inside her. He collapsed atop her, his full weight pressing her into the mattress, his face buried in the crook of her neck where he had let her feed.
They lay like that for a long time, tangled and spent, the only sound their ragged breathing slowly returning to normal. The air was thick with the smell of sex and blood and him.
Slowly, carefully, he rolled off her, but he didn’t let go. He pulled the rough blanket over their cooling bodies and gathered her against his side. Her head found a place on his shoulder, her ear over the steady, strong beat of his heart. One of his arms was a heavy, secure weight across her back, his fingers absently tracing patterns on her cool skin.
They laid in bed together in each other’s arms, the tactical light from the corridor casting long, distorted shadows of their entwined forms on the far wall.