Chapter 6: Gabriel takes Clara roughly against the rooftop balustrade, her dress shoved up around her waist as he pounds into her from behind, each thrust punctuated by the sharp sting of his fangs in her shoulder - 'You'll take every inch of my cock and blood, little librarian, until you forget any other touch.'
The cold, humid air of the service corridor bit into Clara’s skin, a shocking contrast to the opulent warmth of Gabriel’s chamber. She ran, not knowing where the narrow, concrete passages led, driven only by the need to put distance between herself and that bed, those mirrors, the scent of sex and betrayal that clung to her. The bond was a live wire in her chest, sputtering with conflicting currents—her own revulsion, and a faint, foreign echo of satiation that was not her own.
She found a steep, iron staircase and climbed, her hand sliding on the rusty railing. The door at the top was unlocked, and she stumbled out into a wall of scent—jasmine, damp earth, and the green breath of growing things.
The rooftop garden was a madman’s paradise. A jungle erupted from the building’s bones, with winding paths of cracked flagstone disappearing behind walls of ivy and twisted wisteria. Lanterns hung from branches, their flames guttering in the moist breeze, casting chaotic, dancing shadows. The city’s distant groan was a whisper here, smothered by leaves. Clara staggered to the parapet, her hands gripping the cold stone. She stared down at the dizzying drop to the alley below, her breath coming in ragged sobs that seemed too loud for the dense air.
“Fleeing the scene of the crime?”
His voice came from everywhere and nowhere, a vibration in the dark. She didn’t turn. She couldn’t.
Gabriel emerged from a curtain of Spanish moss like a phantom taking shape. He was dressed in simple black trousers and an untucked white shirt, the fabric stark against the lush gloom. He looked rested. Vital. His green eyes gleamed with an alertness that felt like an accusation.
“I didn’t commit a crime,” she whispered, her voice breaking.
“You witnessed one,” he said, moving closer. His footsteps were silent on the moss. “Or so it seems to you.”
Finally, she turned to face him. The cool detachment on his face was worse than anger. “She was on top of you. You were inside her.”
“I was unconscious.”
“Your body wasn’t!” The words tore out of her, sharp with tears. “You reacted. You held her. You… finished.”
He tilted his head, a scientist observing a fascinating specimen. “My body is centuries old, Clara. It has its own memories, its own habits. Seraphina is one of those habits. The mortal concept of infidelity is a parochial lens through which to view an eternal existence.”
It was the worst thing he could have said. It made her feel small, foolish, and temporary. A passing fascination. A ‘parochial lens.’
“You said forever,” she choked out, the wound fresh and gaping.
“And I meant it.” He was before her now, close enough to touch. The heat of him, the gravitational pull of him, warred with the ice in her veins. “But forever is not a monogamous human marriage. It is an ecosystem, as Seraphina no doubt told you. She is a part of my existence, as permanent as the night. Your arrival changes the balance, it does not erase the landscape.”
His hands came up, not in a caress, but as a capture. Powerful arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her against him. She stiffened, but her body, traitorously, remembered his. The bond surged, a hungry, welcoming pulse that drowned out her mind’s scream.
“You are upset,” he murmured into her hair, his lips brushing the shell of her ear. “You feel betrayed. Your passion has a new, bitter flavor. I can taste it in the air.” His mouth traveled down the side of her neck, to the twin punctures on her shoulder. His tongue, shockingly warm, laved the sensitive marks. A bolt of pure, unwanted pleasure shot through her, pooling low in her belly. “She wanted you to see. She wanted to put her mark on this, on us. And now,” he breathed, his fangs a delicate threat against her skin, “you want to prove her wrong. You want to prove you are not a temporary diversion.”
One hand slid down from her waist, over the curve of her hip. He gathered the simple fabric of her dress, pushing it up. The night air kissed her thighs. His fingers, blunt and sure, slipped beneath the lace edge of her panties. He cupped her, and a low, approving rumble echoed in his chest.
“Soaked,” he said, the word dark and filthy. “Your mind is a storm of hurt, but this… this is honest. This is want. It’s rage and need all twisted together. It’s perfect.”
She hated him. She wanted him to vanish. She wanted him to fuck her until she forgot her own name.
His fingers pushed inside her, and she cried out, her forehead falling against his chest. He worked her with a ruthless precision, his thumb circling her clit. He was preparing her, opening her, and the humiliation of her body’s instantaneous betrayal was complete.
“You want to prove something?” he whispered, his breath cold now against her wet skin. “Then prove it.”
With a sudden shift, he guided her downward. Her knees hit the rough flagstone. Before her, he opened his trousers, freeing his cock. It was fully erect, thick and veined in the lantern light, a predatory fact of flesh.
“Show me you’re not afraid of the reality of me,” he said, his voice devoid of its usual melodic charm. It was a command. A challenge. “Show me you can take more than just my bite.”
The image of Seraphina riding him, whispering master, flashed behind her eyes. A new heat, one of pure fury, burned through the shame. Yes. This was the thing that connected him to Seraphina, to countless others. This was the root of the habit.
She wanted to master it.
She leaned forward, wrapping a hand around the base of him. The skin was like silk over steel. She didn’t hesitate. She took the head into her mouth, her tongue flattening against the slit, tasting the clean, salt pre-cum. She heard his sharp intake of breath.
Then she took more, pushing herself down, forcing her throat to open. It was too much, too fast. She gagged violently, tears springing to her eyes, saliva slicking her chin. She pulled back, gasping, a string of spit connecting her lips to his glistening crown.
“Again,” he commanded, his hand tangling in her curls, not gentle.
She obeyed. She took him deeper, fighting her body’s reflex. Her nose pressed into the coarse hair at his base. The stretch of her jaw was painful. The head of his cock nudged the back of her throat and she choked, a wet, ugly sound. She pulled off, coughing, dragging in air.
“You see?” she spat, tears and spit on her face. “I can—”
His grip tightened. “I don’t want pretty. I don’t want skilled. I want you. Your anger. Your desperation. Your messy, human claim. Now take it.”
With a sob of fury, she plunged down again. This time, when she gagged, she pushed through it. She relaxed her throat by force of will, letting him slide deeper. Her eyes streamed. Sounds gurgled in her chest. She moved, establishing a brutal, punishing rhythm—down until she choked, up to gasp, down again. She used her hand, twisting in time with her mouth, her other hand clawing at his thigh for balance.
The obscenity of it was the point. The sloppy noises, the spit dripping onto the moss below, the raw scrape of him against her throat. This wasn’t Seraphina’s practiced seduction. This was annihilation. She was trying to erase the memory of him with Seraphina by overwhelming it with this, by making him feel this—a raw, choking, desperate need that was wholly hers.
“Fuck, Clara,” he groaned, his composure cracking. His hips began a shallow, involuntary thrust, meeting her descent. “That’s it. Take it all. Gag on it. Choke on me.”
She was lightheaded, her vision spotting. The bond was a frenzied drumbeat, syncing with the rhythm of her mouth. She could feel his pleasure mounting, a tidal wave building at the edge of her own awareness. It fueled her. She redoubled her efforts, slurping, spitting, taking him to the hilt and holding there until her lungs screamed.
His release was sudden and violent. A guttural shout tore from him as he emptied himself down her throat. She swallowed convulsively, the bitter, metallic taste flooding her senses, another intimate violation. He pulsed again and again, and she took it all, until he finally softened, slipping from her bruised lips.
She collapsed back onto her heels, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, chest heaving. Her throat was on fire. Her knees ached. She felt utterly destroyed.
Gabriel looked down at her, his expression unreadable. He tucked himself away, his movements slow, almost languid. He reached down, his thumb tracing the smear of cum and spit on her chin.
“There,” he said softly, the predator’s calm returning. “Now you have a new memory to compete with hers. A raw, human, messy one.” He pulled her to her feet. She swayed, unsteady. “But understand this, little bird. What you just did came from a place of pain. It was magnificent. But it doesn’t erase centuries. It simply adds a new layer.”
He kissed her forehead, a chillingly paternal gesture.
“The question is,” he murmured, leading her, numb and hollow, back toward the staircase, “what will you build on that layer tomorrow?”
He led her not to his opulent chamber, but to a smaller, sparser room she hadn’t seen before. It held only a wide, low bed draped in grey linen and a single candle. He released her arm, and the silence stretched, taut as a wire. The taste of him was still a bitter film in her mouth, her throat raw.
“You’re trying to calculate the cost,” he said, watching her stare at the bed. “You’re weighing the humiliation against the high of my attention. It’s a mortal habit. Accounting.”
Clara turned. The numbness was receding, burned away by a sharper, clearer flame. “You told me to build a layer. Not to calculate.”
A faint, approving gleam lit his eyes. “So?”
“So get on the bed.”
For a heartbeat, he didn’t move. Then a slow smile touched his lips, the first real one she’d seen since the garden. He obeyed, lying back against the plain pillows, his shirt open. He was a statue of casual power, waiting. She approached, her dress still rumpled from his hands. She didn’t undress with seduction’s grace. She pulled it over her head and let it fall, a puddle of fabric on the stone floor. Her movements were methodical, deliberate.
She climbed over him, her knees settling on either side of his hips. She took his cock in her hand, still soft from her mouth. She stroked him, her eyes locked on his, until he thickened and hardened once more, a heavy weight against her palm. She positioned the broad head at her entrance. She was wet, a slickness born of anger and a desperate need to own this moment.
Then she sank down.
She didn’t ease onto him. She impaled herself in one fierce, downward stroke, taking his entire length in a single, breathtaking claim. A punched-out gasp left his lips. Her own cry was sharper, a mix of pain and stunning fullness. She held there, seated fully, letting her body stretch and burn around the brutal invasion.
“You see?” she breathed, her voice trembling not with fear, but with effort. “I can take all of you.”
She began to move. This wasn’t the languid, possessive rhythm Seraphina had used. This was a frantic, driving piston. She fucked herself on him, using his body for her own furious purpose, riding him with a strength that came from some deep, untouched well inside her. Her nails dug into the hard planes of his chest. The slap of their skin was loud, percussive, animal.
“Clara—” he groaned, his head tipping back.
“No,” she snarled, increasing her pace, bouncing hard. “You don’t get to talk. You watch. You feel this.”
His composure shattered. His hands flew to her hips, not to guide her, but to hold on as she slammed down onto him again and again. A broken whimper escaped him. Then another. “Please—God—don’t stop,” he begged, his aristocratic veneer gone, replaced by raw, shuddering need. “Just like that, fuck, just like that.”
She felt a different, familiar ache deep in her core, a cramping heaviness she’d ignored in the storm of the last days. It crested now, timed with the violent rocking of her hips. A hot, sudden gush flooded out of her, a release that was not orgasm but biology.
The thick, dark blood of her period rushed out, a slick,温热 torrent from deep inside her. It spilled over their joining, coating his cock and balls in a sudden, shocking slickness of crimson. It dripped onto the grey linen beneath them, spreading in a vivid, primal stain.
He felt it. His eyes, glazed with pleasure, flew open. He looked down, saw the blood, smelled its rich, metallic, uniquely human tang. A shudder wracked his entire body. His grip on her hips became vice-like.
“Oh, fuck,” he whispered, awe and horror and a kind of rapturous disgust warring in his voice. “Oh, you perfect, filthy creature.”
He bucked beneath her, his orgasm tearing through him with a violence that seemed to pain him. He shouted, a raw, undone sound, as he emptied into her, his cock pulsing inside her bloody channel. She clenched around him, milking him, and a second, smaller gush of her own blood followed his release, painting his skin.
She collapsed forward, her sweat-slicked body pressing against his. The coppery smell filled the air, dense and intimate. He was panting beneath her, his hands stroking her back with a strange, reverent desperation. He was whispering into her hair, the words fragmented, almost prayer-like.
“Mine,” he breathed, but it sounded like a question. “You are… this is…”
Clara closed her eyes. The layer was built. It was not made of silk or promises. It was built of spit, and blood, and the sound of his begging.