Chapter 1: Blood-Slicked Fingers in the Cursed Bath
The water in the great clawfoot tub had long gone cold. Mathilda didn’t care. She wasn’t here to get clean. She sprawled naked on the blood-warmed stones surrounding the bath, the chill of the polished obsidian seeping into her back, a sharp contrast to the fire between her legs.
Her breath fogged in the damp air. The single chandelier above cast wobbling shadows from its few guttering candles, multiplying her form in the tarnished mirrors that lined the walls. She looked like a ghost, pale and sprawling, save for the pink flush painting her chest and throat.One hand was busy. Two fingers plunged deep into her soaked cunt, the sound obscenely wet in the vast, echoing chamber. She pumped them slowly, then faster, her hips rising off the stone to meet her own thrusts. The other hand twisted the small silver ring through her clit, a sharp, bright pain that made her gasp and her cunt clench around her fingers.
“Dyvian,” she moaned, the name swallowed by the dripping silence. She imagined it was him. Not his fingers, but his cock. That monstrous, thick length she’d felt pressing against her but hadn’t yet taken. He was ancient, his body a relic of another time, and the thought of it splitting her open made her whimper. She pictured his cold hands pinning her hips, his red eyes watching her unravel, his fangs grazing her throat not as a threat, but a promise.
She fucked herself harder, imagining the stretch, the burn. Her tits heaved, the silver barbells through her nipples pulling taut with each frantic movement. She was close, so close, teetering on the edge where thought dissolved into pure, aching need.
The candles in the chandelier snuffed out all at once.
Not a draft. It was a presence.
The darkness was absolute, a physical weight. Mathilda went still, her fingers slipping from her body. The only sound was her ragged breathing and the slow, deliberate drip of water from a faucet.
“Do not stop on my account.”
His voice was like velvet dragged over stone, emanating from the corner where the shadows were deepest. A thrill, equal parts terror and lust, shot down her spine.
“You’re back,” she breathed.
“I am.” A rustle of fine cloth. The scent of night air and something metallic—blood, fresh blood—wafted through the chamber. “I found you playing. A poor substitute.”
She heard the smile in his voice, predatory and intimate. A match struck, sudden and violent. He lit a single tall candle by the tub’s edge. The light revealed him, leaning against the marble wall.Dyvian. His long black hair was loose, framing a face of unsettling, angular beauty. His eyes glowed like banked coals. He’d fed. The vitality thrummed beneath his pale skin, making him seem more real, more there, than anything else in the crumbling manor.
“I was thinking of you,” she said, not moving from her sprawl.Let him look. She saw his gaze travel the length of her: the damp thatch of hair at her apex, the slick shine on her inner thighs, the silver glinting on her breasts.
“I know.” He pushed off the wall and moved toward her with a predator’s grace. He wore a dark robe, loosely tied. It parted as he knelt beside her, revealing the hard planes of his chest, the pale, flawless skin. And his cock, already fully erect, jutting thick and heavy from its thatch of dark hair. It was indeed monstrous, a veined, ruddy length that made her mouth water and her cunt pulse anew.
He didn’t touch her.Not yet. He just looked, his red eyes devouring the sight of her arousal. “You are dripping for me, little wife. Marking the stones of your ancestors. How fitting.”
“Don’t just look,” she demanded, her voice husky.
A slow smile touched his lips. He reached for the discarded towel she’d brought, his fingers deft. With a deliberate slowness, he began to tear it into long, sturdy strips.
“What are you doing?” she asked, pushing up on her elbows.
“Using props,” he said, his tone conversational. He looped one strip around her right ankle, pulling her leg out to the side and tying it securely to the heavy leg of the tub. The coarse linen bit into her skin. He did the same with her left ankle, spreading her wide open before him. She was completely exposed, helpless, her swollen cunt lips parted and glistening in the candlelight.
“Dyvian…” Her protest was a whisper.
“You called for me,” he murmured, running a single, ice-cold finger from her throbbing clit down to her entrance, gathering her wetness. He brought it to his mouth, tasted her, and his eyes fluttered closed for a second in pleasure. “Now you have me. You will take me as I wish to give myself.”
He moved up her body, his knees pushing her thighs wider. The head of his cock nudged against her, a blunt, impossible pressure. He didn’t enter her. He just pressed there, teasing, smearing her own slickness over her sensitive flesh. She writhed, trying to impale herself on him, but the ties held her fast.
“Please,” she begged.
“Since you ask so nicely.” His hands gripped her hips, his fingers pressing hard enough to bruise.
Then he slammed into her.
The invasion was brutal, complete. He was so big he stretched her to a burning ache, a delicious, overwhelming fullness that stole her breath. She cried out, a sharp, broken sound that echoed off the marble.
“Gods,” he snarled, pausing, buried to the hilt. “You are so fucking tight. So hot.” He began to move, setting a relentless, punishing rhythm. Each thrust drove the breath from her lungs. The sound of their bodies meeting, skin slapping against skin, filled the chamber, mixed with her choked moans and his low, guttural growls.
He leaned down, his mouth hovering over hers. “This is what you wanted. My cock wrecking this perfect little cunt. You feel it? Every inch?”
“Yes,” she sobbed, her nails scraping against the stone. The pain of the stretch melted into a tidal wave of pleasure, building from her core with each deep, penetrating drive. The silver rings on her breasts jangled with the force of his movements.
He shifted angle, and on the next thrust, he hit a spot inside her that made her see stars. Her back arched off the ground, a scream tearing from her throat.
“There,” he grunted, hammering that same spot over and over. “Come for me, Mathilda. Come on my cock. Show me.”
The command, the sheer dominance in his voice, shattered her. Her climax ripped through her, violent and convulsing. Her cunt clenched around him in rhythmic pulses, milking his length. She shook, whimpering, lost in the sensation.
He fucked her through it, his pace never faltering. As her spasms subsided, he withdrew completely, leaving her empty and clenching at air. She whimpered in protest.
“On your knees,” he ordered, untying her ankles with swift, efficient tugs.
She was limp, boneless, but she obeyed, scrambling onto her hands and knees on the cold stone. He positioned himself behind her, his hands grasping her peach-shaped ass, spreading her cheeks. He entered her again in one long, smooth stroke, and this angle was even deeper. He fucked her like an animal, his balls slapping against her with every powerful drive. One hand fisted in her blood-wavy hair, pulling her head back, arching her spine.
“Mine,” he rasped into her ear, his cool breath a contrast to the sweat-slick heat of her body. “This cunt, this ass, this breath… all mine. The last heartbeat in this cursed place belongs to me.”
She was hurtling toward another peak, the coil tightening again impossibly fast. “Dyvian, I’m gonna… I’m gonna come again…”
“Do it.” His thrusts became erratic, frantic. “Now.”
She screamed as she fell apart a second time, the pleasure so intense it bordered on agony. With a final, brutal thrust, he buried himself to the root and held there. A hot, liquid pulse flooded her depths as he came inside her with a raw, triumphant roar.
For a long moment, the only sounds were their ragged breaths. He collapsed over her back, his cool skin pressed against her feverish own. He nuzzled her neck, his fangs dragging lightly over her pounding pulse point. Not biting. Just tasting the promise.
Slowly, he pulled out of her. She winced at the sensitivity, feeling the thick trickle of his spend mix with her own juices on her thighs. He turned her onto her back, his expression unreadable. Then he lowered his head between her legs.
She cried out as his tongue lapped at her, cleaning her, tasting their combined mess. It was shockingly intimate, more so than the fucking. When he was done, he moved up her body, kissing a slow path over her stomach, between her breasts, up her throat. He kissed her mouth, letting her taste herself on his tongue.
He gathered her into his arms, standing with her as if she weighed nothing. He stepped into the cold bath water, sitting down with her cradled in his lap. The water swirled around them, tinged pink.
He held her, one hand stroking her hair. Outside, the wind howled through the ruins of the estate. In here, there was only his cold strength and her slowing heartbeat.
“The moon is high,” he murmured, his chin resting on her head. “The dead are restless in the churchyard.”
She snuggled closer, her ear against his silent chest. “Let them be restless.” She traced a faint, old scar on his collarbone. “Did you… was the feeding…?”
“A traveler. He won’t be missed.” His arms tightened around her. “No one comes here but the lost. And you are no longer lost. You are found. You are home.”
She believed him. In this tomb of a manor, in the arms of a monster, she had never felt more found. The candle by the tub guttered, threatening to plunge them back into darkness. She didn’t fear it. The darkness now held his shape. It was hers.