With his gaze riveted on me, unlocking something deep and dark and beautiful in me, he lowers his head until his lips brush mine. “I didn’t want the crown without the Queen who wears it.”
His mouth slams against mine, conquering and consuming. OhgodohgodohgodohgodohGOD! Five of them. And one high god. The King chased the pawn across the board until she turned…into a Queen. And now…their high goddess.
With his mouth still on mine, Raphael carries me down the hill, through the storm with the others like shadows following in sacred silence.
And at the sight of the first thick tree, Raphael drives my back up against it, spreading my legs, taking himself out, and driving inside me.
44
Raphael
TONIGHT, SHE IS CLAIMING HER OWN POWER…
Citizen Soldier Playlist
“This Is Your Sign”
“Caroline”
“You Are Not Your Past”
Iwill give her what she wants. I will give her what she needs.
I always have. From the time I caught the axe she swung, and she stepped into the eye of the storm, to a few moments ago when she looked up from the ground, rain-slicked and trembling, her confession like broken glass, I knew. I knew I would collect her piece by piece, every raw, bleeding fragment she thought no one could stomach—no one could possess.
And here she is now—cornered, shivering against the tree, with nowhere left to run.
I taste her fear and the leftover scraps of rebellion inside her. I exploit her at her most vulnerable state. Tonight, with every cry of pain and pleasure she makes, she is pledging her power, her life, her very soul to me. But I am also saving her at her weakest.
After tonight, her soul belongs to me.
“Briella…” I taste her little whimpers, drinking them down like sacrament.
Every sound she makes fuels me, claims me, binds us until I’m thrusting harder into her—grinding her down, feeling her unravel under me, feeling herbecome.
Keeping her pinned with my strength, I take her by the throat. I feel her pulse beneath my palm, frantic and alive. As wild as the rain all around us.
I pause here, tilting my head. I face her down in the storm raging all around us—and the one in our souls. Inviting her to kneel. Only we exist in this moment with the shadows of four other monsters behind us, bearing witness to the unholy ritual.
“Raphael…” Her hazel eyes shimmer like fractured, wet jewels in the rain as she stares back at me, a perfect surrender. “The arrow! Please! I need?—”
“I am your High God and judge of what you need,” I murmur, dragging my teeth across her throat, slow and deliberate, my words slick with promise and violence. “Even when you don’t know what the fuck that is. You are ruined and wrecked as we are. Carrying old scars you denied until we marked you for our own.”
I sink my teeth into her throat, tender, feeling her swallow. After softly pulling back the skin, I let go. “Now, you have five monsters who will carry them for you. Our name is written into every last one—as yours are written into ours. The pain of these moments, the agony that is crushing you…you will remember for eternity. The scar that will form on your leg will remind you of what will happen if you ever run from us again, Briella. Our Queen.”
Her purple-brown hair coats the sides of her face. Her skin is cold, but she feels like soaked flames around my hardness, burning with her own fire, the fire she found from the moment those words left her lips.
“I want to be you.”
With great power comes…more power.
I do not give her mine. No exchange. I’m still a psychopath.
I pause, my shaft throbbing inside her, my pelvis grinding against hers, skin sealing her closed. Like I could push myselfso far, she couldn’t tear herself away even if she tried. I feel her body tense, hear the tremble in her breathing, the way she’s splintering.
Tonight, she will claim her own power through the pain, seeing andunderstandingwho she truly is.
She is sitting with her monsters. With death itself. Not with fear. Not with indifference.
