“Why does it hurt?”
“Because you have the power to destroy me.”
Brontë turns his cheek into mine, his scar branding my skin. “I’m not Nikolai.”
“I know.” I blindly reach for his fingers. His hand twines with mine like it was always meant to be there. “I need you to do something for me.”
Smoke billows from his nostrils as he cocks a brow, waiting.
“Is there a rune for ‘love?’”
“Oui.”
“Carve it.” My free hand wraps the knife, dragging the blade down to my heart. “Right here.”
“Poppy—”
“Now, Scythe. Live up to your name.”
Taming his snarl, Brontë puffs the cigar and passes it to me. “Breathe.”
Sweet smoke fills my lungs as the knife tips into my flesh. He ghosts the blade in an intricate pattern over my skin, showing me what hell I’m in for. Then he wraps his arm around my waist and pulls me higher. Until his rigid cock nudges my entrance.
“I’m going to fill this pussy past full,” he whispers in my ear, “but I need you to stay still while I work. Can you do that for me?”
“Hai.”
“Spread those heavenly lips.” I obey, reaching down to split my seam wide. His crown presses into me, blood oozing down his length from the intrusion. I moan as he groans, “Fuck, Poppy. Do you see that? Your cunt isweepingfor me.”
And then he carves the first line.
Pain bolts from my chest, ricocheting in my heart and pounding between my legs as he sinks deeper into me. Pleasure melds with agony, the blade shredding my skin as his cock buries into my soul. A burning sensation coils up from where he pushes into me, stretching me farther than I’ve ever been.
My body revolts, the pain of being split open above and below unbearable.
“Breathe. I won’t say it again.”
I bite the cigar, resisting the impulse to escape. My fingernails dig into his thighs. It feels like he’s caught me beneath his paw, claws outstretched as he drags me down and down to the pits of hell. His hips tilt, rocking another inch into me and splitting me apart from the inside. The growl that bursts from my throat doesn't sound human.
“You’re doing so good,ma reine.Just a little more.”
I’m nearly chewing the cigar to shreds. Tears leak from the corners of my lashes. His hilt is still a world away. I’m so focused on his cock, I barely feel the quick work he does with the knife. The blade leaves my skin with a stinging bite, and the cigar is plucked from my mouth.
“Look.”
I glance down to see his elegant script, the bleeding mark as indelible as scars and as stunning as the man who made them. I feel like one ofhis rebound books. Only, the story is my own. The ink, my blood. The binding, my bones. The hide, my skin. The rune, my soul.
Brontë grabs my jaw, popping my mouth open with his fingers and breathing smoke through my lips. “I love the sight of your devastation.”
He grips my hips andthrustsinto me, bottoming out and slamming his balls against my clit with an audible slap. My cry is silenced by the pounding rain. Blood gushes from between my shaking thighs. I swear I can see the outline of his cockpushingagainst my navel and bulging the arrow he drew there.
“Oh my God—”
“I’m right here. Now quit your bitching and take this dick like a good girl.”
His hips roll, grinding his base against my fingers still spreading myself open for him. Embers of euphoria ignite inside me, blazing through the agony. With painstaking slowness, he pulls me up and up, sliding out inch by heady inch. From root to tip, he’s soaked in my blood.
“I loathe you, Poppy,” he breathes when he’s withdrawn to his crown. “You’ve ruined me, body and soul, for any other.”
