“Say. It.”
“I’m yours,” I rasp.
“Louder.” He tightens just slightly, his thumb under my jaw, fingers curled against my throat, and thrusts again. Harder.
“I’m yours,” I scream. “Fuck, I’myours.”
The water beats against my back. His hips slam into me again and again, pace vicious and perfect. My palms splay on the tile. My vision blurs. I don’t want soft. I want this. Ruin wrapped in muscle and control. He bites my shoulder. His other hand slips around to rub my clit, fast and cruel and perfect. I cum hard, legs shaking, throat tight, and he keeps going. He fucks me through it like I’m not made of flesh but flame, and he’s trying to douse the fire and stoke it at the same time. When he finally lets go, it’s with a growl that shakes my bones. He spills inside me with one savage thrust, then rests his forehead to the back of my neck. We’re both panting. Steam clouds the room. My pulse thrums everywhere. For a second, we just breathe. The shower thunders down. His arm slides around my waist “You're still here,” he says, voice low.
“Barely.”
“That’s enough.”
I towel off like it matters. Like the bloods really gone. Riven hands me a clean shirt, one of his, silk, and I pull it on without meeting his eyes. He doesn’t say a word as he leads me back through the mansion. Barefoot and half-wrapped in silk, and the heat from the steam.
We pass through the front atrium and into that hallway again. The one with the glass cases. I slow my steps, staring into the display of ruin, the crown still shattered, that knife still glinting with memory. “You ever wonder,” I murmur, “if all of this is your confession?”
Riven doesn’t answer. He stops at the black door at the end of the hall, touching his hand to the center. The lock clicks open. It’s the same room, the one where he first cornered me and I stood my ground. Now, I walk in first. I cross to the desk. He doesn’t tell me to sit, so I don’t. “Who is he?” I ask, voice calm. Too calm. “Elias,” he says, simply. “Pestilence.”
“That’s not a name. That’s a fucking omen.”
“So is yours.”
I flinch, just slightly. Enough. Riven crosses the room, picks up a decanter, and pours two fingers of something dark and expensive into a crystal glass. He hands it to me, but I don’t drink it. “You knew he’d get in my head,” I say. “You knew what he’d show me.”
“I knew he’d try. I didn’t think he’d succeed so soon.”
“Then why the hell didn’t you stop it?”
“Because I’m not the one he answers to.”
I stare him down. Hard. “So who the fuck do you answer to?”
Riven smiles. “No one. That’s the problem.” The silence crackles.
Outside, the wind picks up. A tree limb scrapes against glass, unleashing haunting wails through the nearly deserted halls. “Elias sent me a word,” I say suddenly. His head tilts up, sharp.
“What?”
“In the dream. One word. Latin. I think”
“What was it?”
“Necrose”
His body stills. The glass in his hand tightens just slightly, not enough to crack. “That’s not just a word,” he says. “It’s a sentence.”
“What does it mean?”
He meets my eyes, dark and steady. “It means rot. Not just decay, but willful destruction. From the inside out.”
“And he said it like he knew me.”
Riven nods once. “Because he does.”
14
The Hunger in the Dark
