TWISTED (Eternal Guardians Book 7)

  “Holy fuck.” He braced his free hand against the rocks near her head and lowered his mouth to her neck, breathing heavily as he stroked her sex, then found the hard, tight knot of her clit. “You aren’t just wet, you’re fucking drenched.”

  She groaned, unable to resist lifting to meet each stroke. Zeroing in on her face, he watched while he flicked her clit again and again, while he trailed his fingers lower and teased the entrance to her pussy. While her eyes rolled back in her head and the first stirrings of her orgasm began to take hold.

  “You’re gonna come, aren’t you?” He pushed one thick finger into her slick channel, drew out, and pressed back in with two, pumping slowly, dragging her closer to that ledge. “Tell me how bad you want to come.”

  Her eyes squeezed shut. She bit her lip. Shook her head. Moaned when he hit an extra sensitive spot.

  “Tell me, Cynna.” He twisted his fingers inside her and rubbed his thumb over her clit. “Beg me to let you come.”

  He stroked faster. Pressed deeper. “Do it. Beg for me.”

  “Oh gods.” Her head fell back. Sweat slicked her skin. Her breasts pushed forward, and she rocked her hips against every thrust. “Yes, I want to come. It’s right there. Skata, don’t stop.”

  She opened her mouth to cry out. But before the wave crashed into her, he pulled his hand free and stepped back.

  Cynna fell forward in the restraints. Groaned at having been denied what she so desperately wanted. Whimpered.

  He moved in close again and braced both hands against the rocks on both sides of her head. “Had enough yet?”

  Her chest rose and fell with her uneven breaths. But slowly, she lifted her head and rasped, “Never.”

  She was tough. But then he already knew that. She had to be to partner with Zagreus, the sick fuck.

  He lowered his mouth to hers. Blew hot over her lips. Against his chest, her pulse picked up speed. She moaned and lifted to meet his kiss. But instead of taking her lips, he angled toward her ear, drew the soft flesh between his teeth, and bit down.

  Her whole body contracted, and she cried out. He licked and sucked his way down her neck, knowing he was leaving marks. Scraping his teeth over her left nipple, he pinched the right one with his fingers, then dropped to his knees in front of her.

  She choked in a ragged breath, opened her eyes to search for him. He grasped the waistband of her jeans and ripped through the denim like paper. A whimper met his ears while he jerked her boots free and stripped the ruined garment from her legs. Grasping the edge of her panties, he tore them from her skin and tossed them on the ground. Then he spread her legs and devoured her sex.

  A scream tore from her throat. He wasn’t sure if it was rooted in pleasure or shock, but he didn’t care. She tasted like honey, smelled like sin. He laved his tongue over her, drew her clit into his mouth, suckled hard, then scraped his teeth across her sensitive flesh. He hated her. He craved her. Wanted to make her pay. Needed to hear her cry of release. Thrusting his fingers back inside her, he tormented her with his mouth and stroked deeper with his hand.

  She was tight around him. So tight the blood pounded in his cock with his own need for release. Fighting the urge, he licked her again and again until she was panting. Until her body was drenched in sweat. Until his name was a plea on her lips.

  “Nick…”

  Synapses misfired. He wanted to fuck her. To thrust violently inside her. To leave her as wrecked as she’d left him. Not just physically, but sexually, mentally. Emotionally.

  “Oh gods, Nick…”

  He felt her orgasm about to break and drew back quickly, letting go so he was no longer touching her. So he wouldn’t be tempted to take her.

  She groaned again, this time in utter frustration. He pushed to his feet, and as cool air washed over his skin, he realized he was sweating too.

  “Beg me to stop,” he growled, leaning into her again.

  “No.” She swallowed hard. Shook her head. Her skin was damp everywhere. Her eyes wild. “I won’t ever ask you to stop. No matter what you do.”

  His frustration grew to epic levels. “I’ll keep you chained here.” He shifted his mouth to her neck, bit down hard on the slick flesh. She cried out, and he released her. “I’ll bring you to the edge again and again.” He pressed his hips into hers. “Use you as my own personal sex slave.”

  She sagged in the shackles. “No, you won’t.”

  “I won’t?” He lifted his mouth to her jaw and nipped there too. “You don’t sound so confident.”

  She whimpered but didn’t try to move away from his teeth. “I am.” Her words were pained, her body straining. “Because I know you’re not the monster Zagreus is either. And no matter what you think, you never will be.”

  Everything stilled inside him. And something hard and dead, buried in all that darkness, struggled to the surface.

  He eased back. Stared down at her. Knew she couldn’t see him in the darkness. But the way her eyes were locked on his made him wonder if she could see past his face. Past his barriers. Into the depths of his very soul.

  Beneath his ribs, his heart picked up speed, and along his spine, the scars carved into his flesh tingled with…doubt.

  She closed her eyes and lifted her chin. Then very gently, she pressed her lips against his.

  He froze. Couldn’t move. And suddenly didn’t know what to do next.

  She tipped her head, skimmed her lips over his again. Did it until the room was spinning around him and he had no clue which way was up.

  “I want you,” she whispered against his mouth. “I’ve wanted you for months. From the first moment I saw you. I won’t fight you. Never.” She kissed him again. Softly. Gently. Sweetly. “Take whatever you want. As much as you want. Take every part of me.”

  Heat gathered in his chest, shoving aside all the darkness, replacing it with light and need, propelling him forward before he even realized what he was doing.

  He lifted his hand to her jaw, opened his mouth to hers, dipped his tongue inside, and kissed her deeply. The way he’d dreamt of kissing her all those months locked in his cell. The way she was suddenly kissing him back, as if she was as desperate to taste him as he was to taste her.

  She groaned, stroked her tongue against his, and leaned her body into his, her belly cradling his cock, her heat and the tips of her breasts brushing his chest and making him even harder than before.

  Ah gods… His kiss turned greedy. She tasted like salvation. Like hope. Like light. And he’d had so little of each in his life, he was crazy for more. Delirious for it. Desperate. He brought his other hand up, cradling her face as he tipped her head to the side so he could taste her deeper, so he could kiss her harder, so he could get inside her.

  Inside her…

  He jerked his mouth back from hers. She gasped at the sudden withdrawal. Swiftly, he flicked the cuff free from her right hand, then the left, and ripped the sweater from the backs of her arms. She stumbled as soon as she was free, and her hands landed on his shoulders, but he caught her before she fell.

  His eyes found hers. He waited for her to push him away. To struggle now that she was free. But she didn’t. Her fingers sank into his muscles, her eyes darkened, and arousal flushed her cheeks. Then she lifted her mouth back to his and kissed him all over again. This time with a renewed sense of urgency that made his cock absolutely throb.

  More, more, more… They were the only words he heard. The only ones that made any sense. His hands streaked down her sides, then back over her ass. He grabbed hold of each cheek and lifted, pushing his way between her legs as he pressed her back up against the wall and devoured her mouth.

  He rocked against her slick heat as she kissed him. Groaned because she tasted so damn good. Burned with the heat of a thousand suns everywhere she touched. Flicking her tongue against his, she drew her hands between them, then struggled with the snap on his jeans.

  She tore her mouth from his. “Too much fabric. Take these off and fuck me.”


  Her words were like a drug, fogging his head, driving him faster toward an insanity he couldn’t stop. Harder than he was sure he’d ever been, he pressed her into the wall to hold her up, kissed her deeper, and freed himself from his jeans. Her hand closed over him as soon as he was free, dragging his cock toward all her liquid heat.

  He let her take the lead and slammed his hand against the wall. She dragged the head of his cock over her clit, circled the tight knot, and shivered.

  “Yes, yes,” she groaned, doing it again.

  Fuck. He couldn’t take it anymore. He trailed his lips down her throat, closed his teeth over the soft column, and bit down. She gasped. Her body trembled. The second his cock slid across the opening of her pussy, he thrust.

  She cried out as he sank deep. Groaned when he drew back, dragging his cock along her walls, then shoved in deep once more. Her fingers bit into his shoulders, slid up to his face. Tipping his head up, she closed her mouth over his in a kiss that rocked the ground right out from beneath him.

  More. Faster. Deeper.

  He plunged hard, fucking into her over and over, needing more. Needing everything. She wrapped her bare legs around his lower spine. Her sex squeezed tight, creating the most perfect friction. He hitched her higher in his arms so he could get as deep as possible. So he could hit that spot so far inside he knew would make her explode.

  “Nick…” Her fingers grazed his cheekbones, and she angled his face the other way. Kissed him so sweetly. So intimately, that place inside that had burst to life seemed to grow and warm and bloom. “Come. Come, right now. For me.”

  She’d said that to him before. In his cell, when she’d pleasured him with her hand. And just like then, he was powerless to do anything but what she commanded.

  His orgasm raced down his spine, burst in his balls, and ricocheted through every cell in his body.

  Her muscles spasmed, and she clamped down around him. And then she pulled her mouth from his and completely shattered. He thrust harder, even though he was spent, wanting to draw out her orgasm. Wanting to feel it ripple through his body. Wanting to know every ounce of her pleasure.

  When it faded, she fell into him. Her head landed against his neck. Her fingers slid through his damp hair. Her heat surrounded him, infused him, melded with his until he wasn’t sure where he ended and she began.

  Long minutes passed with only the sound of his pulse pounding in his ears and their mingled, heavy breaths echoing in the darkness. Every muscle in his body felt weak, wrung out, drained. And as the last edges of his release finally faded, he found he was glad the wall was holding them up. Because if it wasn’t, he was pretty sure he’d be in a heap on the ground right now, flat on his ass.

  Her fingers skimmed through his hair again, and a tingle raced over his scalp and trickled down his spine. “Mm. Thank you.”

  Those two words brought back another memory. Of her leaving his cell after she’d pleasured him, and his saying the very same to her.

  Reality slammed into him. She was naked, pinned between him and the stone cold wall, in a cell where he hadn’t planned to pleasure her but torture her.

  The day spun behind his eyes. Coming to the colony, finding it in ruins, leaving Cynna sleeping while he went to search for survivors, finding nothing but death. The anger and pain and misery. Taking it out on her. Coming here then torturing and using her.

  He wasn’t the monster Zagreus was? He dropped his head to her shoulder, unable to hold back the groan. He’d just proved he was more like his father’s fucking side of the family than anyone ever could be.

  “Don’t,” she whispered.

  He lowered her feet to the ground, then let go of her and moved back, needing space. Needing to let her go before he did something worse.

  “Fuck.” He tugged his pants up and scrubbed a hand over his face.

  She reached for him in the darkness, found his face, and captured his jaw. “Don’t. I liked it.”

  He stilled and stared down at her, shocked and even more the hell confused. “I left marks. Like he did.”

  “Yes, but the difference is I enjoyed it.”

  He cringed and looked away.

  “I never did with him.” She turned his face back to hers. “Not once. And you gave me a choice. I felt it when you freed me. He never did that. You’re not like him, Nick. Not at all.”

  He studied her eyes in the silence. Again searched for lies. And found…only truth. Or at least a truth she foolishly wanted to believe.

  His eyelids fell closed. He didn’t know what he was. All he knew was that he was tired of trying to figure it out. Tired of everything. Tired of hatred and misery and most of all, tired of the never-ending struggle.

  Her fingers grazed his cheek. “Let me help you.”

  He didn’t think anyone could. And that scared him more than anything. Because for the first time in forever, he felt like she might have been the one to do just that.

  If the fucking Fates had just for once been on his side.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “It has to be here.” Seated at a table in the great library in the heart of the castle, Callia flipped a book closed and reached for another from the mountain of ancient texts she’d pulled from the stacks. “There has to be some documentation somewhere.”

  Demetrius felt the female’s frustration as strongly as if he were seated next to her. And he was living it too. He was going nuts each day watching Isadora grow weaker and more tired for no apparent reason. Every time he tried to talk to her about it, she brushed him off with excuses about the Misos and the Council and Elysia. She might not want to face reality, but he knew in his heart something was wrong. Something Callia couldn’t find medically but which was draining her of her very life force.

  He tried not to dwell on the fact she was shutting him out. Tried not to think about what he’d do if he lost her. He wasn’t losing her. She was the reason his heart beat. And he was determined to find a solution. Even if it meant hour after hour sitting in this dusty library, reading every damn word that had ever been written.

  From the corner of his eye, he watched Zander close the book he was searching, move to stand behind Callia, and gently massage his mate’s shoulders.

  “We’ll find it,” he said to her. “Don’t worry.”

  “I can’t help but worry.” Callia flicked pages faster. “You saw her this morning. I think she lost another five pounds overnight.”

  “Thea,” Zander said softly. “Careful.”

  Callia’s auburn head came up, and she slanted a look Demetrius’s way, then cringed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. She’s—”

  “You’re right.” Demetrius closed the book he’d finished and pushed to his feet. His hands were shaking, his stomach a tight knot, and he felt that pull to close himself off from everything and everyone, but he wasn’t giving in to it. Isadora needed him, and he wasn’t regressing back into old habits. “She’s not sleeping and barely has an appetite anymore. Whatever’s affecting her is drawing a physical reaction, even if you can’t find it.”

  Callia sighed and looked back at the book in front of her. “Okay, let’s run through what we know.”

  Demetrius moved closer and leaned against a table while Callia whipped out a notepad and started jotting notes in furious scribbles.

  “She was fine a month ago.”

  Demetrius thought back. “I don’t know. Physically, I started noticing her lack of appetite about a month ago, but the restlessness, the sleepless nights… Those have been going on for a couple of months at least.”

  “She chalked it up to the strains of being a new mother, which it could have been,” Callia noted, “but looking back now—”

  “It was probably linked to whatever this is,” Demetrius finished for her.

  “Yeah,” Callia said. “That’s what I’m thinking too.”

  “So what changed over the last few months?” Zander asked.

  “Well, she had a baby,” Callia said.
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  “People have babies all the time,” Zander pointed out. “And they continue to every day.”

  Callia squeezed his hand at her shoulder, and Demetrius saw the look of worry that passed over her features. Worry for her own unborn child. She nodded. “Yes. True.”

  “The Misos came to Argolea,” Demetrius said. “They were living in the castle until just recently.”

  “Yes.” Callia jotted another note. “It’s possible one might have passed a virus to her or that she might have come in contact with some kind of bacteria. But if that were the case, I would have seen it in my scans.”

  Silence stretched in the library. After several long seconds, Zander said, “Hades’s contract on her soul was broken.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that.” Callia shifted in her seat to look up at her mate. “Hades was pissed that he lost her. Is it possible he could have done something to her soul? Put some kind of, I don’t know, spell on it?”

  “No.” When Callia turned to look at Demetrius, he crossed his arms over his chest, confident this had nothing to do with any kind of spell. “The gods can’t dictate life or death. Only the Fates do that. And in the case of a prophecy, like the one that brought Casey to Argolea, it’s preordained at birth. We’d know if that were the case now.”

  Callia bit her lip and looked down at her notepad again. Quietly, she said, “Nick disappeared.”

  Zander glanced down at his mate. “How would that have any kind of impact on Isadora, thea?”

  Callia turned to look up at him again. “It’s a long shot, but bear with me. We already know that Isadora is both Demetrius’s and Nick’s soul mate, right? Thanks to the whole twin thing and Hera’s curse. What if the soul mate curse is somehow affecting her?”

  “It doesn’t work that way,” Demetrius said. “The female in the equation is immune to the curse. It’s only the Argonaut who feels the pull, and even then, it’s more of an—”

  “Emotional pull,” Zander supplied, looking over Callia’s head toward Demetrius. When Demetrius nodded, he glanced back down at his mate. “It’s a physical pain for the Argonaut, yeah, but the draw is toward another person’s soul. Not the body. And I’ve never heard of it weakening or threatening a guardian’s life.”