But it was when his hands moved down to each grab a handful of the soft flesh of my cheeks, using them to apply more pressure and gain more power for each drive into me, that I felt utterly owned and possessed, closing my eyes and shaking my head as I felt the building of another shattering orgasm I didn’t know I would survive.

  “Not yet, I forbid it!” He ordered and then the feeling would retreat back in on itself making me cry out in protest.

  “No!”

  “Yes Keira, I command it!” His thrusts became slower but remained just as hard as he powered himself into me, almost making me wonder if this was another of his ways in getting his essence into me because it felt like soul branding!

  But every time he hit that same spot, I would arch and tense just to get closer, like chasing the storm I knew would crash into me and take me whole. But Draven was waiting for what he always waited for…my lover liked to come with the sound of me begging.

  “Please.” I whispered as it built up again and again just to be ripped away from me before I could complete the union.

  “No!” I cried again.

  “Not good enough little love, I want to hear it, I want the world to hear it and I want the fucking Gods to HEAR IT!” He roared the last part at me as his body erupted into its demon form in preparation for we both knew what was coming.

  I let the tight coil of my insides and the pressure in my mind, ready itself for the release of endorphins I had started praying for. The need was indescribable and as he let it build one last time I just knew the amount of pleasure would be too much to handle this time. My muscles screamed through the movements he demanded of them but knowing the outcome, I knew they would never give up until they had no other choice to.

  I was crying now and Draven leant down to taste those tears causing the shaking of my fingertips down to my very toes as the last of the tension built.

  “That’s it, get ready for it, I want my girl screaming my name.” The heat that speared across my forehead was the first tell-tale sign what was coming and it beat any fever I might have known before.

  “Open your eyes for me and give it to me NOW!” He bellowed and I gave him what we both wanted more than our next breaths.

  “DRAVEN PLEASSSSEEEEE LET ME COME UUUHHHHHH!” I screamed and screamed over and over, my body jacked knifed up as an orgasm so intense exploded within me, I saw a blinding light fill the room. Draven held onto me upright as he thundered his own release seconds later and his head strained up to the Heavens. The sound that came from him was nothing forged from the realms above…oh no. The glass in the windows shattered outwards and the stone walls cracked with the force of Draven’s earth shattering eruption.

  The utter euphoria that came flooding through every molecule in my body was working in tandem with my shuddering body as my climax continued. It was as if it would never end unless death found me and I had to say, if this was it, then I would die screaming in utter heavenly bliss. It was torture and it was pain, but my God it was beautiful, even more so than it should ever have allowed to have been.

  I felt the bands of his steel arms loosen their bruising hold and it was sickening, but I relished in the thought of there being the marks on my body as evidence to our lovemaking. It was as much beautiful as it was brutal and it was the most erotic and magical experience of my life. So no matter what came next, even if he were to throw me from this very room and banish me for all eternity from seeing him again, I still would not have been able to find it in me to regret one single second of it!

  But I still released a sigh of relief when he didn’t do either of these things. No, instead he gently lowered me back to the bed and placed a sweet kiss to my forehead before pulling back to look at me. His eyes had taken on a lighter shade, one that I knew made his Angel side more pronounced.

  “Are you alright?” I smiled up at him with what I knew was a sappy grin making him run his thumb over my happy lips.

  “You were magnificent and I am sorry I lost so much control in sight of such perfection.” He looked torn and I couldn’t stop myself from raising my own hand to his face.

  “Hey, don’t do that.” His eyes widened at my words but he didn’t argue with them, he just shifted his body down next to mine for what might be the last time. He pulled me tight into his embrace, wrapping himself around me and fitting me in the shelter of his bigger body.

  “Sleep now sweetheart and don’t think about tomorrow.” I did as Draven asked but couldn’t help doing so with tears running down my face, dripping on to the still covered arm he used as my pillow.

  And all because of the last words he said to me,

  “You’re my apple, Keira.”

  Chapter 64

  When the Apple Falls

  I woke up feeling as if someone had replaced me in the night with a healthier version of myself. It felt as though I had drunk straight from the Holy Grail! I sat up and couldn’t help but lift the covers to see the changes I could feel there. For starters, the slice in my belly was no longer there, with not even a scar to tell me where it had been. I poked my stomach and found myself laughing out loud at the added weight I found there.

  “You could have asked me.” I muttered on another laugh as I felt my hipbones that were nowhere near as bony as they had been yesterday. It looked as if Draven had a few extra ideas when it came to healing me last night. Even my breasts had a little more plumpness to them, one that I had lost before, thanks to my forced diet in camp Hell!

  “Men…it figures.” I said lifting them up and testing the weight, which was right back to what they had been. I had tried to put back my weight on when staying with Lucius, but through stress never really managed it other than a few added pounds. Well, now thanks to Draven he’d kind of took the fun right out of trying to put on weight, killing my new plan of stuffing myself silly with chocolate and cakes when I got home.

  I soon found out, however, that my new weight was the least of the changes made, as I felt silky strands tickling my waist, something I hadn’t felt in so long. I cried out loud when I pulled handfuls of long blonde locks forward feeling it pull on my scalp, confirming enough that it was back!

  “Oh Draven.” I whispered into my hair as I brought it to my face to take it all in. I thought back to our conversation before the healing began and found myself smiling when I remembered him asking if I liked my new hair. Then I blushed as thoughts of the actual ‘healing’ were taking place and I’d felt the tingling in my scalp, knowing this was when it was happening.

  After looking at myself naked taking it all in, I decided it was better to be dressed in case anyone had the thought to pop by. I looked round hoping to find Draven’s forgotten T-shirt somewhere when I remembered something important from last night. Draven had refused to take it off…so why was that?

  The sound of voices not far away brought me out of my wonderings enough to find a white robe. I quickly put it on and ran to the bathroom to use the facilities. Washing away the evidence of what happened between me and Draven last night quickly brought a deep blush to my cheeks, one that lasted till I was back in the room and running back into the bed when I heard someone coming. I jumped in and covered my lower half up just so there was no chance they would get an eyeful.

  Well, if I still wasn’t blushing from the bathroom then I was when Draven walked through the door. The very sight of him had me biting my lip, which just managed to bring on thoughts of what he had been biting last night.

  He was wearing a pair of worn stonewash jeans that were no doubt designer as they fit him like they were made using a mould of his perfect behind. With this he had on a plain black t-shirt that managed to show some of what I missed last night in the lines of his muscle. And I couldn’t help but notice he had his arms covered again with a light grey suit jacket. Now I thought about it, the more curious I got, wishing the light had been better the night I had first seen him, where as painful as the fact was, there was no getting away from the memory that he had been naked beneath Aurora.
br />   “You’re awake.” Draven stated the obvious, which only happened rarely and I knew the reason behind it was because he was nervous…a feeling Draven wasn’t used to having.

  “Yeah.” I didn’t think it was possible for things to be awkward between us after sex, but here it was. If anything, when it came to me and Draven, it was the making love part that was the only thing we seemed to get right. He looked as if he didn’t know whether to approach me or not.

  “You can sit down you know…I’m not going to jump on you or anything.” I wanted to snap it out, but in the end it sounded more like a joke, so when he gave me a small smile I let him think his actions weren’t hurting me.

  “You wound my pride…I must be losing my touch.” He joked back sitting down on the edge of the bed.

  “You’re much too cocky for that to ever happen, I would just put it down to a bad day.” He gave me a sad look and then when he turned back to focus on his shoes he muttered to himself,

  “Yeah, bad day.” I was about to ask him what he meant but he suddenly turned to me and asked,

  “Are you sore?” This time I laughed and said,

  “Well, I may be walking like I lost my donkey for a little while, but I think you got that I had a good time.” This made him burst out laughing and it filled me with pure joy to hear the sound. So much in fact, I had to hold in the tears that threatened to spill.

  It was so painful how much I loved this man and even after everything he’d put me through, I would be the biggest sinner of all if I tried to say any differently. But that was my problem wasn’t it? Because I still couldn’t have this man, no matter what had happened in this broken room or in this iron bed. Now that line we crossed was back between us and no matter what happened from this point onwards, we would never be able to get it to disappear again.

  “Oh and thanks for the upgrade, I told you I wasn’t rocking the Goth look.” I said needing to hear his laughter or see his smile for just that little bit longer. He picked a loose wave that was resting on top of the covers where I was sat forward and started to wrap it round his thick finger.

  “I cannot lie and say it isn’t nice to see you like this again, Keira, but it is also…” His voice sounded thick, like the words were stuck and I had to prompt him to carry on.

  “Also?” His eyes looked up from my hair in his hands and he shocked a breath out of me when he replied,

  “Painful.” When he looked away, letting my hair fall from his fingers and looking angry with himself, I reached out to grab his arm and pull him back to me.

  “Draven, don’t…” But my words were cut off when I managed to pull the sleeve of his jacket up a bit, giving me a glimpse of what he was trying to hide. I gasped at the brief sight of all those thin scarred lines that made up some sort of pattern I couldn’t see. It looked fresh, red and raw, as though it had been done over and over again, never given the chance to fully heal.

  He roughly pulled back down on his sleeve and stood from the bed to get from my reach.

  “What the Hell is that?! What have you done to yourself?” I demanded, feeling my head spin at the sight of him hurt. Draven who never so much as received a scratch was now hiding away his body and the secrets it held.

  “That is no longer your concern.” His words were like a sucker punch in the chest.

  “How dare you! If that is the case, then how is it that my own wellbeing and care is any of yours!?” On hearing my angry comeback he turned suddenly and barked,

  “Your life will always concern me!” I couldn’t help it, at this I laughed, only there was nothing amusing about it. I whipped the covers off, quickly thanking I had on my robe and stood opposite him ready for the challenge.

  “Oh yeah, then where were you exactly when I nearly got eaten by a Pishachas Demon? Or the time I broke into Afterlife and had bloody commandos shooting at me…? I mean, like really shooting at me for fuck sake…! Or when I got jumped by two guys and poisoned down an alleyway after trying to get into Devil’s Ring? Uh? Come on Draven WHERE WERE YOU? Oh and let’s not forget my little trip down to actual Hell, where I had a nice little chat with your Dad...!” I was so lost in my rant by this point, I actually started walking him backwards, poking him in the chest with each point I made, not paying attention to his shock or his building rage.

  “…Who, by the way, doesn’t think I’m such a bad catch for you and couldn’t understand what you were thinking...! Although back then I hadn’t really understood what he was talking about, but hey guess what, now don’t I feel like the biggest idiot ever! So come on…tell me, what was so important to you that you thought leaving me alone in your world would be such a swell idea, because I have to say, when I was then involved in a battle between Hellbeasts and death dealers just before being kidnapped and left to starve in a tower, then I could really have done with you around. Oh yeah, I bet just one look at you storming the castle and coming to find your old buddy Gastian would have worked a treat!” At this point I was too far gone to stop and take note of Draven changing into his demon form as he took in all I had to tell him…his famous temper growing to monumental proportions…but I was already past the point of no return, no matter the storm that was coming.

  “But you know what, you must have been far too busy knocking hip bones with little miss ‘all leg and no backbone, Aurora’ to come to my aid… no, no you just left that up to everyone else around me who had the guts to do it themselves…! For fuck sake Draven, even Jack did his part and he is a human, but what am I saying…? I mean nothing to you but a few letters saying goodbye, one last romp in the sack and enough money to buy me off your back…is that what you thought it would take…money? You have no fucking clue who you’re dealing with and the funny part of all this is, that if you’d had the balls to just tell me the truth, that you didn’t want me anymore, then I would have LEFT YOU ALONE!” I couldn’t contain the scream or the red mist that had taken over my thought process.

  “But no! I fought, I fought, Draven, with everything I had in me and when all that was gone, I somehow managed to find even more! And you know why I did all this…? ALL BECAUSE I LOVED YOU!” By the end of this I was panting and so was Draven. But then I took in the reality of the situation and quickly realised I had gone way, way too far in all that I had told him.

  His demon was breathing down at me and when it finally spoke, I nearly shook with fright and all he had asked was,

  “Have... You… Finished?” I fearfully nodded and that’s when the world around us…

  Exploded.

  It once again seemed I was to be the cause of yet another destroyed room in Draven’s Italian Villa. I watched the room literally explode outwards like a bomb had just been detonated. My head whipped round in slow motion as the blast went outwards coming from the released wrath that was Draven.

  I screamed at what I was seeing but then found myself quickly engulfed in flames that didn’t burn me. I jumped nearly out of my skin as not only a pair of arms wrapped around me but also a pair of blazing wings. I looked back up in desperate panic, searching for Draven’s face in the madness of his actions. Only the Draven I knew was so far gone it was amazing the two men were still the same entity.

  “Draven, please don’t do this.” I tried to bring him back but the eyes burning into me, scorching my soul with the mistakes I’d made weren’t coming back any time soon.

  “I didn’t want this!” His demon confessed and his hold on me tightened, crushing me to him, which barely allowed me to breathe.

  “Please, stop it!”

  “There is no way to stop this… there was no way to stop me other than tying me to the very gates of Tartarus when the nights came.” He sounded like something was overtaking him, ripping the words from the Angel his Demon was trying to bury.

  “I don’t…Draven I don’t understand.” I asked him and the single tear I saw fall down his cheek evaporated before it could make any distance. He looked in pure agony and no matter what I had wanted Draven to feel before… i
t was never this…never this.

  “I had to set you free of all this and it was the only way I was allowed to.” He nodded down to indicate himself in his demon form as he referred to what part of himself he was setting me free of.

  “No…you couldn’t…how could you do that…why? For God’s sake Draven tell me why?” I begged him to tell me, to just put me out of my misery and let me understand why he put me through it all.

  “I was shown the life you could have but I needed the hurt to keep you away, I needed to use your pain…the pain I inflicted to keep you from me…why Keira…? Why couldn’t you have just stayed away…? Why did you have to…?” I felt the tears again and again streaming down my face as I looked up at the man I loved, burning inside and out all for one reason, one reason I had to know,

  “Why did…did I have to what Draven?” I cried out, only seeing him now through a watery mask that could hide nothing in what happened next. He placed his forehead to mine and added the last nail hammered in closing up my heart…

  “Damn your love for me!”

  And in damning the love I had for him, he had just killed it with only five words said. Just five words and the very last piece of me he owned was no more. He had finally accomplished what he had set out to do…

  He’d killed our love.

  Suddenly the world around us calmed and I didn’t know if it was down to me or down to his realisation. Either one, Draven turned back to his human form and we were left standing in the destruction of what our souls breaking apart had created. The link we had forged back last night had just shattered and I felt it leak out of me as though someone had just cut the power. We were one no more and now I knew why he had done what he had done. Everything had become so clear I couldn’t breathe from it.