THESE CELESTIAL BODIES (Demetre)

Chapter nine

"Why do you look scared?"
     Whatever rational thought she had in her mind dissolved into nothing but ribbons. There was just her, him and the thinning space between. Meredith had dumped her in his quarters after her lesson, the Vampyr asking to taste her. The lesson went terribly, Rose couldn't summon a lick of what she thought she could. No dark, terrible song rumbling in her veins. No bright, searing light exploded. Which rendered her useless, a failure. Meredith said as much.
     She would die here, by his hands. He was no saviour, he was every bit the monster he declared himself to be. Worse, he had said.
     "Why would I be scared?" she shot back, forcing herself to meet the wrath filled eyes of the Vampyr king who haunted her.

His face wrapped, twisting in the guttering candle light. Rose gasped, fisting her hands. Man to beast, beast to man. In one glare of light, his skin was shimmering and porcelain. With stardust for skin and moon for bones. In the next flicker of light, his head was that of a deer skull. Massive and towering. Curve of antlers decorated with dead vines and withering flowers. In black sockets, glowing red eyes studied her.
     The monster turned back into a man. Charming, deadly. Hauntingly dreamlike.
     "What do you taste like, sweet Rose?"
     The space between them turned electric. Too close, he was too fucking close. And those hands, now tipped with bloody iron claws, caressed her cheek. She remembers his hands on her chest just last night listening to the thump of her cursed heart, she remembers wishing they were somewhere else. She remembers wanting. So much. He looked at her like he was hungry, like her very gaze was undoing him and he wanted it too. To be undone by her, a million times in a thousand ways.

"I taste of death," she heard herself say, her voice of silken sin. "Death so absolute, it will leave you wanting more."
     "Are you so strange, creature, that even death finds you sweet?"
     "Perhaps," she breathed onto his mouth, the cold brush of his bloody lips sent a lick of chill down her stomach.
     And then he had her. Lips crushing on her own, cold and warmth, an explosion of sinful desire. The desire she had been feeling ever since he barged into her room and sat before her in that godforsaken lotus position. The tug was unbearable, it was like she was trapping in a never-ending cycle of want and hate. She wanted his soft eyes, his useless smile. I know I am willing to try. But she also wanted him dead, she wanted them all dead. She wanted to strike him in the chest and watch him squirm in horror.

One day, the night will be ripe for such a betrayal. She owes him no loyalties and holds him to no promises.
     He pinned her arms the wall. He tasted of pain and suffering, the wetness of lust dripping from his mouth. And hunger.
Hunger.
Hunger.

She was going to die, she realised. She was going to die in the form of pleasure. Teeth and claws, snags and tears. His fanged mouth sucked on her neck while his hand found its way between her trousers.
     To the softness in her underwear, the wetness between her lips. Pleasure exploded as he slid a massive fingers inside her, a moan rattled from her.
     And his fangs pierced her flesh.
     The roll of his fingers inside her, digging and digging, swirling. The pain of his fangs, the feeling of her blood draining.
Death finds you sweet.
His fingers moved harder, faster. The toe-curling thunder of each finger as he added and added (as he swallowed and swallowed)
     "Daughter of death," he ragged as she shuddered another aching breath. Fingers curled around his wrist pushing him further. More, more, more. "Queen of bone. My saviour, my sinner, my home."
Rose exploded in searing light.