Page 52 of A Dance Macabre

“Despicable little thing,” I spit while my arousal rises and rises. Anger spilling into aching desire, spilling into the uncontrollable seduction that is Mercy Crèvecoeur. “Look at what you’ve made me do.”

I slap her clit hard, and her breath hitches with need, her eyes trained on me, eyebrows creased in pleasure as I feel her flutter around the head of my cock. I can barely breathe, terrified to move except for the furious pump of my hand. Until I feel the orgasm crest like a deadly wave and slip out, ropes of cum spilling over her fingers and clit while her hand continues to move in hurried circles, merging my arousal with hers.

I’m a mere shell of myself, my psyche shattered into a million little shards. Breathless. Captivated. Enraptured by Mercy’s glistening cunt and the way her back arches even higher when she comes on a long moan.

It only takes a single moment before the glacial silence returns as if she conjured it herself.

She opens her eyes, her hard glare clashing with the rose in her cheeks.

She slaps my hand away from where it is still resting on her thigh and stands up. I remain kneeled at her feet, too stunned to move.

I slowly look up to meet her gaze. Her expression is thoughtful but stern.

“We are both damned,” she says softly, her tone resolute.

She gathers her things, slipping her robe over her naked body, and walks out without another glance my way.

30

MERCY

Amonth has passed since I was forced into co-rulership with Wolfgang, and I’ve yet to fully acclimatize to all the attention.

The crowds of people. The countless pairs of eyes. The roar of mish-mashed energies grating on my senses. At least in a crowd as formidable as this one, death is never far. I can always count on the steadfast presence of mortality to quiet my nerves. It lingers, ever-present.

My attention shifts from the tens of thousands of Pravitians in front of us to Wolfgang standing beside me on stage. Always so at ease under such adoration. His smile is wide and beaming, the sun glinting against his gold canine and incisor.

We haven’t been alone in the same room together since the bathhouse … incident, nearly a week ago. It’s as if we’re both hoping that if we don’t acknowledge the breach in rationality we fell victim to that night, maybe the gods won’t notice either.

Even if I’d love nothing more than to put all the blame on Wolfgang, I can’t. Not when I was the one who taunted him into acting on his baser instincts.

I regret it. But it’s not exactly for the most obvious of reasons.

The regret is perfumed by how it felt to experience him in the most erotic of intimacies, leaving me yearning in ways that I cannot explain. The stretch of my pussy around the head of his cock. The heat of his cum on my clit. I’ve never felt this type of desire before. I am no stranger to pleasure, to the carnal and sensual, but no one from my past compares to Wolfgang.

Almost as if a part of me had always known him like this, and I was simply revisiting the feeling. The selfish greed has turned into an ache that speaks only in words laced with Wolfgang’s primal essence. An invisible string has somehow attached itself between us, and I can feel the tug no matter where he is. Even if we’ve done nothing but ignore each other.

I wonder if he feels it too.

Or is this what madness feels like?

It can never happen again. I have tested the gods enough.

I’ve been on edge all week. Unable to sleep, pacing the library at all hours of the night, waiting for something to happen. Waiting for my punishment. Forourpunishment. I dredge up the worst-case scenarios: the stripping of our power, banishment—death? But it’s been nothing but the constant drone of meetings and dress fittings.

And now here we are.

At our joint inauguration.

The first of its kind.

Behind us sit Gemini, Aleksandr, and Belladonna in hand-carved thrones, their parents sitting alongside them, including Wolfgang’s. Mine would be in attendance if they hadn’t died in a house fire eleven years ago.

Constantine’s chair is empty as she prepares for the bloodletting ritual at a table just a few feet from where we are standing, her father standing by her side.

Everyone on stage donned the color gold for the occasion. I’ve been in my gold dress for less than an hour, but Ialready miss the comfort of my all-black wardrobe. My outfit is constricting, the gold chainmail sewn over my corset weighing heavily over my ribcage. I can barely take a full breath without feeling like an elephant is sitting on my chest.

Maybe it’s why I feel so awkward standing here like this.

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