Page 69 of The Last Slayer
at the ghastly transformation. Blood sprayed across the floor. The newly sprung appendage spanned over nine feet by itself, and the orb lights spun around madly at its appearance. Crimson feathers tipped with onyx covered the powerful wing. I stared at it in horrified fascination. It was beautiful and terrifying, like a tainted angel’s.
A one-winged angel.
“Tell me I’m whole if you dare,” Ramiel said between clenched teeth. “Tell me I shouldn’t hate him.”
My vocal cords froze. This was the last thing I’d expected. In all the texts I’d read, none had mentioned a dragonlord’s wings, and I’d thought Apollyon was an exception back at Swain’s.
“I am forever grounded without an amphitere.” Ramiel glanced over his empty right shoulder. “Not even our magic can regrow a wing once it’s gone.”
He came closer. The wing bobbed with each step. “I am crippled and seek vengeance. And you worry about your appearance and wonder if I’m in love with your mother.” He gave a cry of pure anguished fury that rang against the hard stone walls, ricocheting like a bullet and just as dangerous. The room seemed to grow smaller around us. If I’d thought he would let me, I would have submerged into the bathwater to drown out the sound. He bent back over the tub, his face looming in front of mine. “Nathanael had it ripped out because he wanted me to feel the stigma of imperfection.”
I couldn’t imagine how it must’ve affected him. All demigods have enormous egos. And if the wings were functional, he was right. He was crippled.
He was so close I couldn’t seem to see anything but the green of his eyes. “So. Do you find me repulsive? Disgusting?”
What do you do with a question like that? There was no right answer, honest or otherwise. His lips twisted into a cruel smile. But it wasn’t directed at me, and that made me nervous. Maybe I’d gotten too used to his courtliness—the gallant façade that gave me a sense of safety, like no matter what happened he would behave himself. Now I wasn’t so sure.
Words couldn’t adequately express my emotions. I understood what it was like to feel as though I somehow couldn’t measure up to those around me. Jack’s family was virtually perfect. Ramiel would consider any comforting words as charity. It was Nathanael who’d crippled Ramiel’s body, but my pity would leave his soul to bleed.
There’s more than one way to cut someone.
I kissed him.
His mouth remained unmoving and hard under mine. I might have imagined myself kissing a statue if it weren’t for the warmth of his lips, the way his breath feathered my sensitive skin. He began to pull away; I put my wet hands on each side of his head, keeping him.
“Don’t,” I murmured.
Water droplets rolled down his handsome face. For the first time, there was a glimmer of uncertainty in his eyes. Or maybe it’d been there before and I just hadn’t been perceptive enough to notice. I’d been wrapped up in my own little world, filled with prejudice about how a demigod like him couldn’t feel hurt or vulnerable. This was the first time I realized that Ramiel, despite his gifts, despite his status, was not invincible. That perhaps I’d been wrong to treat him like a thing, like he wasn’t someone deserving of consideration or kindness.
The notion shamed me. I let my gaze, then my hands, drop.
Ramiel put a hand under my chin, tilted my head up, pressed his lips to mine. This time his mouth was supple and alive, and I responded eagerly. I wanted him to know what I felt inside even if I couldn’t say it quite right.
He hadn’t touched anything except my face, yet a deep ache formed inside me. It was more than just wanting physical release. I wanted the kind of connection that poets write about.
His arms wrapped around my torso and raised me from the tub. Water streamed down my naked body, puddling on the stone floor. There was fire in his eyes—the same fire I’d seen the last time we’d met in a bath—and my doubts about my new looks vanished. My nipples tingled and hardened in the cool air, and my sex grew wet with need.
I tugged at his shirt. The wing made it impossible to remove. I gave up and turned my attention to his pants and boots.
No matter what others called him, he was magnificent. Lean muscle rippled under tight skin as he moved. He smelled overwhelmingly, magically male, and I was immediately intoxicated. He ran callused fingertips down my slick skin, making me shiver. There was a power in his touch that enchanted and enslaved me to him.
I was his and he was mine.
Heat infused and moistened me. Even the tips of my toes tingled as his mouth continued its assault on my lips and breasts. His sex pushed against my stomach. I wrapped my legs around his slim waist and rocked.
If he didn’t thrust into me soon, I was going to die. Or kill him. Maybe both. The muscles in his arms and legs trembled, showing the price of his restraint. I didn’t want him to hold back. I wanted everything of him.
“Take me,” I said, my voice guttural and unrecognizable.
He turned, pinning me against a wall. His rapid breathing matched the rhythm of my heartbeat. Knowing I was the cause of his desire made every part of me throb, and I let out a low moan of frustration. I wanted him more than my next gulp of air. He positioned himself and entered me in one smooth stroke.
I cried out at the invasion. It was real and immediate, unlike the mental sex we’d had before. The man straining into me was actual flesh and blood, not some shared fantasy. It was glorious, but it wasn’t enough. Nowhere near enough.
He moved. In and out, his rhythm sure. Each thrust grew faster and more powerful. Our Sex rose and filled the room. The orb lights tangled with the Sex and zapped around us in a manic dance.
My body demanded release. But more than that, it demanded an intimacy between us, something that would make us inseparable.
Finally I cried out and bucked against him. Waves of pleasure slammed through me so hard I thought I would be swept away and never resurface. Yet his tightening arms anchored me, and his shuddering orgasm brought me the intimacy I’d sought.
