Chapter Text
The world drifted back in pieces. First, the scent of sage and lilac. A pleasant combo, one that made her want to curl up and rest longer. Next came the sound of movement beside her, the brush of someone moving past her against her bare arm. She cracked an eye open, finding herself in a now-familiar work room. She shut it again and attempted to put an arm over her eyes to block out the soft light.
Only her arm wouldn’t move.
Rook’s eyes flew open, and she struggled to pull her arms from where they were strapped to the table above her head with silken ties. A quick attempt to move her right leg revealed it was bound similarly. The left leg, however, was still free.
A flash of memory hit her of the green flaming skull of her lover’s helm, of the warm hands catching her as she went limp, of one of those hands brushing a lock of her hair from her face as she drifted to sleep. Damn, he worked fast.
Never one to be undeterred, Rook took a quick look around for Emmrich. Nowhere to be found in the clean work room. Perhaps he’d grabbed one too few ties with which to strap her down and was off in search of more. He likely didn’t know how long her knockout powder was good for. Silly mage.
Rook kicked the shoe and sock off of her free foot and strained against the silk ties of her arms, testing out the elasticity. Very little to be had.
Fine. Thanking her elven mother’s heritage for her innate flexibility, she swung her free leg as far up as she could, until her knee touched her nose. She just had to grab a hold of her pant leg to hold her foot in place so she could work the knot on one of her wrists loose.
The burn of the stretch along her inner thighs was almost too much, but she managed it, catching the cuff of her pant leg with her left hand.
Quickly, she ran her big toe along the binding until she found the end. A simple knot designed for quick release, it seemed, as she tugged it hard between her big and second toes. The knot came free, and Rook made quick work of the other one with her newly freed hand. She started to reach for the one holding her right leg when she heard footsteps coming down the hall, a simple tune being hummed by a familiar voice that sent a thrill straight between her legs.
An idea took shape, but she needed to work quickly.
She redid the ties on her wrists, the same as before on her left arm, but altered it slightly for the right so she held the end in her clenched fist, able to pull it free on her own. The binding job wasn’t nearly as taut as Emmrich had left her, but hopefully he wouldn’t notice.
It was only a split second after she laid back on the table and closed her eyes that the door to the work room opened, then shut again. A gentle hand caressed her cheek, sending shivers down the length of her body. The caress moved to her free leg, a silk loop starting to slide over it when he paused. “I was wondering how long that powder would last, little rabbit.”
Rook kept her breathing even, just in case he was bluffing.
A hand grazed over her bare foot, making her jolt away. “I know I didn’t take your shoe off before I left the room, thief.”
Well, shit. Rook opened her eyes. Emmrich was now without his helm, a silk tie over his shoulder, hand resting on her ankle. His eyes were amused, but still carried that deadly glimmer from earlier. “I intended to have you awake before I began stripping your clothes off, anyway.” he finished with a grin.
“How gentlemanly of you,” Rook snarked, struggling at the bindings in an attempt to keep him from noticing they were looser than before.
“Always.” He frowned up at her wrists, and Rook knew he wasn’t fooled. “Now, about th-”
She surged forward, yanking free the tie in her grip with one hand and looping her leg around Emmrich’s middle, dragging him against the table as she hurriedly released the other. He fought back, seizing the hand that attempted to free her other ankle and raising his other to begin conducting the fade around them. “Oh no you don’t,” Rook snarled, lunging for that arm.
They grappled against the table in a flurry of limbs. His hard cock made his desire obvious as it pressed against her own heated center, pinned there by her free leg and the knee of her bound one.
In a knock-out fight with no magic involved, Rook would win. There was no doubt about that in either of their minds. Emmrich could certainly hold his own when his mana was depleted, having trained with the magical orb and dagger combination favored in Northern Thedas when he needed. Rook never had magic to rely on, and was therefore more lethal with brute force alone.
That was if she was trying to hurt him. Which she wasn’t.
Time after time passed in which she’d have landed a blow in an actual dangerous situation, and it didn’t take long for Emmrich to manage a single spectral hand to tip the scales in his favor. The cold, unyielding fingers closed around Rook’s wrist and pinned it behind her back, wrenching the arm upward uncomfortably until she stopped struggling. He panted slightly before bringing her free hand to his lips. The tenderness of the kiss belied the roughness of the wrestling match they’d just been engaged in.
“I’m certainly glad to not be your enemy,” he said softly between peppering kisses along her knuckles, her fingers. “To have even a fraction of your might and wit turned against me has been an intimidating affair, to say the least.”
Rook smiled, breaking character too. Emmrich had warned ahead of time that he might check in if things got intense. It was as much for him as it was for her. “Too much?” She pressed a kiss to his forehead, feeling the spectral hand loosen to take pressure off her shoulder.
Emmrich’s eyes met hers, pupils absorbing the light blue of his irises. “Not at all. Though I am curious as to how you managed to free yourself.”
A feline grin spread across her face. She leaned in closer to bring her mouth to his ear. “Elven flexibility. Maker knows you’ve enjoyed its benefits before.”
A low groan from Emmrich sent her blood pumping. He waved his hand again, another spectral hand taking his place around her wrist and pulling it behind her back to join her other wrist. He fisted her hair right at her scalp and claimed her mouth with his. Their tongues clashed, and Rook let out a moan so obscene she could feel his cock harden even further against her.
An idea popped into her head as their kisses grew more frantic, more needy. One that excited her to an almost shameful degree.
No. They couldn’t. Not with her background. It felt too wrong.
Or was it just right enough?
Emmrich’s hands found her breasts, thumbs brushing over her nipples through the thin cotton of her shirt-he must have taken her jacket off at some point-and Rook arched into his touch. His mouth left hers to graze teeth along her neck. “I suppose I must get back to punishing my little thief for her transgression, and find out where you stashed my quill.” he panted, the spectral hands tugging her wrists upward to lie back on the work table.
“And what becomes of thieves in your house?” Rook attempted to sound defiant, despite the chills breaking out across her skin as Emmrich broke contact with her to loom over her.
Emmrich produced a familiar small knife from her pocket. Her knife. “No one has ever been as bold as to try to rob me, so I suppose that depends on the thief.” The blade traced down the side of her face, and he grinned. “Cold, isn’t it?”
It was all Rook could do not to close her eyes against the icy sensation of the blade on her skin. “On how pretty the thief is?” she challenged, voice wavering.
The blade travelled down her neck to the front V of her shirt, pausing once over the major artery-a warning that made her breath catch in her throat-before turning upright to catch on the fabric of her shirt. Emmrich chuckled softly as the blade glided down the front of her shirt, parting the material like butter. “There’s also the matter of the famed ‘elven flexibility’ I’m so very curious about.”
“So that’s your plan? Enslave yourself an elf girl to serve you?”
Emmrich’s fingers froze in their path of tracing over the newly bared skin between her breasts. She met his gaze, his eyes round in shock. “I…”
At a loss for words. Just like the early days when she’d flirt with him. It was honestly rather adorable.
Rook shifted enough to get half of her ruined shirt to fall to the side, exposing one bare breast. She’d opted to forego a breast band for easier access. The cool air hit her nipple, making it even more impossibly hard. Emmrich’s gaze slid from hers to her chest and back again. He swallowed. “Renya, I…are you sure…?”
“I can always escape if I grow bored of serving you.” Rook fixed him with a steady, lust-filled stare. When Emmrich still didn’t move, Rook frowned, now worried she’d overstepped. “Em, if you don’t want to go down that route, it’s okay. But don’t worry about me. I wouldn’t be asking if it didn’t sound enticing to me.”
A long, pregnant pause. Then Emmrich’s gaze darkened. His fingers, still resting against the skin between her breasts, trailed upward to grip her jaw tightly, cold fade energy rippling down her body to ghost over her nipples. “Cocky thing, aren’t you?” he whispered, bending so that their noses nearly touched. “Thinking you could ever escape.”
The knife flashed in her peripheral vision, and she gasped as she felt the cool metal cut away the remnants of her shirt before sliding to the laces in the front of her trousers. Emmrich released her chin and focused on slicing through the leather, then on her smallclothes, leaving her bare. Spectral hands ripped away the tattered remnants of her clothing, leaving the deliciously cold metal against her burning skin.
He discarded the knife carelessly on a workbench behind him and assessed her prone figure, running his finger down the length of her, catching on her peaked nipple. “Such a pretty elven slut,” he mused, the words sending shocks straight to her clit. “So eager to serve her captor.”
“No…” Rook tried to argue weakly, but his finger found her cunt, found her shameful wetness.
“ Yes .” His eyes danced with delight as he stroked along the soaked folds, maddeningly slow in his pace. More spectral hands appeared to clamp down on her hips, already trying to come unmoored from the table. “How long have you been wet and aching for me, girl? Were you hoping to be caught?”
Rook was spared from answering as he bent to run his tongue along the nearest nipple to him, dragging a moan from her. She fought the spectral hands pinning her wrists above her head to no avail. “Exquisite,” he hummed into her nipple before taking it into his mouth. He flicked his tongue over the peak as he sucked, his mustache tickling the sensitive skin. The hand not pleasuring her cunt squeezed her other breast. “I couldn’t have handpicked a more perfect little slave.”
“ Please, ” Rook pleaded, trembling. It was too little, she needed more, more.
Abruptly, he drew back, leaving Rook shivering without the contact of his body heat. She let out a keening groan. “Wh-what are you-”
“I find myself wanting to take notes on your reactions, without the proper tool to do so.”
Oh. The quill. Rook hoped it would be okay out in the woods, even as she dared to roll her eyes. “A life in exchange for a quill. Are all you mages this dramatic?”
HIs hand came up to pinch her nipple hard enough for her to cry out. “Petulance won’t get you far in my household, slave,” he said primly. “Now, tell me where you took it.”
“Or what?”
He grinned, as though hoping she’d ask. He took a step back from the table and waved his hands back and forth, green mist swirling around the both of them, until there were four more ghostly green hands in addition to the ones holding her down, seeming to wait for an order as they drifted idly around her. Emmrich leaned against another work table, his grin feral. “I will wring it out of you until you’re pleading with me to stop.”
“Do. Your. Worst,” she spat again, even as her core fluttered.
Emmrich snapped his fingers, and the hands descended on her.
They were everywhere. Two went straight for her breasts to tease each nipple, one to her soaked folds to toy with her clit, and the other lower, to circle her entrance. The hands that had been pinning her hips down began to trace over the length of her body, leaving chills in their wake. Rook gasped at the sudden onslaught, attempting to clamp her legs shut only to have them forced open by more hands, bared completely for Emmrich’s viewing. Aching pleasure began to build faster than she could control it, barreling rapidly toward release
She squeezed her eyes shut as her climax nearly reached its peak-but the hands slowed nearly to a standstill. Cracking open eyes again revealed her captor’s smug face, watching her with what could have passed as boredom, if it weren’t for the strained trousers around his groin. “The quill,” he repeated coolly.
“Go to hel-OH…” An icy digit entered her, slowly but insistently. The other hands picked up the pace again as another finger was added inside her, moving like the symphony Emmrich conducted in the fade to draw her pleasure out in agonizing waves, never quite reaching the climax she so desperately craved. “Fuck, I can’t take it…”
One of the hands teasing her nipples suddenly came down on her breast with a crack. Rook let out a yelp that turned into a moan as the fingers nimbly soothed the tingling nipple. Emmrich tutted. “Language, rabbit.”
“Fuck you,” Rook bit back, and the other spectral hand slapped her breast hard enough to make it bounce.
He gave a long-suffering sigh and leaned over her, watching the hands work in rapt attention as they brought her once more to the brink of orgasm before slowing, waiting for her to come back down from the almost-high before chasing her back up to it again. Over, and over, and over, Rook nearly cried at the denied orgasms, at the aching emptiness. “Please…stop…” she whimpered, struggling against the hands fruitlessly.
A cocked eyebrow. The hands slowed again. “So you’ve chosen to tell me where my quill is?”
Rook struggled to get her breathing under control, a dull throbbing in her clit gathering tears in her eyes. The bastard raised his other eyebrow expectantly, and she knew she had to wipe that smug smirk off his face, damn the consequences. “Come a little closer and I’ll tell you,” she managed in a sultry voice, tilting her head invitingly.
The mage tutted, and the hands resumed their sweet torture of her body. Rook groaned as a second finger joined the first in thrusting into her wet heat, and the hands at her breasts were replaced by bands of energy that twined just around her nipples, buzzing with magic and banding tightly. Emmrich came closer to observe her, one hand running over his clothed erection idly, the other reaching to stroke her face, down her neck, over each oversensitive nipple above the tightening bands of magic. “I’m not asking much,” he whispered. “Tell me where you hid what you stole and I’ll let you come.” When she tried to snarl a response, he cut across her. “Or you can stay like this forever. Aching, wanting, chasing your release but never quite reaching it. Is that what you want?”
Tears leaked out the corners of her eyes as the fingers playing with her clit began to vibrate with magic as they stroked. It took everything she had to even focus on the words, to make them coherent. “In…in the woods. I tossed my bag…into a bush to distract you.”
Emmrich smiled, quite thoroughly satisfied. “See, was that so hard?” He waved his hands over her body, and pleasure swept across her entire being as the fingers fucking her picked up the pace, adding a third and the fingers playing with her clit pushed just ever so slightly harder. “Now, I want you to come, little slave. Show me how much you want it.”
It was shameful, how hard and fast she came from the words, pleasure roaring through her body in waves, especially when he ducked his head to run his tongue along her nipples through the buzzing energy. She now openly sobbed, back arching off the table until the spectral hands slowed and dissipated, leaving her hollow and empty and pleasurably sore.
It took a moment for Rook to realize her arms and legs were free, only noticing when she was able to wipe the tears that leaked from her eyes. It took only half a second more for her to decide to take the chance to roll off the other side of the table and run for it, which was promptly thwarted by Emmrich’s quick fade step.
“You’re getting predictable, my dear,” Emmrich grunted as he fisted her curls and shoved her to bend over the table with his surprising wiry strength. “Trying to escape without punishment for your crimes-again?”
Rook attempted to get her arms under her, but his magic once more had her hands behind her back. Emmrich snatched up one of the discarded silk ties that had proved so useless earlier and swiftly bound her wrists securely at the small of her back. “Have you not tortured me enough?” she said breathlessly, testing the security of her bonds.
Emmrich’s laugh was a dark, cruel thing. “Oh no, little rabbit. That was the interrogation. Now that I have your confession, you must pay for your crime.” The hand not on the center of her back traced down the curve of her ass. “I think ten strikes, to start. More, if you’re mouthy with me.”
“You cannot-”
A swift slap to her ass made her yelp, the tingle of pain that followed intensified by the cool metal of his rings tracing over the impact site. “I can. And I will.”
Another stinging slap, this time to the other cheek, pitched Rook forward slightly. She was barely on her tiptoes as it was, bare feet scrambling for purchase on the marble floor. She struggled to turn her head to say something to Emmrich-what, she wasn’t sure. Another blow sent the words in a tailspin out of her mind, and another sent all coherent thoughts after them.
The hand on her back moved upward to seize her ever-wilder curls and dragged her head up enough to get her attention. “How many was that, love?”
Fuck. She didn’t even know. “Th..three?”
She was shoved back onto her stomach, the cold metal of the table like fire against her over-sensitive nipples. “Wrong.”
Another slap to her ass, this one harder. She could feel the rings biting into the tingling, reddened skin this time. His voice deepened to a rough snarl the nex time he spoke. “Halfway finished. Count the rest, or I shall start over.”
The way her ass burned had Rook focusing every ounce of her will into counting the next blows, each harder than the last, her voice cracking on each one. At eight, she let out a sob, tears sliding down her cheek and onto the table. “P-please, I can’t take anymore,” she choked.
The next time the hand slid along the abused flesh, it was strangely cold, the soothing chill making her groan into the table. A warmth pressed along her back as he bent to whisper in her ear. “Two more left, my dear. Just two more.”
The next slap was certainly no more gentle than the rest, but slightly more bearable after the soothing chill of his magic. “Nine,” she wailed, bracing herself as best she could with her feet barely able to touch the floor.
“Last one, love.”
The final impact was the hardest yet, wrenching a strangled cry from her throat before she sagged fully onto the table, just barely remembering to whisper a broken “ten.”
Cool, restorative magic swept over the sore, tingling flesh, easing the tenderness somewhat as Emmrich stroked a hand through her hair. “What a good girl, taking your punishment so well for me. So perfect.”
The tips of her ears burned red at the praise. Rook turned her head to give him a pointed glare, the tears already drying against her skin as her gaze fell to the cock tenting his trousers. “I’m glad to see you enjoyed it so much.”
She scarcely had a second to react before Emmrich stooped to wrap an arm around her knees, hoisting her over one shoulder. Rook yelped and thrashed, but he ran his free hand up the back of her thigh, ghosting over the still-smarting flesh of her ass, sending a fresh wave of goosebumps in their wake. “Unless you’re going for another ten, I suggest you hold still.”
“Put me down,” she shrieked. “You can’t-”
“I can, and I will,” Emmrich repeated with a little warning tap against her ass. The firm touch was enough to make her obey.
He carried her out of the work room and down the hall to the bedroom, humming slightly to himself as he kicked open the door with reckless abandon before setting her down on her feet in front of the spacious bed.
Rook only had a second to get her bearings before he cupped the back of her head and crushed his lips to hers in a claiming, bruising kiss. His tongue swept over hers in a battle for dominance, overwhelming her senses until she was gasping for air in between kisses. She did manage to catch his lower lip between her teeth hard enough to taste a metallic tang, and was pleasantly surprised to hear an obscene moan rumble from his chest before he pushed her away by the neck, holding her at arm's length. “Have you not learned your lesson yet, girl?” he breathed heavily, eyes dancing.
“I never learn,” Rook snarked back, and was rewarded with a squeeze to her throat. “I’ll make a terrible slave, so perhaps you should let me go.”
Emmrich reached down to his trousers, undoing the front laces with nimble fingers. Rook watched his every move, mouth suddenly salivating with need. “Before you’ve even begun making up for your theft, rabbit? I think not.”
His cock sprang free from the opening, and Rook swallowed. “Haven’t I been punished enough?”
The gleam in his wicked smile told her no, even before he pushed her down to her knees before him, holding her throat with his long, elegant fingers. “Oh no, my dear. This isn’t a punishment.” His cock was now free of the confines of his trousers, fully hard and already leaking slightly. “This is your penitence.”
Rook’s mouth watered slightly, clenching her thighs together for any sort of friction. She had to stay strong. “No.”
The hand on her throat loosened to slide along her neck before abruptly slapping her cheek. The blow was gentle but stinging, and promptly soothed by his feather light touch. Rook let out a choked whimper. “You certainly love to issue commands for your master, don’t you…”
“Fuck. You.”
“As you wish,” Emmrich shot back with equal venom. He waved his hand once more, and Rook gasped in shock as something cool and solid suddenly forced its way into her soaked entrance, her thighs forced apart by eddying green energy. At the same time her lips opened, he fisted the back of her hair and shoved his cock deep into her throat. Rook gagged initially and fought to pull back, but he held firm, fucking her mouth with an intensity that didn’t match the languid strokes of the magical energy in her cunt.
A moment of struggle later, Rook let her throat relax and began to meet him stroke for stroke, letting the broad side of her tongue run along the underside of his cock. She allowed herself a moan, the vibrations of her voice making Emmrich moan with her. The broken baritone of his voice nearly made her come again. “That’s it,” he said hoarsely, and Rook looked up to meet his lust-crazed eyes. “That’s my perfect little whore, taking my cock so well…”
The pumping magic in her cunt quickened slightly, and Rook fought to focus on the task at hand. Emmrich’s cock popped from her mouth to let her lick and suck on the head with small, teasing strokes of her tongue that sent him clutching at her hair with barely-contained restraint. She smiled up at him. “If you release my hands, I can make this feel so much better.”
And he was so far gone that he did, bending to yank the end of her bonds to unravel the knot. Rook groaned as the tense joints in her arms released and rolled her shoulders foreward, mouth never leaving his cock. A vibrating sensation joined the fingers fucking into her, traveling to encircle her clit in a way that blurred her vision with pleasure.
At the first touch of her hands along his shaft, Emmrich let out a choking groan and clenched his fists in her hair, keeping her from taking too deeply. He was going to come in her mouth if she didn’t hold back a bit.
Naturally, she didn’t hold back at all, gagging slightly as she took his cock as deep as it would go down her throat and cupping his balls gently with one hand, gripping his still-clothed ass with the other. He snarled and tried to pull out, but she gripped him harder, her own orgasm about to shatter.
With no small amount of effort, Emmrich forced her back, his cock releasing from her mouth with an obscene pop. The building climax in her core dissipated along with the magical energy pleasuring her, and she scowled up at him in frustration. “You could have at least let me come.”
Emmrich gave a steadying exhale, seeming to try to collect himself. Rook got no small amount of satisfaction at how long it took for him to get his breathing under control. “You forget your place, slave,” he at last purred, hands moving to the buttons on his vest. She smirked at the same time he seemed to realize he’d mismatched the buttons halfway down, likely throwing it on during her initial flight down the stairs. “Something funny?”
“I’ve never seen a mage so haggard. Is that why you were so quick to decide my fate? You need help dressing yourself properly?” She half hoped he’d slap her again, lose all sense of control to her.
He gave her a knowing grin and shook his head. “On the contrary, I think I’d like your assistance in undressing.” He flicked his chin upward in a silent command. Rook hesitated, wanting to be defiant, but her mouth watered at the thought of seeing his lean, wiry-muscled body.
Her will was weak, as were her legs when she rose, wobbling slightly. Emmrich smiled down at her, looming tall enough that she had to crane her neck to maintain eye contact. His hands came to caress her bare hips as she finished undoing the last few buttons and pushed the vest off his shoulders, letting it drop to the floor. “Ah ah, we don’t leave our clothing strewn about my house,” he tutted.
Rook glared at him before bending over to pick the vest up, shivering when his hand that had been caressing her hip moved to cup her still-sore ass. “You had no issue cutting mine up and leaving them in ribbons all over your work room.”
“I’ll get you something more fitting for your new position.” When she folded the vest as best she could and tossed it onto a nearby chair with as much attitude as she could muster, Emmrich’s hands found her bare breasts, cupping them both and running a thumb over her peaked nipples. “Although what you’re wearing now is quite acceptable to me.”
“Lecherous old man,” she said unthinkingly, then cringed. Emmrich was sensitive about their age gap, and she typically did everything she could to avoid reminding him of it.
Thankfully, Emmrich merely pinched her nipples hard enough to make her yelp. “Insults will get you nowhere, little thief,” he growled. He motioned for her to continue undressing him before continuing to massage her breasts, and Rook obeyed quickly, fingers flying over the buttons of his shirt and helping him shrug it free. She chose to fold the shirt and place it more gently on the chair.
He took care of his pants and boots himself, and Rook drank in his form greedily. Fuck, he was handsome, the lines of his body elegant and lean. She couldn’t resist running her fingers down the length of his torso to tease the head of his cock. He groaned and pulled her into him, kissing her fervently before planting little nips down her neck, sucking the sensitive skin to a claiming bruise at the junction of her neck and shoulder.
Rook pushed him until he let himself fall back on the plush lilac comforter of his bed, climbing to straddle him. She was impatient, too impatient to bother with anything other than getting his cock inside her aching cunt as fast as humanly possible, but Emmrich’s hands tugged her by the waist upward until her breasts dangled over his face. Her objections died out when his lips found a nipple and sucked, the rumbling moan in his chest making her impossibly wetter. “Fuck,” she groaned, pushing her breasts further into his face.
Emmrich’s ministrations turned frantic, kissing, licking, sucking every inch of her breasts he could reach like a man starved. “Em,” she breathed, the pressure once more coiling in the pit of her stomach, the orgasm denied her earlier while sucking his cock now threatening to make a comeback. “Please…”
He moaned against her breasts, and Rook all but ground herself against his torso for any kind of relief. “Fuck…fuck me!” she ordered through gritted teeth.
She was scarcely aware of one of his hands releasing her breast to conjure another set of spectral hands, at least until they were wrapping around her wrists and pulling her upright, his mouth releasing her nipple as she was tugged upward with an obscene ‘pop’. She groaned in frustration and attempted to grind her hips into his, but the hands yanked her by the wrists a bit higher, preventing her from getting the friction she needed.
Emmrich’s gaze was ravenous, pupils so dilated they swallowed his light irises. “Beg me for it,” he whispered. His hands roved her body, squeezing her breasts before traveling down to grip her hips tight enough his nails dug into her skin.
Rook let out a frustrated groan and fought against the spectral hands, knowing it was useless. “Never.”
He huffed a laugh, a hand trailing off her hip to probe between her thighs. Soaking wet, she knew, even before he brought his fingers to his mouth to taste her. “Come now, rabbit, I know how badly you need it.” A moment’s pause, then he asked, voice low, tinged with no small amount of malice, “Perhaps you would prefer I use blood magic to make you submit?”
Her spine stiffened, lungs tightening at the spike of fear the words sent straight to her heart. The word that had all but disappeared from her mind now crept to the forefront, the word that would immediately make the spectral hands vanish, and the man beneath her to transform from menacing mage to her gentle lover.
He saw it in her face too, the frozen panic. She knew he did by the way the corners of his mouth tightened. Tightened, but didn’t move. Waiting for her to speak first.
Waiting for her to acknowledge the sudden rush of arousal that flooded her veins after the initial terror subsided, the way her thighs clenched around him.
No, Rook did not want him to use blood magic on her. And she was fairly certain he didn’t want to either.
That didn’t stop the threat from doing absolutely shameful things to her body. “Fuck me,” she whispered, trembling like a leaf. “Please, please fuck me. I need you inside me so badly.”
Emmrich practically glowed, before the spectral hands allowed her to lower herself onto his cock, still keeping her wrists locked above her head. “That’s my good girl. Such a perfect, willing slave…”
He sank into her wet heat inch by glorious inch, stretching her so perfectly that she nearly came. “Please,” she pleaded again, letting her hips undulate against his. “Please let me ride you, let me make you feel good.”
“Take your pleasure, darling,” he said hoarsely. The way he gazed at her made her feel like a goddess, worshipping every inch of her face, her body.
Rook obeyed, thrusting herself up and down on his length as best she could with her arms bound above her head. Emmrich’s hands on her hips supported her, nails biting so tantalizingly into her bare flesh that she moved harder, faster, spurred by his unrestrained sounds of pure pleasure.
He began to thrust his hips up into hers, driving his cock deeper into her cunt until she devolved into a haphazard mess. Her hips met him stroke for stroke. “Please…” she scarcely knew what she was begging for anymore. It was too much, he was too much.
“Yes, darling, you feel incredible,” he moaned. A hand moved to tease her clit, making her cunt flutter around him and dragging a choked cry from his throat. “You are…the most divine creature…I never want to let you out of my sight…”
Rook nearly sobbed at that, thrust hard enough to make her tits bounce. Emmrich’s ragged breath at the sight was enough to fuel her, despite the ache building in her thighs. “Don’t stop, darling,” he nearly whimpered, and the spectral hands released her wrists, letting her fall on top of him.
She didn’t have a moment to prop herself up on her elbows before he banded an arm around her middle and flipped them to cage her body with his own. The pace he set was brutal, made more so by the hand that wrapped around her throat, squeezing in pure desperation. “Fuck,” he snarled in her ear, nipping along the side of her neck hard enough to leave marks. “You have no idea what you do to me, the things I want to do to you…”
“Please…” she tried, but his fingers tightened against her throat.
“I want to own every inch of you, body and soul,” Emmrich swore in her ear. “You. Are. Mine.”
Rook clawed at his back, surely leaving some scratches, but he didn’t seem to care. “Yes, yes, please!”
Emmrich gave a particular brutal snap of his hips that had her eyes rolling into the back of her head. “Say it. Let me hear you say it.” His free hand wedged between their bodies to play with her swollen clit, shocks of pleasure rippling up her body.
And how could she resist submitting?
“ I’m all yours.”
The roar that tore from Emmrich’s throat was like nothing she’d ever heard before as he bit down on the side of her neck hard enough to make her scream as her climax shattered through her body, setting her ears ringing and her skin on fire. The waves of pleasure cresting through her was like nothing she’d ever felt, seeming to claim every ounce of her.
It was still going through her as Emmrich’s teeth scraped up to her earlobe and he snarled brokenly to her: “ Mine.”
And with that, his own release shuddered through his body, his cock twitching inside her as he came. He didn’t slow his pace until he’d spent every last drop inside her cunt, collapsing in a boneless heap on his forearms over her.
They lay like that for a long moment, the aftershocks of their respective orgasms sending little shudders through them.
Emmrich finally lifted his head to look at her, his gaze now soft and adoring. “I love you,” he said simply. It didn’t need to be more than that.
Rook managed an exhausted smile and kissed his cheek. “I love you too.”
***
The cooling rush of Emmrich’s magic as he massaged her sore shoulders and upper back was nothing short of heavenly. Rook could have fallen asleep between his ministrations and the sheer, pleasurable exhaustion that weighed on her like a luxuriously heavy blanket.
He’d already healed the worst of the love bites on her neck, leaving only small marks at her insistence, and had soothed the lingering sting on her backside. Rook hadn’t known where the bowl of warm water and soft wash clothes had come from, but she was grateful for them as he’d cleaned the mess between her thighs.
“It may be a while before I’m able to do something like that again,” Emmrich admitted from where he knelt beside her on the bed, his knuckles loosening a somewhat painful knot right where her neck and shoulder met. “You were incredible, my darling. Did you enjoy yourself?”
She turned her head to give him a sleepy smile. “Very much, love. And you?”
Emmrich’s smile was soft, almost rueful. “More than I should. Was it all…alright?”
“Very.”
“Even the…” he let the question hang.
Rook blushed slightly. “More than I should.” Emmrich’s hands stilled against her back for a moment, and Rook reached to rub his leg tenderly. “I would have used my word otherwise.”
Emmrich moved to lay beside her, pulling her into his arms and kissing her forehead. “I would never, Renya. It was a wild, impulsive thing to say-”
“-and I nearly came on the spot when you said it,” Rook finished for him with a slightly embarrassed grin. “I know you’d never actually use blood magic on anyone, Em.”
He relaxed slightly. “Much less on the one I love most.”
At that, her heart fluttered in delight. The future they’d discussed at dinner danced through her mind, and she nestled into his warmth, finger coming to trace the lines of her face. “We should probably go grab your quill. I’d hate for something to happen to it out there.”
“It’s sitting on my dresser now,” Emmrich said dismissively. Rook nearly shot upright to look, but he tightened the arm around her shoulders to keep her tucked against him. “It was there when I brought you in here. I believe a wisp returned it.”
Affection bloomed in her chest at the thought. “Helpful little things.”
“Indeed.”
They lay in silence for a long while, tracing over each other’s skin with their fingertips, until Emmrich’s hand came to a stop over her chest, fingers going completely limp. Asleep.
Rook covered the hand with her own and squeezed, studying his profile, his rumpled silver hair, the strong jaw and kind, closed eyes until her eyes grew too heavy to keep open, drifting into a contented, dreamless sleep