Seduced by Power (6 page)

My cock could have shattered glass, it was so hard. Seeing Rose naked, tied up, blindfolded with legs spread just for me nearly had me coming right there on the spot. I wanted to fuck her so badly, but I needed to feed her power first, before I could touch her too much.

I slid a hand down her body, groaning as her nipples hardened. I pinched one hard, then used the leather whip against her thigh. She cried out through the gag, straining against her cuffs. We had a hand signal she was to use if it got too much, and I watched carefully for her to make it, but she didn't. She wanted more. Needed more.

I might have shifted from so much pent up energy pulsing through me, if I had enough magic to shift.

Using a feather, I caressed the red line on her pale skin, making her shiver with the contact. Using my teeth, I bit and sucked at her nipples while dipping my fingers into her wet pussy. As I rubbed her clit, I applied more pressure with my teeth to keep it in balance. Just as she came, I unlocked her cuffs and freed her from the blindfold and gag. I wanted her to wrap her legs around me as I fucked her. Wanted her nails against my skin as I pounded my cock into her.

She felt so tight. So wet and warm and perfect. I claimed her mouth with mine, exploring her with my tongue as I buried myself inside of her. Her vaginal muscles clenched, quivering around me as we both came again.

I kissed her nose. "I love you, Rose. Forever."

Her cheeks were red and eyes glassed over with pleasure. "I love you, too, Derek."

One more thrust and I collapsed on her, holding myself up on my elbows just enough to not crush her.

I kissed a trail down her collarbone, my cock still hard inside of her. I could stay like this forever. I never believed I could find a love that would change my life, a love that would inspire me to become the best version of myself, but I'd found that in Rose. For her I would move the world. For her I would risk it all.

Dizziness clouded my vision, her beautiful eyes blurring.

Her heart pounded against my chest, more frantic then before.

Pain raced through me, clutching my core and not letting go.

Rose screamed my name, her face contorted in fear, but she sounded so far away, as if speaking from within a bubble.

I couldn't think, didn't understand what was happening.

Something.

Dark.

Evil.

Hungry.

And then I knew, but it was too late. I couldn't speak, couldn't move, couldn't fight. My wolf, my protector, was nearly dead inside of me, no longer able to block the bulk of her power.

I didn't realize I'd depended on my magic so much when we made love.

Didn't know that I'd be at greater risk as my magic drained from me.

She pushed me off her and ran away.

I smelled blood, but couldn't get to her.

Her screams tried to penetrate my haze, but only partially succeeded. My soul, my heart, reached out to her, but darkness pulled it back, sucking it into hell.

My eyes closed, but I wasn't asleep. I saw my body lying on the bed, still, lifeless.

Saw Rose bleeding on the floor, her tears mingling with her blood.

My heart tore apart. I needed to help her, to heal her, to tell her it was okay, but I couldn't.

The dark band of power around me yanked through time and space and shoved me into the dark.

Screams howled around me, but not hers. Not Rose's.

Sulfur and acid clogged my throat.

Pain, unending and unendurable, threatened to undo me.

And then I saw Dean, trapped in the same kind of prison, writhing in his own pain, and I knew what had happened.

Give sorrow words: the grief that does not speak

Whispers the o'er-fraught heart, and bids it break.

— William Shakespeare, Macbeth

Dear Diary,

I'm dead inside. That's the only way I know how to describe this hollow emptiness burrowing through my soul. I've damned the love of my life to eternal torment and suffering.

I don't deserve to live.

SUNSHINE PEEKED THROUGH
the curtains in the guest room as I sat in the bed staring at the wall. A dim awareness of pain throbbing in my thigh did little to break through the haze of utter grief that had consumed me.

Someone had carried me out of our bedroom.

Someone else had dressed my wound and washed the blood from my body.

Another someone had tried to get me to eat or drink something, but I didn't allow that. Couldn't. I would vomit if forced to consume anything right now. Bile already threatened to fill my mouth each time I swallowed.

I'd spared just enough energy to put on clothes that covered every inch of my body. I'd had to go back into our room to get my gloves. A large pool of blood stained the thick carpet, but at least Derek wasn't in our bed staring at nothing with vacant eyes. They'd moved him, probably in with Dean.

Just thinking Derek's name, my heart crashed against my chest, trying to get out, to escape the pain and gnawing sorrow clinging to me.

I didn't know how long it had been, and I didn't care. I had nothing left to live for. Nothing more to give to a world that had stripped me of everything.

If I had a switch to turn off my emotions, I would have flipped it. I couldn't bear this pain anymore, but I deserved every second of it.

If I'd followed my instincts and slept somewhere else, Derek would still be here with me.

A knock at the door didn't motivate me to move.

"Rose. It's Ocean. I'm coming in."

She tried the knob, but I'd locked it. No one would be coming in. I wouldn't risk anyone else I loved being too close to me.

"Rose, you can't lock me out forever. Honey, let me in. Let's talk about this."

There was nothing to talk about.

She sighed dramatically on the other side of the door, then the clicking of heels told me she'd given up.

More staring at walls.

More sinking into the darkness that grew in me, swallowing up everything light in my life.

Another knock at the door. "Rose? It's Tammy. We need to talk."

I expected her to leave too, once she discovered the locked door, but she'd come prepared. A key slipped into the doorknob, and Tammy walked in. Her face had sunk into itself, casting harsh shadows over the hard lines of bones. Her skin had paled into a sickly sallow color, and her eyes looked washed out.

Hands on hips, she scanned the room, then turned to me. "You need to snap out of this. Dean and Derek need you to get your ass out of bed and figure out how to use your powers."

I stared ahead, unwilling to look at her or talk to her. How could I face her after taking away both of her brothers?

"Damnit, Rose, look at me!" She reached out to grab me, but before we made contact, my power lashed out, wrapping around her and squeezing.

The dark current sucked back into me as fast as it had unleashed itself. We both froze, stunned and scared. Tammy was doubled over in pain from the inadvertent attack.

I scooted back on the bed, feeling sick. "Go. Just go and leave me. Get away! Get away!"

She straightened herself with effort and backed out of the room, watching me like I was a dangerous animal that needed to be put down.

In the silence, the weight of what I'd just done settled on me.

Shaking, crying fresh tears when I thought I had no more to cry, I realized how truly evil I'd become. I could now hurt people without even touching them.

No one would ever be safe around me again.

from this moment

The very firstlings of my heart shall be

The firstlings of my hand

— William Shakespeare, Macbeth

HUMANS HAVE GREAT
capacity for love, which also gives them great capacity for suffering. I thought I'd known suffering in the demon dimensions, but I couldn't really understand what it meant to hurt until I discovered what it meant to love.

As I sat and watched Rose sleep, her body contorted in pain and face a mask of misery, I knew both love and suffering in equal measure, and I cursed the human form that gave me this breadth of experience.

She woke with a start, her eyes swollen from tears and skin pale. Blood seeped through the bandages on her leg, likely from self-inflicted abuse while she slept. It seemed she wouldn't allow herself a moment's peace, not even while unconscious.

When her eyes landed on me, she pressed herself against the headboard of her bed as if trying to disappear. "You have to leave before I hurt you, too."

Her voice sounded unused and rough.

I poured a cup of water and sat on the bed next to her. "Drink this. You need it. You can't hurt me, Rose. We're the same."

She accepted the cup with slow, halting movements and sipped it once before setting it down.

I embraced her before she could protest and breathed with her until her body slumped into mine at last.

Rubbing her back, I offered what little consolation I could find. "I'm here. It's okay. You're not alone."

"I killed them both, Blake. And it's getting worse. I hurt Tammy." She looked up, tears in her eyes. "Is she okay? Did I…"

"She's fine. They're all downstairs talking with Father Patrick and Drake." They had been the ones to petition on my behalf to let me into Rose's room, knowing I might be the only one to break through to her. And the only one she couldn't hurt.

"I have to leave, get out of here before it happens again. I've brought them nothing but grief since I came into their lives." She choked back a sob. "They must all hate me."

With my finger, I tilted her chin up so she'd make eye contact with me. "No one hates you. How could they? You are the most amazing woman I've ever met, Rose Wintersong. If you could only see you the way I see you, you'd never say another harsh word about yourself." From my pocket, I pulled out the charm necklace I gave her before she ran off with Derek. "Here, this is yours. Please keep it. It was meant to be a memory keeper of your love for Sandy."

She plucked the silver locket from my hand and opened it, covering her mouth as more sobs shook her. "I miss her so much. I couldn't hurt her, and she never judged me or abandoned me. She died saving Derek's life."

I wondered if she could see me as someone different than the Blake who had set fire to the cabin. The fire that had taken Sandy's life.

As if reading my mind, she stroked my hand. "It wasn't you. He isn't you. You may have his body, but you're your own person. You get to make your own choices in life."

My throat clogged with unshed tears.

She clutched the locket in her hand, then slipped it over her head. "She died trying to save him. She was braver than me."

I poured her more water, sensing a shift in moods. "What do you want to do now?"

This time she drank the whole glass and accepted a bowl of grapes someone had left for her, eating each one as if it were an entire meal. "I have to save them. I won't be able to live with myself if I don't."

I sensed the truth in her words. She didn't mean it as a metaphor or cliché. Looking at the seeping wound on her leg, I knew that she meant it literally. If she didn't save the O'Conner brothers, she wouldn't be able to live. I couldn't let that happen.

"What can I do to help?" As much as I didn't want Derek in the picture anymore, I couldn't allow her to suffer.

"I need you to help me communicate with the demon dimension. I need to find my father and learn what he knows."

I pulled away. "No. Absolutely not."

"You asked how you can help. This is how. If you won't, then I'll try it on my own. I have the spell, I just thought it would be smarter to have help."

I shook my head. "Nothing about this idea is smart, no matter whose help you have. You don't know what you're asking. You have no idea what they're like, what that place is like. All the stories you've heard of the Christian hell? Multiply that by an eternity of pain and you might start to get a glimpse of an idea of what the demon dimension is like." I grabbed her shoulders, forcing her to look at me. "Are you listening? They feed on pain. They need it. They will destroy you just to get a decent meal, and you will never recover. Never."

"That's all the more reason why I have to do this. Derek and Dean are already there, suffering in all of those ways you just described. I will not leave them there." She stood, perhaps for the first time in two days, and steadied herself on the dresser when she realized she couldn't put pressure on her injured leg.

As inappropriate as it was, the sight of her in yoga pants and a form fitting cotton shirt aroused me. I hadn't fed since I'd been in this dimension. I would have been out of control by now if I hadn't had some of her demon power when we fooled around the night before she left with Derek.

She'd saved me more suffering than she could imagine, and my desire for her caused more suffering than I thought possible.

I rushed to help her. "Sit. You can't walk in your condition."

"I'm going to get help. Father Patrick might know something. You can help me, or get out of my way. Those are your choices."

Scenes from my childhood flashed through my mind. The beatings bestowed on me by parents to increase my pain threshold. The days and nights of listening to prisoners howling in agony. The guilt when my family glutted on that pain.

How could I let the woman I loved see into the world I was from? She would see into the true me and never look at me the same again.

With renewed energy and stubbornness, she limped to the bathroom and locked herself in. The toilet flushed, water ran, drawers opened and closed, and she emerged looking less like death.

"Are you going to help or not?"

I sighed, knowing I was defeated in this. "I'll help, but you have to promise to do exactly as I say, or you won't make it through this alive."