Grave of Words (Fall of Under Book 2) Read online

  Lips touched her throat. Soft and sensual. Tender and loving. They kissed her before she felt a tongue slowly run along her neck, following the line of a tendon that ran to her jawline. She writhed, arching her back without intending to.

  Kisses feathered along her jaw before the tongue returned. Slowly, feeling as hot as lava, it traced along her. It felt so good. Letting out a quiet sound, she tilted her head back, instinctually baring her throat. The kisses drifted down her throat again to her bare collarbone.

  What…

  Memories came back to her slowly. The monster that had eaten Cricket and attacked her. The image of it over her, its fractured jaw split wide open. And then the scythe…

  Rxa.

  He was free!

  She blinked her eyes open furiously. She tried to move. Something was over her—something—

  “Shush, little dove,” a voice said through the purring. A hand threaded into her hair, fingers winding into the strands, and held her down.

  She could barely see him with how he had her head held down, turned onto her cheek. His long blond hair fell around his face, the tendrils brushing against her skin. He was straddling her thighs, sitting on her. “Wh—” she squeaked out.

  “Sshhh…” He kissed her cheek before running his tongue along her lower lip. “You went and made a mess of yourself. Covered in blood…bleeding from the arm…” His voice was low and thick with desire. It was hypnotic. “You hit your head, silly thing. You’re concussed. You must have been so afraid of the beast—you panicked and ran even though I’d already killed it.” He looked down at her with a lopsided smile. “But now I get to clean you up.”

  She whimpered in fear as he lowered his head again to her throat. Terrified that he was going to bite her, she pressed her hands against his chest weakly. But there was no budging him. He licked her throat again, lapping up the blood that covered her. He worked his way down to her bustline.

  Her coat and shirt were missing. She was only wearing the bandages that she used to bind down her breasts. “Rxa—please—”

  “It’s all right, you’re safe now.” Leaning his weight on the hand in her hair, he trailed his sharp claws against the sensitive skin of her side. She jerked and arched, feeling goosebumps explode over her as she shivered at the feeling. “Look at you—so beautiful—oh, Ember…” His teeth grazed her collarbone, scraping but not biting.

  All she could do was let out a small noise. Her head was still spinning. She felt weak. Overheated. Overwhelmed. His touch—his kiss—his tongue against her skin. She was terrified. But something else—something more dangerous—twisted in her stomach.

  He took her wrist in his hand and lowered it to the ground, pinning her arm to the grass beneath her. She could feel the cold dew on the strands against her bare skin, in sharp contrast to the warmth of his touch.

  He lowered his body over her, sliding himself down until his chest touched her. His tongue ran from her elbow up toward her shoulder. She jerked as he touched a deep cut. The monster had sliced her with one of its claws. She pulled in a frightened hiss of air through her nose, expecting him to rip into her with his teeth. She waited for the pain. “Rxa—”

  He ignored her. His tongue ran along the cut slowly. Shockingly, it didn’t hurt. He lapped at it, the purr in his chest growing louder, as he slowly cleaned the wound like an animal.

  But my blood is poison…why isn’t he sick from it…?

  “Stop—” she whispered. “Please, stop…” She couldn’t take it anymore. It was too much. She was trembling. She felt too warm. Too cold. Too everything.

  And it shouldn’t have felt so good.

  He lifted his head, shifting until he was resting on his elbow beside her head. He traced the backs of his knuckles over her cheek slowly, his brow furrowed in concern. “Are you in pain? You have a nasty lump on your head—we’ll have to rest here for a bit before it’s safe for you to travel.” He smirked. “Not like horsie is going to get up anytime soon, either.”

  She watched him, unsure of what to do. Unsure of what to say. “I—I—”

  He smiled gently. “It’s all right. I know. You’re confused.” He stroked her cheek soothingly again. He leaned his head down to hers and, for a moment, she wondered if he was going to kiss her. Instead, he licked her cheek by the corner of her mouth. “So bloody…Good thing I don’t mind cleaning you up.” He chuckled. “And I am so very good with my tongue.”

  His breath was warm against her cheek as it washed over her. She shuddered, her hands twisting in the bandages that covered his chest. The scars on his face didn’t look so angry. His chin was stained in blood, as if he had gorged himself. But on what…? She could still feel her limbs. He hadn’t torn her open.

  Yet.

  He playfully nipped at her jawline. “You’re so tasty.”

  “I don’t want to die,” she whispered.

  “Hmm?” He lifted his head to look down at her, only a few inches away. The tendrils of his hair touched her cheek, soft and smooth. “Don’t be scared. You’re safe. I won’t let anything hurt you. The monster is dead. I’ve already eaten most of him.” He placed his palm against her cheek, running the pad of his thumb along her skin. “He won’t be back to hurt you. Your horsie friend will heal. Everything is going to be okay.”

  “I’m scared…”

  “Of what?” He frowned.

  “You,” she said through a breath, barely audibly.

  His brow furrowed, as if he didn’t understand. He sat up, still straddling her thighs. The moment it made sense to him, he flinched as if she had slapped him. Looking away from her into the woods, his shoulders slumped. “I haven’t hurt you. I haven’t done anything to you.”

  “You’re—you’re dangerous.”

  “Everyone in Under is dangerous.” He sneered. He climbed off her and paced away. She tried to stand, but only managed to roll over onto her side before she felt like she was going to hurl.

  He put his head in his hands, fisting his own hair, tugging sharply on the strands. “I haven’t done anything to you!”

  She jolted at his sudden rage. But as quickly as it came, it faded. He dropped his hands to his sides, defeated, and looked up at the stars overhead. “If I were beautiful…if I weren’t like this—this monster—you wouldn’t hate me.”

  “I don’t—I—” The world spun again. She lowered her head and groaned. She definitely had a concussion. Everything felt as though it was dropping away. As if she were sinking down into a lake. Her fingers tingled.

  A hand gently touched her hair. She had collapsed to the grass again. She must have blacked out. “Poor little dove…” His arms slipped under her shoulders and her knees, carefully lifting her. He was no longer frail and thin—she could feel the strength in the muscles beneath her. He cradled her to his chest.

  Her world dropped in and out. Her head was resting on his shoulder, her forehead against his neck. He smelled like sandalwood and incense. Warm and soothing. He was humming a quiet tune, and she could feel it more than she could hear it.

  He settled down with her in his lap, his arms around her. She couldn’t quite see where they were. He stroked her hair and continued to hum. She was so tired…so very tired. She knew she wasn’t supposed to sleep with a concussion—but she didn’t know how she could possibly stay awake.

  Nails combed through her hair, grazing her scalp. She wasn’t shaking anymore. The panic had worn off along with the adrenaline, leaving her limp and helpless in his arms.

  He kissed the top of her head. “I know you’re frightened. I know you don’t trust me. But I’ll prove it to you.”

  “Please, let me go…”

  He tilted her head up to him and smiled tenderly. He kissed her forehead. “Oh, my sweet, darling little dove. Don’t you understand? You’re mine now. And I am never, ever going to let you go.”

  Ember discovered then, just as she couldn’t hold onto her consciousness anymore…that there was a fate worse than death.

  Her blo
od had tasted like brandy on his lips. The poison didn’t hurt him nearly as badly as it used to. And he was stronger now. He had torn apart the quillbeast that had attacked her and killed her horse, and eaten his fill of the raw, wonderful, beautiful meat.

  Rxa sighed. He had assumed she had run out of panic. Oh, she had…but not from the quillbeast. She had run from him. The thought twisted in his stomach painfully. His little dove was afraid of him. But why? Was his face that mangled, his body that twisted, that he was so terrible to look upon that she was horrified at the sight of him?

  That must be it.

  He ran his hand over his face. He could feel the ridges of the scars that sliced down his forehead and cheek. Remnants of Aon’s claws from when the foul cretin had sliced off his marks and sent Rxa to his—surprisingly temporary—grave. The rest of his face felt smooth. But something must be wrong.

  He had wanted to sink his fangs into her throat and drink her the moment he smelled her blood on the air. But he couldn’t let that happen. He had been so starving—so desperate for food in his stomach—that he knew he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from going too far. She was already injured and exhausted, the poor, overwrought thing.

  So, he had devoured the quillbeast first, then tended to her. After she passed out in his lap, he laid her down gently in the clearing, tucking her bag underneath her head. Using cold water from the river and a scrap of fabric from his own bandages—the cleanest strip he could find—he bound her wound.

  Such a beautiful creature. He had taken off her coat and her shirt. They were ruined and soaked in blood. The bandages she used to flatten her chest were stained as well, but he didn’t want to risk her ire by stripping them off uninvited.

  He planned to strip them off soon enough. But while she was unconscious and injured wasn’t the right time. He wiped away the rest of the blood that he had missed and folded a cool compress onto her forehead. “Mortals are so fragile,” he muttered to no one in particular.

  He had removed the marks from the quillbeast. He would not heal and come back to haunt them. It was what the thing deserved, hurting his precious little dove. The horse, meanwhile, was beginning to heal. The bits of his body that had been eaten were slowly regenerating, but it would take some time. It was all well and good. Ember would be too sick to ride.

  Of all the royals of Under, he was the most acquainted with mortals. It was his job to watch over the marked that they took from Earth before putting them in the Pool of the Ancients. Many of them arrived on his doorstep injured from their capture.

  Concussions were nasty things. Luckily, hers wasn’t too serious. She had passed out from an empty stomach, lack of sleep, and the deficit left over from the adrenaline that had fueled her for so long.

  She wouldn’t have to worry. He would protect her. She was his. She had been from the moment he saw her standing at the altar in the cathedral. He stroked her fascinating two-color hair. Split clean down the middle. White on one side, black on the other.

  “I’m going to have fun braiding your hair.” He smiled dreamily down at her, imagining how they would have been together in another life. “You would have fallen to my house. Or perhaps with Ini. But you would have been my lover. Oh, the joys I could have shown you.” He chuckled. “I told you I used to split myself into a thousand parts. There wouldn’t be a part of you that I couldn’t touch at once.”

  Sighing, the image faded from his mind. Those days were gone. “Now you’ll just have to make do with one of me.” He lay down beside her on his side, watching her sleep. The concern and the fear had left her, leaving her features smoothed and calm. “Not that one of me is disappointing.” He kissed her cheek. “At least…it won’t be once it grows back.”

  He watched her silently for some time. She began to dream, her eyes racing underneath closed lids. She whimpered in fear. A nightmare. Of me, most likely…

  Scooting closer, he draped an arm over her and tucked his leg between hers. “Shh, little dove…I’m here. For better or worse,” he whispered into her ear. “You’re safe. I promise you.”

  She tucked her head closer to his. She reached for him—she reached for him! The motion caught him so much by surprise he almost missed the chance. Catching her hand, he pressed her palm to his chest, letting her feel his heartbeat.

  Her nightmare ended.

  He had been the one to calm it.

  Smiling, he kissed her temple and curled himself around her, careful not to crush her with his weight. But he would make sure that she could feel him against her—feel him holding her. Oh, how he wanted to do more. How she had writhed beneath him as he had licked her clean. She loved to be touched. It must have been such a rare experience for her. She railed against how he made her feel—that much was obvious.

  “I’ll have fun breaking down those walls, little dove. I’m going to unravel you. Bit by bit. You will trust this monster beside you. You will love this hideous wretch.” He kept his voice a whisper. The sound seemed to inspire her to snuggle closer to him. Hope welled in him.

  And then he understood.

  Then he knew why he wanted her so badly.

  Why he had become so obsessed with having her company.

  She doesn’t know me as the angel that I was. She only knows this twisted gargoyle that I’ve become. This flesh-hungry degenerate. This creature spurned even by death itself.

  If she can love me…

  Hope. It was a terrible thing. He had once preached about its value. Lectured others about how it was the most important piece of the puzzle known as life. That without it, existence was meaningless.

  But it was a venom in the blood.

  Who am I now, though…if not the King of Poison?

  “You will love me, little dove.” He paused and lowered his voice until it was barely even a whisper. “I need you to.”

  10

  Ember awoke to the sound of meat being pulled apart. To the wet crunch of bone and cartilage. It was a sound she had heard once before—the creature that had eaten Cricket.

  She jerked awake, thrashing. She pushed up onto her hands, only to fall onto her shoulder a second later. The world was blurry and seemed to have a mind of its own—wheeling and reeling around her.

  Through the haze, she remembered Rxa’s words. “You’re mine now. And I am never, ever going to let you go.”

  Escape. She had to escape! Whatever was eating Cricket was coming after her, and Rxa was—

  She tried to shove up onto her hands only to fail a second time. Then she realized why.

  Her wrists were bound.

  Slumping down to the ground, she let out a long sigh. “Fuck.”

  Something moved out of the corner of her eye. She lifted her head and was happy it was at least a little more content to behave that time.

  It was Rxa. He was hunched over the corpse of the creature that had attacked Cricket and her—the quillbeast. He had ripped open its corpse, peeling the fur and sharp spines away from tendon and meat. Stomach lurching, she watched in horror as he reached into its ribcage with his bare hands and wrenched out the creature’s heart. Gore dripped from his fingers as he lifted the organ to his mouth, biting into it and pulling off a chunk. His arms were soaked in red up to his elbows, clearly having been at the job of dismembering and devouring the monster for some time.

  She had seen drengil feed like that a thousand times. Consuming corpses by the sheer force of will alone, grotesque and desperate.

  Finally managing to get up to sitting, she tried to take stock of her situation. Her wrists were lashed together—identically to how she had restrained him. But he hadn’t bound her wrists to her waist, nor was she tied to a rock or a tree. The fire was long dead. And so was Cricket—although the poor horse seemed to be slowly healing.

  At least he didn’t kill Cricket…at least he kept his word on that. Ember swallowed, feeling bile rise in her throat. Her head still ached, and her concussion was enough to make her nauseated without hearing the wet sounds of Rxa eating the
creature or the smell of blood and gore that was thick in the air.

  The tattered and bloody king was distracted.

  She could escape.

  Trying to stay as silent as possible, she worked her way up to her feet. She had to lean heavily on a rock to get vertical. But adrenaline and the sheer desperate need to get away from the escaped madman fueled her forward.

  Even if the ground did seem to want to tip up toward her or slip out from under her feet at every given moment. It didn’t matter. She had to get away.

  “Oh. You’re up! Good morning, starshine, the Earth says—” He snickered. “Never mind. You won’t get the reference.”

  Damn it!

  She slumped against the tree and shut her eyes in defeat. Her chance at freedom had only lasted a few precious seconds.

  “I know, I know…you thought you had an opening.” Rxa strolled up to her and leaned on the tree next to her. He began licking the blood from his fingers, popping each one into his mouth one at a time. “Not like you’d survive long in the wild with your hands tied up.”

  “Please…Rxa, let me go.”

  “I can’t, darling. I’m sorry.” He turned his hand over and licked up a line of blood that had run up his arm. The image of him over her, doing exactly the same thing, made her shiver. “But you’re safe. I promise.”

  “Why?” She slid to the ground. It helped her spinning head. “Why are you keeping me as your prisoner?”

  “Well, first of all—turnabout is fair play, right?” He winked and walked over to the shore of the river. Kneeling, he began rinsing the blood that he couldn’t quite lick clean from his arms, and then scrubbed the gore from his face and neck as best he could. “You had me tied up. Now it’s my turn. I like to give as much as I like to take. And second…you’re important to me.”

  Leaning her head against the tree, she couldn’t do anything but watch him. “Why? I don’t understand.”