Queen of Death
Chapter 4

Solana

The property we’re on feels like a private resort. There are three houses, the main one plus two smaller ones that flank it, a pool, a lake, the world’s smallest soccer field, and an orchard before the land slopes up into a small mountain.

Tate could easily hide from me here. I don’t know my way around, I don’t have the lay of the land, and that’s assuming he’s even grounded. If he’s taken off for the skies he could be anywhere.

So the fact that I found him in one of the smaller houses on the hill next to the orchard means that he allowed me to replace him.

This house is a smaller replica of the main house. The style is the same, the tiled floors are all the same, except it’s only one floor. There’s a small kitchen, bathroom, a living space, and two small bedrooms. Aside from a small twin bed in one of the bedrooms there is absolutely no other furniture, no decorations or homey touches, no pictures adorning the walls. Nothing. An empty shell.

Tate sits on the edge of the bed facing away from where I stand in the doorway. If he’s aware that I’m here he doesn’t let on, and likewise I don’t attempt to indicate that I’m here behind him. I’m too busy filtering through all the things I want to ask him and all the things I want to tell him.

Where do I even begin?

After a few minutes I conclude that it’s best just to go for it, pragmatics be damned.

“How long have you known?” I ask, gently breaking the silence between us.

He keeps his head down, staring a hole into the floor I’m sure. “I’m sure you already know the answer to that.”

“I have my suspicions,” I summon the courage to take one step towards him into the bedroom. “The tunnel behind the waterfall?”

His silence is all the confirmation I need that I’m right. “Why didn’t you say something sooner?”

“You should know the answer to that question, too.” His voice drops a little lower as he aimlessly twists, knots, and unknots the red silk ribbon I now see in his hands, lamenting some long lost memory.

“Mm,” I hum in thought, breaching the room further and resting my back against the wall to his left, with my arms crossed over my chest and legs crossed at the ankles. “You wanted it to be my choice.”

He wraps the silk ribbon around his hand and snaps the fabric tight.

“You’re upset,” I say to him as he threads the ribbon through his fingers. “But I can’t tell if it’s because of who I am, or…”

I trail off, entranced by the way the knots he makes untie themselves with a single pull on one of the ends or the ribbon. Watching him is like watching an artist.

“Your services don’t come cheap.” His lip snarls as he says it, but the way he tightens the ribbon around his wrist makes me think he’s less upset with me and more upset with himself.

“I warned you, Tate. I asked you twice if you understood the cost,” I warn him to recognize how much more consideration I afforded him than any other client.

He scoffs lightly, an amused smile easing the tension that’s been building. “It’s not everyday I’m knocked down a peg, not that I’d ever usually admit it. I assumed I was immune to your cost since it wasn’t even a real request, but somehow you were always five steps ahead, knowing exactly where to poke a sharp stick.”

I nod in understanding. “Your mom?” I say softly, not wanting to poke my sharp stick any further into the wound.

Tate flies off the bed and over to me, pressing me up against the wall and bringing his face so close to mine that our noses flirt. “She has nothing to do with this. She is an irrelevant black spot that I voided long ago,” he seethes through gritted teeth.

“She has everything to do with it. You’ve convinced yourself that everything is easier on your own when you have your brother and a pack who lo—“

“Don’t go there,” he wraps his fingers around my throat, physically halting my words.

“They love you, Tate. You don’t need to hide out or prove to anyone that you can do everything on your own.”

“That’s rich coming from you,” he sneers. “You’re the queen of hiding. Hunter left you, and what did you do? You ran away from home and turned yourself into a ghost.”

“I guess we have that in common then, don’t we? I thought you of all people would understand the pain that comes with someone walking out on you. But here I am, choosing to stay, choosing not to hide,” I slide my hands into his, threading our fingers together, and drop my voice to a whisper. “Choosing to open myself back up and let people in.”

His throat bobs on a thick swallow, his eyes still hardened on mine but the anger has been replaced by heat and desire.

“What will you choose?” I ask him, our foreheads pressed together and our lips but a breath apart.

Tate backs away only enough to put a few inches between us while still maintaining an intimate proximity to me.

He takes the silk ribbon he had been playing with before and he starts to wrap it around my wrists and forearms. “Do you know why I like bondage so much?”

“Because of the control it gives you?” I say breathlessly, the brushstrokes of his fingers against my skin leave me craving more.

“No,” he says gently, “it’s because you choose how much control to give me. You choose how much of yourself you’re willing to share, how much you’re willing to trust me.”

“Fuck,” I arch my back off the wall, practically moaning over how erotic his words are.

“Do you, Solana? Do you trust me?” He finishes binding me with a perfect bow atop my wrists.

“Am I a fool if I say yes?” My voice trembles with fresh vulnerability.

He tugs on the bindings, closing the distance between our mouths. “Name your terms.”

— — —

Tate

The more I interact and learn about Solana the less I seem to understand her. She’s far more resourceful and cunning than any of us realized, but what part of that was learned from years of hiding and how much was deliberate and calculated?

Maybe instead of asking her if she trusts me, I should be asking myself if I trust her.

Despite my best efforts to keep myself at an arm’s length from everyone, to stay concealed in the shadows, in front of her I’ve never felt more exposed, more seen.

“My terms?” She clarifies, bringing me back to the present. She’s so effortlessly beautiful it actually hurts. The way she considers each question thoughtfully, not rushing to commit to an answer for the sake of answering. The way she can go from vicious and ruthless to shy and blushing. The way she recognizes and owns her faults, if you can call them that, and calls us all out on ours and holds us to the same standard of ownership and growth.

“Forgive her,” she whispers, looking down at the ribbons I’ve tied around her wrists. A knife to the chest would have been more bearable than those two words.

“I won’t ask of you what I’m not willing to do myself. So let’s both forgive our demons, Tate. Being angry and alone isn’t going to bring my pup back or the years without Hunter. It isn’t going to compensate for what you and your brother went through when your mom abandoned you, and it’s certainly not going to have any impact on her life. You’re poisoning yourself and expecting her to suffer for it.”

Gods she’s lethal. That tongue of hers is sharper than any man-made weapon and she wields it with devastating precision.

“The more open you are, the more open I’ll be. I’ll give as good as I receive…in every sense of the phrase.” She lifts her eyes to me, incinerating me with hooded, smoldering green eyes.

I’ve reached my limit, I’ve given her control to set her terms and speak her mind and in doing so she has flayed me open with every lash of her wicked tongue.

If I don’t take control now I might do something incredibly dangerous, like let her embed herself in my heart.

With one pull of the ribbon her bindings come apart but she keeps her wrists pressed together, waiting for me to move her to my liking.

“Arms by your side. Don’t move.” I instruct her. The straps of her tank top slip easily off her shoulders and down her arms exposing her breasts to me, nipples already hardened and begging me to taste them.

I lean down and capture one of her pert nipples in my mouth, alternating lapping at her with my tongue and nipping at her with my teeth. Her breathing quickens and when she throws her head back her back arches, pushing her nipple further into my mouth.

Greedy little girl.

I release her nipple and use my free hand to wrap her long locks around my wrist, pulling down and forcing her head up so our lips brush one another as I speak to her. “I said don’t move.”

I hold her there, watching her eyes as I slide my other hand down her body and into her shorts, grabbing myself a generous handful of her delectable ass.

“You have the juiciest little ass,” I murmur against her lips while her eyes flutter and struggle to stay open.

I let go of her hair and hook both thumbs into both her rolled up shirt and the waistband of her shorts, dragging them over her wide hips and down her silky legs.

My tongue traces the tattoo of her namesake on her left hip. “You said I was poisoning myself, and perhaps you were right. But now the only poison I’m interested in tasting is yours.”

Her fingers thread through my hair the moment my lips press against the velvety soft spot of her inner thigh. I pull away immediately, punishing her disobedience, and begin re-wrapping her bindings.

“Hands up, like you’re praying,” I command her and she does what I ask but not before lifting a sly brow at me.

“To whom am I praying?” She teases.

“To me, pet. Only to me. I’ll answer your prayers. Over and over again,” I kiss along her neck and collarbone between each word.

Starting with her elbows, I wrap the red silk ribbon twice around and then braid it around her forearms down to her wrists before looping it once around her neck and tying it behind her neck in a simple bow. The excess ribbon drips delicately down her back, standing out against her skin despite the ink it competes with.

“Bed. On your knees. I want your peach of an ass in the air.”

Without a word Solana does as she’s told. Her back arches beautifully due to the way she’s bound, resting her weight on her forearms, knees spread and ass in the air ready for the taking.

I strip silently while she gets settled on the bed, giving my cock a few cursory strokes. Not that I need them, around her I’m constantly fighting a semi.

I take a moment to admire the view of her pink pussy exposed and glistening with anticipation. I could make her wait, make her sweat, but I’m just as eager to taste her as she is to be touched.

Her yelp echoes through the house when I lick a wide stripe from her clit all the way up her backside. She’s forced to spread herself wider to accommodate my shoulders between her thighs, causing her pussy’s puffy lips to open for me.

I don’t hesitate any longer, I dive in and begin my feast. I take my time bringing her to climax, leisurely lapping at her clit and circling her tight hole. I dine on her like a starved man, craving more and more of her. She tastes divine and I hum appreciatively against her pussy so she knows just how much I enjoy her.

Her climax builds slowly. Every time she’s about to fall over the edge I pull back, driving her pleasure higher and higher until her body physically can’t take anymore and she falls apart on my tongue, screaming into the mattress.

I don’t let her recover. I slide myself into her slowly so my piercings don’t tear her until I’m fully seated inside her.

“Tate,” she rasps, the ribbon constricting her throat from all her tugging.

I sit there for a moment, seated inside her, giving her time to tap out and tell me to stop. But she doesn’t. Instead, she pushes back against me, mewling with need.

Slowly at first I begin to slide out and back into her, but quickly pick up my pace. After several minutes I’m slamming myself into her again and again, loving the sound of our flesh clapping and the moans that she buries in the mattress.

“I want to hear you, pet. I want all your pleasure.” I drive into her relentlessly.

Her walls begin to constrict and squeeze around me, telling me that she’s close to releasing again. Gathering her dripping arousal on my thumb, I swirl it around her perfect pucker and slip inside her ass.

“Will you give this to me one day, Solana?” I ask her, grabbing her hip with my other hand and pulling her back against me so hard that I can feel my tip knocking against her womb.

“Yes, fuck, yes please.” She moans and then she explodes audibly around me, strangling my cock so fiercely that my balls tighten up and I follow her into ecstasy, shooting my release deep inside her belly while she rides out the aftershocks rippling through her.

I tug on the ribbon releasing her from her bindings as her body finishes milking mine.

I don’t move, I remain sheathed inside of her until she decides to pull off of me. When she finally does, she falls onto her side on the bed and reaches for me.

Normally, this is where I’d return to the shadows. Slink away unseen, disconnecting myself. But if I have any chance of getting more of her, she’s made it clear that I need to give her some of myself in return. So that’s how I end up laying beside her, the two of us taking comfort in each other’s company rather than running from it.