Touched by Darkness: (Sins of The Fallen Book 2)
Touched by Darkness: Chapter 21

A week has passed since Alaric fucked me in the janitor’s closet, and the three of them still keep a close eye on me, following me everywhere. Even insisting I stay at their house.

They haven’t tried to coax my darkness out to play again, but I sense the curiosity simmering beneath Daemon’s skin.

Alaric, with his tousled hair and dark eyes, is watching me intently from across the table in the library, where we have chosen to study for the afternoon. They’re working on some project relating to demonology while I’m studying fire magic.

I pretend I don’t notice how he won’t take his eyes off me as I turn another page. It’s unnerving, to say the least.

Ever since he forced his name from my lips, it’s as if he’s obsessed, dragging me into closets after class to fuck my brains out when Daemon is otherwise occupied.

He still doesn’t trust me, and he makes sure to remind me of that fact when I’m choking on his cock.

Ronan is still his usual clueless self. I catch him watching me with a tinge of curiosity in his gaze sometimes, but I think it’s more related to Daemon’s fascination with me than any real interest on his part.

I miss my connection with him.

I miss how he flirted so effortlessly in class and sat with me on the roof when I was homesick.

Dariana dislikes me. Even now, she’s openly glaring, as if the fire in her eyes alone is enough to frighten me off. Does she not realize that if I tried to leave, Daemon would take it as an open invitation to chase me? He has decided he wants to keep me—just like last time—and there’s nothing I can do to change it.

However, he hasn’t fucked me again. He just keeps me like a trophy for him to play with when boredom strikes.

One he is unwilling to part with.

I close the book and scoot my chair back. “I’m gonna see if I can replace something else on the topic.”

Alaric narrows his eyes but says nothing. Daemon lifts his gaze and drawls, “Don’t try to run. It’s pointless.”

With an eye roll, I collect the book and push the chair back in with my hip. “You’ve told me this countless times.”

A muscle tics in his jaw. “And I will tell you countless more.”

“I won’t run.”

“Good.”

I hate how he makes my heart beat faster, even as I want to strangle him for being a possessive alphahole. But I say nothing, because the leash is longer now than it was a few days ago, when I wouldn’t have been allowed to walk down the book aisles on my own.

Now that a week has passed without a stalker incident, we’re all breathing a collective sigh. Well, they are. I’m still paranoid as hell, but I refuse to let it show.

I place the book back, then walk a few feet while perusing the spines. The library is one of my favorite places here in Hell. Eden didn’t have them. We relied solely on the stories told by the elders. Not only do I love the information contained within their pages, but I also adore the smell of old books and the silence that reigns in here. It’s a thick silence filled with wisdom and enchanted secrets I itch to unravel.

I start to pull out another book when my spine stiffens. Heat envelops my back, and a soft brush of fingers on my neck causes me to freeze.

“You seem to have abandoned me.”

It’s Amenadiel.

Breathing in a relieved sigh, I push the book back in before turning. “What are you doing here?”

He cages me in with his big body and pulls out an old book with a leather spine. His eyes scan the title as he replies in that casual tone of his. “I came to see my son.”

“In the library?”

He looks at me while placing the book back in its place. “Maybe I also came to check up on you. The mansion has been quiet since you disappeared.”

“I helped you out of my mind. I don’t owe you anything else.”

“You hurt my feelings.” He brushes my hair off my forehead before tucking the strands behind my ear. “Who says you owe me anything? If I remember correctly, I made a promise and I intend to keep it.”

“What are you doing, Amenadiel?” I ask when the pad of his thumb brushes over my lips.

Is it my imagination that the darkness in me responds to his touch? As he presses down on the swell of my lip, it stirs inside me.

“I’m simply saying hello. Haven’t you missed me at all? We shared some pleasant conversations.”

I start to speak—to say what, I don’t know—but the words die on my tongue when he cups my chin and leans down to press a kiss to the corner of my mouth.

“The monster in you is growing restless. I can sense it.”

I stiffen, and his grip tightens.

“You recently let someone feed on you.”

“It’s not your business,” I bite out, and he digs his fingers into my skin.

Strangely, I like it.

“It’s most certainly my business if you deprive the monster in you. It needs chaos… blood…”

“Let go of me!”

“Now, now,” he whispers as his wings unfold to shield us from prying eyes. “Let’s not be in a mood. Not when I finally have you to myself.”

Before I can tell him to fuck off, he drops to his knees and smooths his hands up my thighs. I’m so surprised by this turn of events that I’m frozen in place.

Amenadiel leans in and drags his nose over my skin, up and up, closer to my silk panties. His fingers grip the backs of my thighs as his teeth sink into my skirt. He pulls it up until his nose bumps up against my panties.

What the hell is happening?

More importantly, why am I letting it happen?

Why is my gaze misting over with red?

He breathes me in, tightening his hold on the backs of my thighs. “Exquisite.”

I make a choked sound that I can’t decipher when he reaches up and slides them aside to look at my pussy as if it’s the most beautiful artwork he’s ever seen.

The world is red.

My incisors throb.

“This little pussy deserves to be worshipped. Don’t you think, Aurelia?” His thumb drags over my slit, and my knees give way, but he wraps his arm around the backs of my thighs as if he knew his touch would bring me to my knees. “Yes, it deserves to be fucked properly and thoroughly.” Turning his head, he bites the inside of my thigh.

I swear, I nearly come.

Whatever black magic this is, my body craves more. I’m unable to push him away and tell him to stop. I don’t even want to. Not when he looks up at me from between my legs and whispers, “I would love to feast on your pussy until you come all over my face, but time is running out. They’re suspicious.”

Amenadiel sets me to my feet, stands up, and grabs my chin. “You need to feed. Don’t neglect the monster in you, or you’ll regret what happens next.”

Then he’s gone.

My chest heaves as I blink.

What the hell just happened?

I pinch myself. It’s definitely not a dream. I’m awake, and the pain in my arm is a sharp sting.

Daemon, Ronan, Alaric, and Dariana step around the corner, looking murderous, as if they expected me to have fled the building.

When they spot me slumped against the shelves, they slow to a halt. Daemon is the first one to move again, approaching me with a suspicious glint in his eye.

He can tell something is up. He scents the air. “Why do I smell a male on you?”

My throat jumps, but Daemon is on me before I can deny it. He fists my hair and breathes into my neck. The long, drawn-out, and vicious growl reverberating in his chest as his wings erupt in an aggressive display of power is frightening.

He leans back, his sharp incisors digging into his bottom lip. “Who the fuck touched you?”

“No one touched me,” I blurt.

Daemon yanks my skirt up, slides his hand inside my panties, and rams a finger inside my soaking pussy.

“Is that why you’re drenched? Literature turns you on, does it?”

“Daemon?” I rise up onto my tiptoes as he finger-fucks me to within an inch of my life. I can’t catch my breath. He’s too intense.

Too much in all the ways that count and completely unapologetic. He doesn’t care that his touch hurts. That’s what he wants, in fact. And so do I.

“Don’t lie to me, whore. You reek of another man. Did he touch your cunt?”

My head shakes, and he bares his teeth in a vicious snarl.

I can’t see the others obscured by his big wings.

“I can smell him on your thighs and your fucking panties.”

“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He grabs my chin and shoves me back against the shelf while he continues his sweet, torturous assault on my body. Arousal soaks his hand and seeps down my thighs. “You bring out the monster in me, little witch. Do you like the power you wield?” He bares his teeth again. “I don’t. I fucking hate it. I hate how you bring me to my fucking knees. The only one who should be on their knees is you, bowing to your future king. In fact”—he slides his hand out from beneath my skirt, puts it on my shoulder, and applies pressure—“you can worship my dick while you’re down there.”

I try to resist, but it’s futile. Daemon is too strong, too angry, and hellbent on taking back power. My knees connect with the marble flooring. I glare up at him and fist my hands by my sides.

He’s fucking wrong if he thinks I’ll let him take his anger out on me like this. This is a dance we’ve done many times before. It’s Daemon’s aphrodisiac, if I remember correctly.

But I’m not playing a game for once. I want his love—all the ugly and beautiful shades of it—but not like this.

Not on my knees in the library with my wings tucked behind me like a good girl. If that’s what he wants, then Daemon can pick any girl here that’s not me.

He tries to reach for me, but I flare my wings and smack his hand away. All that gets me is a delicious slap to the cheek.

The kind of slap that tells me I get no say in the matter. He wants me to suck his dick, and therefore I will suck his dick, and my wishes don’t equate in this situation.

I must be sick, because I love the relief I feel when he treats me like this. These desires, so dark and forbidden, are allowed to grow and flourish in his garden.

He slaps me again. This time, I hiss and try to crawl away, but he grabs my hair and drags me deeper down the aisle. My legs kick out on the ground, and my skirt bunches around my waist.

Alaric, Ronan, and Dariana watch the scene unfold with matching smirks and flared wings to stop anyone who walks past this particular section of the library from seeing anything.

Daemon tosses me to the floor, plants his feet, and unbuckles his belt. “Cowering in the corner isn’t going to save you.”

He slides his zipper down and reaches inside his boxers to palm his hard length. “Come here.”

I shake my head and press farther into the corner when he stalks up to me and fists my hair. I’m pulled up on my knees, my neck arched at an awkward angle. He takes his veiny cock out and slaps the thick head over my mouth. “If you let other males have what’s mine, you leave me no choice but to punish you.”

My wings unfold and I shove him off, then take flight.

Gasps ring out in the library as I fly high above the bookshelves, my raven wings parting the air. “Don’t you fucking dare, Daemon.”

If anything, he looks thrilled by this turn of events. His enraptured eyes watch my big wings slice through the air with every sweep, but then he seems to catch himself, and darkness falls over his eyes. “Close your wings at fucking once!”

“Oh,” I laugh, “I remember, you don’t like other men seeing my wings unfolded. You think they’re sprouting hard-ons, Daemon? Imagining themselves fucking me from behind while I flare my wings for their twisted pleasure?”

“You shut your mouth!” His voice is a low growl, so low, in fact, that a shiver travels down my spine. Daemon is angry.

Very fucking angry.

Before he can hurl threats at me, I fly away, exiting the library. The hallways are too narrow for my wings, so I have no choice but to drop to the ground and take off running.

I run like the fucking wind.

But what’s more?

I’m laughing.

He’s on my tail, like an avenging angel. I can feel it, and the anticipation swirling in my belly is fucking delicious. I almost stop so that he can spank me for defying him.

I hope he spanks me so hard that I can’t sit for weeks.

I dart around the next corner and collide with the lockers. The pain in my shoulder barely registers.

“Aurelia?” Dmitriy calls out as I sprint past him.

I still don’t stop.

The chase is on, and this time, I’ll run until my legs give out.

I emerge through the academy’s front doors and take flight into the night. There’s no freedom like that of the wind in my wings. How I lived without it for so many years while locked away in Eden is a mystery. Now I never want to be deprived of it again.

When the academy is a safe distance away, I land on the soft moss in the forest. I’m safer here than I am in the sky, where they can easily spot me.

The trees whisper, and I let their softly spoken words soothe me for a moment before wading deeper into the night. I don’t have a destination in mind. I’m just happy to have enraged Daemon and beaten him at his own game.

The silent night is disturbed by the howl of a wolf in the distance. Several more follow it. It’s so hauntingly beautiful, I stop to listen.

A twig breaks behind me, and I whirl around, expecting to see Daemon. I’m met with brown eyes instead, framed with dark, wispy lashes, and long hair that shines beneath the streaks of moonlight.

Dariana’s heels sink into the soft moss as she stalks me. “You think Daemon is the only one who can hunt? All I had to do was follow the stench of betrayal, and it led me straight to you.”

I stand my ground, refusing to cower. “The stench of this and the stench of that. It’s getting old, Dari.”

She cocks her head, her eyes narrowing. “Only my friends call me ‘Dari.’”

“Well,” I breathe out, “in a different time, we were more than friends.”

“See, that’s where you’re wrong. I know you’re lying because I would never look twice at someone like you. You’re plain, little witch. Plain and boring.”

“Yeah?” I sneer, meeting her halfway. “Is that why Daemon is obsessed with me? Why Alaric fucks me between classes, playing my scent off as a random fuck?”

“You think Daemon doesn’t know? You and Alaric are both naive and clueless. Of course, he knows Alaric plays with you like a cat plays with a mouse. He reeks of you.”

I’m taken aback, and she hones in on my reaction with a smug glint in her eye. “As soon as Alaric figured out that Daemon doesn’t care, he took full advantage and used you as his own toy.”

“Daemon does care.”

“Does he now?” she taunts, crowding me against a tree. The rough bark digs into my bare shoulders as she slides her fingers beneath the strap of my dress and snaps it.

“I know he does.”

Dariana hums, sliding the torn fabric down to reveal my naked breast. “Maybe you’re right, but I wouldn’t be so sure.” She tweaks my nipple before palming my breast while I stare at her face.

Tears bead on my lashes as I whisper, “You’re cruel.”

She pinches my nipple hard, then flicks her gaze up to me. “And you’re a threat.”

I don’t reply.

There’s no point in arguing when she has already come to a conclusion about me. They all have in their own unique ways.

“I have to admit,” she whispers, brushing her thumb over the hardened bud, “you have pretty tits.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Maybe I’m curious.”

Deja vu hits me again.

“Curious?”

She slides down my other strap, her fingers dragging over my breast, before she palms the weight. “I don’t know why.” The tone in her voice is almost mystified as she kneads them. When I gasp, she stops and looks up. “Scrap that. I do know why. Despite your raven feathers, you have a refreshing innocence about you. It’s either genuine or well-crafted to fool the heir to the throne. I’m yet to figure out which.”

Movement behind her steals my attention, and I let out a shriek as my eyes lock on the hooded figure between the trees.