City of Thorns by C.N. Crawford

Chapter 32

Iwriggled out of them quickly, and I heard his sharp intake of breath, then a low snarl.

From behind, he leaned over me again, hands covering mine for a moment. Then one of his hands moved slowly down, tracing over my breast, my nipple, making me gasp. Lazily, he moved his hand down to my abdomen.

Oh, God, he hadn’t even touched me yet between my legs, and I was already insanely turned on. “Tell me,” he whispered in my ear, “that you want me to give you what you need.”

I turned my head, my mouth now only inches from his perfect lips. “I want you to give me what I need,” I whispered.

Then, finally,he moved his hand lower. All it took was one light touch between my thighs to make me moan.

And because he needed his ego stroked, he pulled his hand away again.

“Come on, Orion.” I’d never wanted anyone like this before.

“I just like hearing you ask,” he said, his voice husky.

Slowly, lightly, he moved his middle finger in a circle just where I needed him. I groaned again, and I found my legs spreading wider, my ass moving against his length. My body was tightly coiled with desire, my toes curling. I wanted more of him—I needed him to take off his pants and fill me. My hips moved of their own accord, my body begging for more pressure. I wanted his hands all over me, and I’d become nothing now but animal desire. “Orion, I need more,” I whispered.

At last, he slid one finger into me, then another, and I heard him groan my name. Pleasure was rising in me as he stroked in and out, my body clenching around him. I was moving against him, fucking his hand. Finally, for the first time, I was about to come.

“Rowan.” That reverence in his tone, like a desperate prayer offered up to the heavens, started to send me over the edge. I was writhing beneath him, surrendering to the pleasure he was giving me.

Was this actually going to happen? For the first time, was I going to feel that release?

My hips moved against him as he plunged in and out of me, and my vision started to go hazy, filled with images of a midnight sea outside. My body shuddered.

My mind was going dark, shattering as spasms gripped my body.

At last, I climaxed, calling his name.

* * *

My muscles had gone completelylimp, and I pulled the sheet around myself, catching my breath.

When Orion lay down behind me, I felt that his body was still rigid, his muscles tense. I turned, kissing him deeply. Somehow, I still wanted more, but that couldn’t happen. He twined his fingers into my hair, kissing me hard, desperately.

Then he pulled away with a groan. “This was more difficult than I’d imagined.” His eyes were dark as night. “Rowan, we need to stop now. There’s only so much torture I can take in a night.”

I touched his cheek, my heart aching at his beauty. “Okay. You did it, by the way.”

An amused smile. “I know.”

When I turned away from him, tugging the sheets around me, my heart was still pounding hard. Orion’s powerful arms were wrapped around me, and I gripped one of them. “No wonder everyone makes a big deal out of orgasms. I had no idea. And no wonder mortals let themselves die at the hands of incubi. It was worth it.”

A dark laugh from behind me. “Maybe for most mortals, it was worth it, since their lives were worthless anyway. But not for you, it wouldn’t be.”

The sound of water lapped gently against the rocks. “That’s…sweet. I guess.”

“Rowan?” he said quietly. “I don’t think you should stay in the City of Thorns any longer.”

Disappointment coiled through me. “You’re kicking me out now? I thought you were going to help me.”

He brushed my hair off my face. “I’m not kicking you out, but I don’t want you to die in the king’s fire pit. And I can’t keep you safe until I know how to kill him.”

I took a deep breath. “So you do plan to kill him. Even though he’s the king and you’re not his heir.”

“Well, yes. I’m also considering killing Lydia and Nama, who are the two people most likely to report you for being a mortal. And I could kill anyone who—”

“Can we save the trail of death discussion for later?” I sighed. “I was enjoying the afterglow.”

He pulled up a second silky blanket around me, and I curled into it.

“How often do you sleep in here?” I asked quietly.

“Often. It’s where I feel the most comfortable.”

My eyelids were growing heavy now, and the candles burning in the chandelier were starting to flicker and gutter out. I let my eyes close. “Orion? How did you escape the prison?”

He brushed my hair off my face, then kissed my forehead. “I dug an escape route. It took a very, very long time.”

With his arm wrapped around me, I traced my fingers over his strange tattoo—the snake, formed into a noose. “And no one remembered you were down there?”

“One person did.” His voice sounded distant. “But he’s dead now.”

The candles were growing dimmer, and Orion’s chest moved slowly in and out behind me, lulling me to sleep.

“The king?” I asked. “Was he the only one?”

“You should go to sleep, Rowan.”

Already, I felt myself drifting off to the gentle sound of the lapping waves. Man, it would be painful to leave. This place was magic.

But sleep started to claim my mind, and I dreamt of sweeping over a sparkling ocean, and lemon trees by a shoreline. Until the dreams started to grow darker—a dark mountain that spewed hellfire. A pit of writhing snakes.

Snakes that coiled themselves into nooses.

* * *

I wokewith a gasp and blinked in the dim light. Now, only a single candle flickered over the grotto. I turned to see Orion sleeping next to me, his chest rising and falling softly. Dark sweeps of eyelashes contrasted with his pale hair.

As he slumbered, the Lord of Chaos looked strangely vulnerable. My throat went tight with emotion when I thought of him in the prison. All that time by himself after his mother was killed. He’d only been a little boy, hadn’t he, when they were arrested?

Unable to sleep again, my mind started to turn over the enigma of Mortana.

From what Orion told me, she sacrificed other people to save herself. That was how she operated. I no longer thought Orion was a psychopath. He pretended to be one, but I suspected that underneath it all, his revenge mission was driven by love for his mom.

But Mortana? She sounded like a real psychopath. Someone with one guiding principle—making sure she got what she wanted. Maybe even a sadist? He’d said she tortured him in the prisons.

Why was I suddenly getting so angry about this?

I found my fists tightening so hard that my nails were piercing my palms. Red-hot anger flowed through me at the thought of Mortana, this evil woman who’d stolen my face.

My body felt electrified with rage. Oddly powerful, even. I wanted to rip Mortana’s head off her doppelgänger body, but the weirdest part was that I felt like I could actually do it.

Wait…what was happening to me?

A flash of searing heat burned my wrist, and I looked down to see something like a tattoo flickering on my skin, black and red—burning like embers in a fire. I stared in fascination as something started to take shape before my eyes. A skeleton key smoldered on my wrist.

What in the world…

A golden light beamed over it. With a pounding heart, I started to realize where the light was coming from.

I touched my forehead, casting my wrist in shadow again.

Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck.

Powerful emotions could reveal a demon’s true nature…

But I couldn’t possibly be a demon. He’d tasted my blood, hadn’t he? He’d been sure I was mortal. This had to be a nightmare.

At last, the smoldering skeleton key faded away on my wrist. Only then was I able to breathe, and I gasped, staring at the pale skin on my arm where the key had been. “Holy shit.”

Orion’s eyes opened, and he frowned at me. “What’s wrong?”

I touched my forehead again, but the light seemed to be gone now. Only Orion’s eyes glowed pale blue in the dark.

“I, um…I think I was just imagining things,” I said.

He reached for me again, pulling me close to him, surrounding me with his arms. “You’ve had a lot to adjust to in the City of Thorns.”

My muscles started to relax again in his arms, and I stared out into the dark grotto.

Diagnostic theories: temporary psychotic break with visual hallucinations, or night terrors from sleep paralysis.

At least, I hoped one of those theories was right.

I lay down again, nestling into his strong arms. I tried to force myself to relax, to let go of that horrible vision. A nightmare. That was all it was.

I turned back to Orion once more, and I caught him looking at me, his eyes half-closed.

“Orion,” I whispered, “tomorrow, will you help me find out information about my mom?"

He nodded and murmured, half-asleep, “Yes. Then we need to get you out of here.”

“What about the king’s weakness?” I asked.

“I’ll figure it out.”

A nightmare. That was literally what Orion was, wasn’t he?

Nightmare: from the Old English maere—an incubus. A creature that robbed you of breath in the night, that fed off you. The monsters that crawled from the shadows to drag you into the afterworld. But despite what he kept telling me, I didn't think he was really a monster. As much as it annoyed and inconvenienced him, he was putting my safety above his own goals. He cared about what happened to me.

When I closed my eyes again, my mind flashed with the image of the burning skeleton key. Why had it been so easy for me to summon my shadow-self here in the City of Thorns?

Dread slid through my blood.

Why did it feel like I knew Mortana?

A horrible thought struck me like a lightning bolt—the secret I’d been keeping myself from turning over in my mind. The thing I’d been running from.

What if it was me?

What if I was the one who’d killed Mom? What if I had a dark side I wouldn’t admit to myself? That night was so chaotic, and I remembered being angry at her for making me run, for not explaining what was going on. I remembered thinking she was crazy.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I could feel myself shaking.

What if I was the real nightmare?

“Rowan,” Orion whispered, “I can feel that you’re panicking over something. What’s happening?”

My stomach tightened. “Just what you mentioned. The danger in the City of Thorns.”

“I can help you sleep, if you want,” he said quietly. “It’s an incubus thing.”

I wanted to get away from my own terrible thoughts more than anything. “Yes, please.”

And with that, a soothing magic rippled over me, coaxing my muscles to relax. My breathing and my heartbeat started to slow. Confused thoughts whirled in my mind—an image of glowing star, the skeleton key tattooed on my arm, the writhing snakes. But none of it seemed as horrifying now.

In a world of demons and magic, it was starting to become difficult to know what was real and what wasn’t.