“I am the only one that hurts her,” Alexander stated as his falcon let out an almighty screech of primal victory from somewhere above us.
And then he slit his throat.
I watched like a camera lens devoid of bias as blood, black in the darkness, spilled like a silken shroud over Landon’s front. He twitched as Alexander held him, and then moments later, his eyes rolled up then closed, and he was dead.
Alexander stood, hefted the body in his arms, and walked some ways away into the black until I heard a heavy splash that had to have been Landon’s body sinking in the stream. My ears strained for the sounds of his boots in the mud, and I felt such an immense sense of relief when he returned, I almost dissolved into sobs. I looked at my muddy, torn up knees, my naked torso riddled with scratches, and tried to compose myself.
“Look at me, Cosima,” he ordered in that hushed, Dominant voice I couldn’t disobey.
I shiver wracked through me because I hadn’t listened to those delicious, dulcet tones in weeks.
His eyes glowed brighter than the moonlit fragments filtering through the trees. I swallowed thickly at the way they owned me, the way he owned me even with one look, even five feet away.
“You’re okay,” he told me. “Hush, bella, I’m with you.”
I realized I had been making a keening sound like a lost kitten and the moment he told me to hush, I stopped.
“You shouldn’t have killed him,” I said hoarsely. “You’ll get in trouble again.”
And then what would I do?
What would I do if I had to go to a new, crueler Master?
What would I do without him?
The moon disappeared behind a cloud, and Alexander’s eyes went dark.
“People die in The Hunt each year. We don’t even look for the ones who don’t return. We just cover up their deaths as if nothing’s amiss. No one is taking you from me.”
“Grazie a Dio,” I whispered, thanking God.
I wanted to ask him to hold me because I was cold, and hurt, and defenceless, in need of comfort. But also, because he hadn’t touched me in so long that I wore my ache for his touch like weights between my legs.
I couldn’t put that into words. I didn’t want to and given my current mental state, I couldn’t even try.
But I reached a hand out into the blackness and I felt Alexander lean in to it from where he kneeled.
His stubble roughened jaw fit into my palm like a puzzle piece and something deep within me that only he could reach, clicked on.
I lunged for his mouth, my lips hitting his awkwardly, mostly on his chin, my tongue in the slight cleft there.
He held still, surprised.
I dragged myself forward with my hands at his neck and wrapped myself around him, moving my mouth to the strong pulse in his neck because it steadied me.
“Safe,” I whispered to myself to soothe the wild terror still gnawing at the back of my mind.
“Safe,” he echoed, his strong arms finally going around me in a tight cinch.
It was strange magic, a hug, especially a hug from that man.
It settled the demons at war inside me, sung them a lullaby and put them to bed. So when Alexander finally stroked his hand over my head and tangled it into the back of my hair to angle my face for his kiss, I was ready for it.
His plush mouth ate at mine as if we had all the time in the world, nibbling my lips with his teeth, rubbing his sinuous tongue against mine, and breathing his sweet mint breath against my cheek.
He seduced me with that kiss into trusting him and needing him. A low fire stoked in my center and flooded my chilled body with delicious heat.
“You’re mine,” he said against my lips, nipping them between his words until they felt tender as bruised petals. “You’re mine to protect and comfort just as much as you are mine to play with and use. Say it, Cosima.”
“I’m yours, Master,” I whispered into his open mouth, planting my words like a decadent chocolate to melt on his tongue.
He savoured it, licking his lips as his eyes darkened. “Good, little mouse. Now, I won this pussy fair and square. Lie back and show me my prize.”
Then the hand in my hair pulled tighter, manipulating my desire like a puppeteer with string. My need flared higher, and I whimpered into his mouth as his kiss turned cruel.
He pushed me down into the mud, but he didn’t have to, my legs were already spread, the cold winter air biting into the honeyed folds of my sex. I wanted him to see me, to watch his eyes burn as his fingers trailed in the wetness, smearing my arousal across my entire pussy and inner thighs like some heathen worshipper.