Chapter Eleven
***KALLIAS ***
It makes sense that the Offering calls for me.
I’m tasked with being the hero to her, the soft one. And they always fall for it, how could they not?
Perhaps in another life, I was the male that they always looked at me as. Honorable, brave, justified.
But the truth is, I’m arguably the worst of us all. I just hide it best.
The offering sits curled up in her bed sheets shivering. I immediately want to make her warm.
Sometimes the lines of pretending to care for an Offering and actually caring blur, but I am just a man, after all.
“I’ll build you a fire,” I offer, crossing past the bed and beyond the Offering. But the Offering stops me with two fingers on my back that I could easily snap.
We always take the eldest, but this is the youngest of them all.
I turn around, facing fully toward her. Her eyes are wide-set, and a striking shade of pale blue, with outer rings of aquamarine. Her skin is a few shades lighter than mine, but still ta, and freckles dot the space of her cheeks across her nose.
I can see why Keiran named her little doe. She’s as innocent as she is beautiful. Perhaps the prettiest one of all.
I make no effort to remove her hand. This Offering can touch me all she likes.
“V-vienna made promises of a bath,” she says.
“A bath is a dangerous idea.”
She blinks up at me twice. “A dangerous idea…why?” Gods save me, she's so naive and young. If I were her father, I would have taken better care of keeping her from men like us.
My hand finds purchase on her milky-white thigh. I have to hold my breath from biting her, and I’m not even a vampire.
“I’ll make you a deal,” I say, one of my favorite games to play with the Offerings. “I’ll draw you a bath if you tell me your name.”
The Offering’s cheeks turn a lovely shade of pink. “M-my name?”
I’m walking a fine line between ripping all her clothes off in the bath and throwing her in there myself. But it’s more fun to watch her offer herself up, so I have to play coy.
“How about this, you take a bath, then tell me your name after.”
She flashes an adorable smile. “Lead the way.”
The entire time I walk the nameless offering to the bathhouse, Rhodes tells me that this isn't a good idea.
But I’m not a bloodsucking vampire, and I don’t fuck what doesn’t beg.
Xaden and Keiran are more than occupied with hosting Sixth Isle this evening, I shoot back.
Keiran will fucking flay you.
Don’t tell me you won’t be watching from the shadows. This seems to shut my brother up. At least now Rhodes and I are both collectively making a bad decision.
“Get in the bath, nameless.”
Offerings eyes are somehow even wider as she takes in the magnificence of the bathhouse. I can’t say I blame her. It’s different from the rest of the House. Instead of all black, it’s white moonstone and pearl.
And the Offering looks like a goddess from heaven.
“T-turn around, please.”
I’d expect no less from her. The request for privacy as well as the manners.
I can hear the rapid beating of her heart from all the way over here as she undresses, sensing the pulsing rush of the adrenaline in her veins. I haven’t had a human girl in centuries. I can’t help but imagine what that quick pulse would feel like wrapped around my cock.
Gods I’m a monster. Not the same as Rhodes and Xaden, but still, damned to an eternal grave.
“Y-you can turn around now.”
The sight of the Offering in the tub with just her shoulders bare makes my cock pulse. She bats her lashes, and I’m losing sense of myself as I watch her wash her hair, the bubbles of the bath barely covering the nipples of her breasts.
“I’ll be right outside,” I say, my voice slipping into a dark place.
“No, wait.”
The darkest part of me stays.
“I’m almost done,” she argues. Those damn silver bubbles and water splash. “Would you just hand me a towel?”
Hand me a towel. How predictable is this trick? How predictable is this dumb Offering girl–
When I turn back to hand the nameless girl a towel, she’s standing naked and bare. I refuse to move my vision from her eye line, but still, I see enough.
My chest tightens at the sight of her. By the gods and all above. Never have I seen a woman so magnificent.
“Put this on,” I growl, averting my gaze and speaking to her as I would one of my soldiers. “Now.”
She wraps the towel around her collarbones and thighs, immediately touching my biceps to help herself out of the bath.
Little girls like her would do well to stay away from me. Yet this one is naked just beyond the thin cloth.
“I know these markings,” she says softly, running her wet skin over my forearm. It tickles and I can’t decide if I want to smack her finger off me or suck it dry.
My magic flares at the reminder of my family. My old family.
Every Offering is interested in some way or another in my tattoos. I have the most of the four of us and the Offerings always take notice, but this is the first Offering to name their title.
The girl takes notice of my sharp nod. It’s an effort not to wince at her next words.
“What are you?” She asks.
I laugh at the reminder of her people’s stories. Of how me and my brother’s people are known to some as nothing more than demons of the night.
A genuine laugh escapes my stomach. “I’m many more things than my heritage, sweetheart.”
Wings are too exhausting to carry.
“But these” –she runs her small fingers over my biceps, over the markings that once meant something. “Were you an Ilithian? Warrior?”
My shoulders tense at the mention of my family. My old family.
My twin and I do not talk much about our old lands. Ruling that Legion olds our greatest failure, nearly everyone we love is dead.
And Vienna, our half-sister, has her reasons too from staying away from the cousins we left the throne to. None of us cared much for a castle built on murder.
“A long time ago, before the Great War between the Seven Isles, my brother and I ruled the Greatest Legion on the planet–yes, even greater than Keiran.”
The Offering laughs, the high moon glimmering off the droplets on her skin like accompaniments to the stars in the sky. “Don’t say that to Keiran.”
I’m not sure what’s come over me, but I wipe a splash of water from her brow with my forefinger before it can drip into her eye.
The world pauses at the gesture. The Offering takes a deep breath.
“Forgive me for asking,” she pulls away travels to the gold vanity mirror, and begins brushing her wet hair. I want to come up behind her and run my fist through her hair, pull it back, and kiss her throat. “But…are you a demon?”
“Depends on what you deem a demon.”
From the mirror, the Offering catches my gaze on the back of her bare upper thighs.
“But to answer your real question, yes, my brother and I have wings. Vienna, however, does not share our Ilithian blood.”
“And Kieran?”
Fuck, not a question I expected. This Offering is smarter than we give her credit for.
“Keiran is half Ilithian,” I answer.
“Does he–?”
“Not my story to tell, Nameless.”
The Offering is finished brushing her hair. With a roll of her eyes, she stands and crosses over to the wardrobe where we store the Offering’s clothing. She slips off the towel, selects a light blue nightgown, and stalks across the room, and turns around.
The innocence in her gaze tells me she expects me to tie the bows on her shoulders.
I’m already way too fucking deep, and Keiran is going to fucking murder me for bathing the Offering, but I like this one more than the most.
So I tie the silk bow.
But her hand catches mine on her shoulder.
Standing behind her, I can think of just as many ways to kill as I can to fuck her. I am a warrior and god, she is just our sacrifice. Our little doe.
But tonight it feels like she’s in control.
I snatch her hand. “Don’t”
She blinks up at me with those wide, naive eyes. Still, I can’t get a read on her, still, I can’t tell what she wants.
So I assume.
“You’re not the first Offering to try this.”
Fear washes over her features, and she retracts into herself just a bit. “Try what?”
“An attempt to infiltrate the group. Pick one of us off and get us to break loyalty to Keiran. But let me tell you this,” I lower down a foot and a half to meet her eye line, “You’re not tricking anyone. Anything you try to do, we’ve seen it a hundred times before. You’re not going to outsmart any of us into taking your virginity to ruin the sacrifice.”
She looks genuinely scared. Good.
I want to pull her over my lap and spank her raw just to teach her a lesson.
My magic beats at my ribs, begging for a release. The warrior in me needs release. And taking my rage out on this girl would be something she can’t handle.
Cool night beckons, as well as the familiar shadows. My twin, Keiran, and I all are connected to darkness in one way or another.
This little girl would do her best to remain in the light.
“None of us will take your virginity,” I tell her and head for the door.
“I didn’t…I mean…”
“Sweet dreams, sweetheart,” I say, turning the door to her bedroom.
“My name is Remi,” she says so softly I barely hear her.
Her name is a weapon even an Ilithian warrior can’t fight off.
My cock is throbbing as I lock the door. I need release. I need…something.
Little doe Remi. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I pass through the hall of the East Wing. “Where are you going?” Rhodes calls.
I don’t bother to answer him.
The House of Twilight’s infamous parties have almost hit its end. Ambitious women from our few and favored courts litter the open spaces overlooking Keiran’s gardens, desperate for attention from the Midnight King and his men.
I cut through the crowd outside and go straight for two I’ve met before. Their names don’t matter.
They know their names don’t matter.
They’re pretty and plump in corsets but nothing compared to the girl six floors above.
One goes for my jacket, the other for my pants, rubbing the fabric of my pants over my cock. The one at my pants licks her lips, the other bites my ear.
Gods above.
I push both of them onto their knees in frustration. They fumble with the zipper of my pants, remove my cock, and each take turns running their tongue over my length. That look of longing and desire on each other's faces is hard to miss.
The hair on my arms raises and my shadows fill the air. The girls are messy with their mouths as they each take turns taking me in full.
Or as much as they can.
“Good girls,” I praise them, tilting my head back to the moon. “Compete for my cock.”
The blonde girl pushes herself deeper on my length. She gags but doesn’t relent.
My favorite fucking thing is a girl motivated to degrade herself.
I’m assigned to be the hero of the Offerings. To make them feel safe. But really I’m just as fucked up as the others.
Sometimes worse.
At the second girl's turn, I bury my hand in her hair and shove her even further down my length. Friends of the girls gather around from a distance, watching as I fuck their mouths mercilessly.
They’re all just as jealous as the next.
But even as a third join, desperate and needy in their own right, I can’t help but imagine it’s Remi’s lips wrapped around my cock, Remi on her hands and knees crawling to me.
Maybe our Offering has been pulling the strings all along.