Vicious In Love - D.D. Dass (book club suggestions txt) 📗

to get there, to let go.

With a deep breath, she started down the very last shelves of books, eyes roaming over their titles. That’s when she saw it. The very last column: easily distinguished by gemmed spines were the Council-Scripts, where the lives of the leaders were spiritually documented from the other-side.

Beth began to chew nervously at her lips, barely feeling the light sting when her fangs pierced the flesh. No, she thought forcefully, she was not going to even think about touching those books. It was wrong, a complete invasion of privacy that would do nothing but –

She could not look away. It was like being compelled, driven by something beyond her. The books were…calling to her. The words began to heighten, “naught but a breath…”, “terrorized by…”, “of no worth…”.

There were no thoughts of her own as her frame began to shake with it, lungs constricting with panic and so much…agony. She faded in and out of darkness, dazed by the murky, blurred images around her. It was all messy pains of different colors swirling around her vision.

She felt hot, it burned her entire body. Then it got cold…too cold, freezing cold. Dimly, she could feel her body curl up on the carpet, but her head lolled and it felt so strange, burning cold. It ran up and down her body, pulling her in and out of a…past that wasn’t her own.  

“See, Ian?” a voice hissed in her ear…or her head…she couldn’t tell but she could make out a male, crouching beside her body. It was him again. Somehow she knew this male, this male who she feared with everything in her. His eyes glowed something evil and she knew, she knew with everything in her that this male had been the one to hurt her. This male still yearned to.  “You are incapable of surviving even a bit of pain. How are you to even fight, boy? How are you to survive at all?”

A horrific cry rang in her head, but she managed to think above it until all was silent once more. “I-I can do better father, verily, I swear to it.” The voice was not her own. It was small, a young boy’s voice.

Beth tried to get pull herself out, but the book had already seized her completely. There was nothing to save her from this.

“I am unsure if I am to believe you as of now, Ian,” he pondered coolly. “You’re a disaster in yourself.”

Denial. Denial. Denial. “Nay master, I-I am simply…I am...”

“You are weak,” he spat at her.  

“Nay,” she was frantic and feeble all at once. “I swear to –,” the words were cut off because Beth’s head exploded with pain so profound, she didn’t even notice the hit had hurled her across the small room (basement?). Her head pounded and throbbed as choked shrieks clouded whatever reality she had left. 

Through the torment, all she could think was Ian…Ian, Ian, Ian.  It was a mantra of her pain. She never stopped. Not until warmth, unlike the cold burning anguish, cloaked her in a strong grip. The smell of cologne and male settled over the stench of grime.

Ian, Ian, Ian… “Christ…Beth…didn’t…” The voice was rough, laced with panic. Beth didn’t like that at all, no, the voice she knew too well wasn’t ever supposed to be –Her thoughts shifted with the petulant knowledge that she could do nothing about it. She couldn’t even help herself. Ian, Ian, Ian.

Abruptly, the warmth began to fade and need, so strong, shredded past the pain for the second. Her body weighed so much that it took all she had to burrow closer to the solid warmth, so concrete along the curves and hollows of her.

Like this, she could deal, as long as he didn’t leave her. “It’s…okay, baby…” arms encased her in the warmth and she thought she made a happy little noise because, despite the pain, she was completely happy there. She belonged in those arms, and that was all she was sure of to a point. “Just…don’t…” static blocked the rest out. “Just…be okay…”

She blindly promised, hoping to reassure him. Ian, Ian, Ian. The black, obscurity continued to stretch, on and on. Beth could feel it all over her, for such a long time she faded in and out of consciousness.

But the rasping voice helped. It spoke to her all the while in a tongue that she could only recognize as the Axvem. She didn’t listen for the words, only the so soft, so male pitch that drove the pain away until she could feel herself again. Her fingers were first and she lightly tapped with each word, creating a rhythm that she made no effort to keep up, to exhausted.

Beth didn’t realize she was crying until she could feel the liquid, thicker than actual tears, slip soundlessly down her face. The pain unexpectedly made its exit, quickly enough that she couldn’t comprehend it, instead she cried harder, practically plastering herself to the warmth, afraid that her trembling would make it disappear as well. She couldn’t handle that. Involuntarily, her arms flung around broad shoulders; face burying in the slope of his throat, welcoming the blaze in her throat at the rich scent, nothing like the other burn. So much better.

His arms felt like iron clasps secured to her waist, holding her impossibly closer and all the while, she kept her eyes tightly shut, terrified that the pain would also come back. Closer. She needed to be closer, she thought, draping her legs around him and deeply inhaling that scent. Ian, Ian, Ian.

“’m right here, baby. And ‘m sorry…So, so sorry.” She gave a useless whimper, too out of tune with herself to bother asking what he was apologizing for…Goddess, the pain…His pain. He’d had to live through that…No, Goddess, no.

“I-Ian…” she breathed raggedly, jerking backwards a bit to brush her lips softly to his clenched jaw.

So much pain… “Go ahead…drink,” he urged gently, but that wasn’t what she was after. She shook her head, trailing light kisses down his throat, but never breaking the skin, simply breathing him in, trying to bleed all of her into her scarred leader, to make him understand.

Understand what? She had no idea herself, but for now, Beth just needed the easy support of his presence, sensing that he needed the same. She gave it freely, grazing over his flawless features with her lips and her fingers until his eyes were shut and he was completely relaxed around her. Then, she let exhaustion overrule her misery, nuzzling his throat and going lax.

Beth did not understand her life at all, but for the time, with the most impossible, strong male cradling her close, she didn’t really care to either. 

Chapter Eight:

In a rush, Beth’s senses returned to her. The atmosphere was warm. Very warm. Uncomfortably warm. Her throat was in flames, ablaze, craving the constant fragrance that seemed embedded into her memory. She could tell, by the material twisted in her legs and the snug mattress beneath her, she was in a bed, his bed.

 With at start, her eyes snapped open, fixating on the high-ceiling stretched on and on above her. The darkness was not darkness at all, but amass of clarity, lacking any threats to her now. This is where I belong now. The realization, oddly enough, left her feeling at peace, hidden away.

 Except the memories from the previous night–or sometime earlier–washed over her, a bucket of ice water, derisively malicious. The pain, oh that pain, the loss–Ian, Ian, Ian–whose presence she felt was needed to function without driving herself insane in fear. And he was there. She was bizarrely tuned into the way the fear lurked rather than attacked, tamed by him. Only for him.   

 Her heartbeat was an insistent thump thump thump giving her away, but she easily ignored it, peeking up through her lashes. Vision sharp she made him out instantaneously –long, lean muscle stretched out beside her, shoulders set tensely, fingers tapping at his hard thighs as he stared up at the ceiling much like she had, face impassive.

 She let out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding, feeling her heart sink into a slow, sympathetic hibernation.

 “How are you feeling?” His tone was achingly flat.

 “Are you…Aren’t you mad at me?” she breathed, dismayed by how miserable she sounded, even to her own ears.

 Silence. The minutes dragged on, him staring so intently at the ceiling, as if searching for the answer there. Beth swallowed around the burn, tightening the covers around her body self-consciously–having only just noticed how unclothed she was, in just a tank-top and panties. Seemingly startled by the movement, his head whipped in her direction and her heart might’ve plummeted passed her ribs and into her belly. Her eyes stung with the threat of tears.

 I’ve really done it this time, haven’t I?

 The male she’d come to know was…lost, with emerald eyes almost childlike in their uncertainty, their unease. Instantly, she loathed that look. It didn’t belong to a warrior like Ian. It was too…open. “Should I be?” Yes. “I want to be. Alas, I don’t know what to feel…” His lips tipped in an empty half-smile. “Tell me, Elizabeth, how I am supposed to feel? I’ve stopped trying.”

 What…? Given up on…trying? To feel? But –No.

Beth’s vision flashed a forbidding crimson. It wasn’t from tears this time though. Rage turned her blood into molten-fire, spreading a vicious flare throughout her entire body. Her mind began a thousand miles a second. 

An unknown impulse flared deep within her body, which responded instantly in defense, straddling his chest. She stooped forward in the same motion, so that her hair was a thick mask around them. With only an inch separating them, she held his gaze unwaveringly, mesmerized by the sheer masculinity of him, flared by the specks of red in the green of his irises.

 He was affected by her. A part of her was engrossed by his subtle reactions. The way his muscles flexed and strained beneath her, the way his pupils dilated, or his breathing grew shallow…His body wanted her, now why couldn’t he? It wasn’t fair.

 Tonight, some nameless piece of her thought fiercely, he is going to feel me, to realize I am for him. Precipitately her hands fisted themselves in his hair, tugging at the silky stands, not caring that his answering groan was one of pain, not caring that his breathing was now faster in panic –not giving one damn.  “Don’t you dare,” she growled, lost to the ferment. “Don’t you dare leave me to face this alone. You are my male, Derik. You are not allowed to give up on me. You are not allowed to abandon your female!”

 And it didn’t matter he wasn’t hers, because she was his. In the course of a few weeks he had completely wrecked every wall she’d ever built without even realizing and she was so…betrayed by that. It practically poured from her very soul, the all-too familiar fear of being hurt –damaged–so severely.

 His eyes reflected that hurt, as if he could somehow feel it himself. Her hold loosened as her eyes slid shut. “I’m scared…So, so scared. Don’t…Be angry with me, vicious even.” Then, she breathed raggedly, “Protect me Ian…I need you.”

 There was a carnal growl before his lips claimed