And women. Two, tonight, who saw to my arms, the men to my legs. For all my struggling, they moved swiftly, expertly, like they had practiced hauling a screeching sacrifice to the altar a dozen times over. One moment I had both feet on the ground, and the next I was up, horizontal. Then—flat on my back, stretched across the altar, caressed by the polished stone. My arms found their way above my head, trapped and bound in place with silk ties that refused to budge. My feet they left unbound, their confidence telling, perhaps even their undoing.
All this without a word from the acolytes. Silas watched on from a distance, the sinful twist of his mouth suggesting he enjoyed the display. My struggle. My panic. My fight. The fifth of the faithful lingered by his side, still, silent, while the crowd started with their awful hissing again, the drums ever present and quickening, as if their players could hear my racing heart.
Plucking the silver dagger from his boot, Silas strolled toward me like he had lost his urgency. He twirled the blade in hand with the ease of a master assassin, a killer familiar with all manner of gruesome weaponry, and when he stopped beside the altar, I actually feared him. Just for a moment, I stiffened, my mouth dry, my tongue like lead, my throat raw from shrieking.
And then he winked. Bold as sin, he had the audacity to wink at me, his smile sharpening. In a flash, anger replaced fear. I lurched up at him, but the restraints held me in place far better than any fumbling hands might. Silas flipped the dagger and saw to the rest of my dress, slicing clean through the chiffon, right down to the dirty hem. My curled toes shied away from him when he dragged the blade’s tip across the tender tops of my feet, and instinctively I rolled onto my side.
Away from the crowd. Away from his dark smiles, his arrogant winks. Struggling to keep my breath even, I looked to the shadowy wood beyond, then up to the starless sky. The clouds had thickened, darkened, ready to burst at any moment. I wished they would, but no rain could dampen the hellfire torches, just as no words could sway Silas.
The warlock loomed over me, his presence working into my flesh, my bones, right down to the marrow. A few from the crowd laughed, and I imagined he’d made some lewd gesture about me turning my naked figure away. A quick glance up showed the four in red loitering at the head of the altar, watching, waiting. I sucked in a shaky breath when I met the bright blue gaze of one of the women, her eyes especially vibrant surrounded by the black mask. Perhaps I could try… something. She seemed young, possibly new to this world. Fairies had some influence, the promise of fortune and favor—
An open palm struck me, hard, and I cried out in shock. Had he just… spanked me? The acolytes shifted about, sniggering as the sting warmed my backside. Before I could fully process the unfamiliar sensation, Silas did it again: a bare hand, a merciless slap, once for each cheek, then both together.
Squealing, I squirmed against my restraints, rolling onto my belly for but a moment before that punishing hand delved between my cheeks, gruff fingers stroking my slit before gripping tight. My jaw dropped and I exhaled a startled huff, a blush igniting across my whole body as his spare hand caught my hip, the other buried between my thighs. He then rolled and lifted me, arranging me on my back again.
Gloved hands pressed down on my arms to deter any further delays, and I snapped my lips shut, biting the insides of my cheeks, my entire body aflame as Silas brought the fingers that had touched me so intimately, so fleetingly, to his mouth. He licked each one, his eyes locked with mine, before the fifth acolyte peeled his jacket from his muscular frame.
A flicker of lightning accompanied a swift and sudden crack of thunder, the wind picking up, rushing around the clearing. Leaves danced. Branches clattered. Surrounded by hellfire, by would-be demons and the king of the night, I sought one final escape. As the red-cloaked figure undid Silas’s shirt, button by button, delicate fingers moving reverently down his torso, I planted my unbound feet on the altar. Knees bent, I could spring up and over and off, then attack the silken bonds around my wrists from a better angle. I could do it—move faster than these creatures, claim the element of surprise.
Silas tsked and snatched my right ankle. He wrenched it down, straightening my leg, then made short work of the left until I was stretched out before him again, naked, on a bed of stone and honeysuckle chiffon. Bare-chested, he towered over me, the juniper hooded and dark, a mirror to the storm rising around us. His acolyte knelt at his feet, working his belt as my eyes raked over defined pectorals and a sharply apparent V-cut that delved beneath his trousers. Prominent veins snaked down his arms, arms that rippled with muscle, that yielded the dark magic gifted upon him by his fallen angel. Strong hands. Calloused, black-tipped fingers. A broad chest peppered with obsidian hair that trailed down to his—
I looked to the clouds when his follower peeled down his trousers, exposing muscular thighs and the cock I’d felt pressed against me an eternity ago. Heat soared within me, an unwelcome fire I had tried to ignore from the first snap of his presence. While I might have been fae, I was also a woman—a woman not quite as immune to chiseled masculine perfection as I would have liked.
Naked and proud, Silas accepted a golden chalice from another acolyte. A quick sip stained his lips as red as the dried blood still marring his side. Pride tickled me too, briefly, at the notion that I had sullied masculine perfection just a touch.
The warlock held the chalice up to his followers, ever the showman, then faced me—and spilled the contents all over me. From the tips of my toes right up to my neck, he doused me in a deep red that smelled of strong wine but was dark enough to be blood. I yelped, squirming and twisting as tepid liquid flooded over me, tainted my flesh. To my immediate left, another of the faithful held a second chalice to my lips, but I turned away, scowling as yips and shrieks sounded from the crowd, sharp cries punctuating the ever-present hiss. To them, this could have been blood.
And it thrilled them.
My belly looped as cold dread wove through the fires of rage, of indignation—of carnal curiosity. A carnality that piqued when Silas dragged a lazy finger from the dip in my throat down, down, down between the valley of my breasts. My nipples pebbled tighter, almost painfully, and my belly twitched against his caress, against the way he swirled his finger through the wine, circled around each hip bone. As though he could hear my warring heart, the warlock grinned, then swooped down to replace his finger with his tongue.
A moan threatened to claw up my throat as warmth lapped across my flesh. I pressed my lips together firmly, refusing to give him the satisfaction, refusing to yield to my own damned curiosity, to the sharp and sudden interest in this monster’s darkness. Every other night of the year, I was content with my grove, my flowers, my trees, my leaves, my creatures of the wood. Yet tonight… Tonight my role as the forest shepherd fell away. Tonight…
I was his.
He knew it.
I knew it.
And I hated how it thrilled me, how it made me slick between my thighs, made my back arch against my will when he dragged that accursed tongue up. It swirled around a nipple, one and then the other, before closing over my breast as a long, low growl reverberated in his chest. His faithful wouldn’t have heard it over the hiss of the crowd, the constant beat of the drums, the swelling storm—but I did. Dangerous, that sound, paired with the devilish mirth in his juniper greens.
I ought to cower, but…