The hellbeasts past, p.8
The HellBeast's Past, page 8
“You will not!” I snapped, making him actually grin.
“Then let this be our first battle because. one way or another, I am healing this damaged skin of yours.” I tried to pull my hands from his grasp at this, moving back at the same time and finding nothing but a wall at my back and a satisfied HellBeast at my front.
“Now that is a curious thing,” he mused.
“What is? Wait, I don’t care, just let me go.” I said. making the bastard smirk and ignore my obvious plea, focusing instead on my own curiosity.
“Your fear of me hurting you is outweighed by the fear of the lust you wish to deny yourself.” Again, if I had the power to shoot deadly lasers from my eyes, I would have started aiming at that damn sexy grin of his! Instead, I bit back,
“Oh yes, enduring a forced orgasm is me denying my lust for you… deluded HellBeast.” I muttered this last part, making him deepen his knowing smirk before raising a brow and repeating in mocking tone,
“A forced orgasm… sounds frightening and truly horrific indeed.” To which I rolled my eyes and trying to hate this playful banter that had switched the conversation to only slightly annoying. After all, I was trying to hate him here.
“Yes, well let’s try taking away your free will and see how you like it!” I snapped and, unfortunately, reminding him of the one time that happened, and with life altering consequences at that.
“Never again,” he snarled, making me wish I could instantly take it back but knowing right now my pride wouldn’t let me. Yet, in the end, it didn’t matter as the reminder left him just as quickly as it appeared. Then that hard edge to both his voice and his jaw relaxed enough to tease,
“But I suppose if forced to endure such again, then forced pleasure by your hands wouldn’t be something you would find me fight against… too hard.” Again, I rolled my eyes but this time it was most definitely lacking and also came with the slip of a chuckle.
Damn him!
“Now hold still, pet of mine.”
Okay, so calling me that definitely had me dropping what stupid little humor had momentarily gripped me. Which meant I did the opposite and tried to scramble back away from him. Of course, little good this did me, as he dropped his other knee and crawled over me enough that he could pull me right under him. Then with a flash of movement he bit both his palms just as I was fighting to be free of his massive bulk looming over me.
Then he grabbed both my wrists, encircling his bloody hands around them and pinning them above my head with frightening ease.
“NO!” I shouted, trying to fight him, despite knowing that it was pointless. He was a powerhouse of strength and even though I knew he was trying to be gentle with me, it was firm enough to let me know that fighting was a useless endeavor.
“Easy now, calm for me and just let it happen,” he ordered calmly, making me wish he was being an asshole just so I could add this moment to the long list of things to hate him for. Of course, I couldn’t let him off that easily.
“Fuck you!” I seethed, yet he just grinned down at me before lowering enough to run his nose up my cheek, telling me,
“I would watch your words, as you very may wish to do such after this forced orgasm of yours… now relax and just let it happen,” he said again, in that smooth velvet tone that I knew well, and one he usually reserved for the bedroom.
“I wouldn’t fuck you even if you begged me… ahhh… ooohhhh God!” This insult started off well enough but, by the end, it most definitely lacked the luster of hatred. Especially when the feeling of his blood hit my system like an injection of lust had just shot straight to my core! I even felt my back start to arch, now pressing up into him instead of what I should have been doing.
“That’s it… Gods, so fucking beautiful,” he muttered as if to himself and in my lust-filled fog, I tried to cling onto his words. But the raging fire burning up inside me wouldn’t let me hold on to my hate. Not long enough to drown his words out of my mind. To cling on to the darkness, and shadow the feeling in a shroud of bitterness and loathing. To try and stop my treacherous heart from jumping at the sound of him calling me beautiful.
To know that his words still had the power over me was a fact I didn’t want to admit.
So instead, I let myself focus on the stolen free will that was stripping me bare. The way the intensity of his healing built and built until I knew it would erupt out of me. The fear of the end, knowing that everything between us would return to one at war instead of fighting it together like we always had. But right now…
It was time to let go.
So, I did, and unfortunately, I did this screaming his name, one I had vowed not to say,
“Oh, oh, oh God, Jared, I… I… am COMING! JARED, YES! AHHH!” I cried out, panting through the tense and body shuddering orgasm. One that felt like it had been building since the bridge. At this, he groaned before lowering his forehead to my own, one now speckled in perspiration from trying to fight it for too long.
“And there is my name, and one spoken the only way it should be, from lips calling out not in hatred but in blissful solace.”
I panted through the euphoria and with each breath I took, the feeling went back in the box ready for me to lock away again, clarity taking its place. Which was why after a second more of relishing this moment, one that I could fool myself into believing was the way it always was between us, I turned my face away. Turned away and let go of the lie, let go of the time before the great chasm of time tore us apart. Time that had created a distance so vast, it seemed we would never find our way across.
In response, I felt and heard his sigh of frustration, one made for a second time after I demanded quietly,
“Please get off me.” However, he told me firmly,
“You can’t hide from this between us forever…” then he lowered his lips to my ear, and what came next sounded too much like a vow he had made just for me…
“…You can’t hide from me.”
10
THE SUM OF OUR FEARS
“You can’t hide from me.”
I didn’t say anything to this, even though ‘watch me’ was just on the tip of my tongue. But then there was also a stubborn part of me that wouldn’t shut up and kept whispering, who are you trying to fool with that one? Especially when all I cared about was getting back to my own time and, with it, getting back to my Jared… a man I didn’t ever intend to hide from. And, well, they were one and the same, but light-years apart.
He pushed himself away from where he had me caged on the floor among the nest of bedding. And the moment I had this freedom, I rubbed at my now healed wrists and couldn’t hold myself back from asking,
“Why did you do that?”
“Because despite what you think of me, it displeases me to see you harmed,” he answered and as nice and reassuring as that was to hear, he had mistaken my question.
“By why did you do it that way?” I asked again, this time trying to make myself clearer. However, when he raised his brow down at me, I added even more,
“With your blood.”
At this he lowered a hand for me to take so he could help me off the floor. I slowly got to my feet, no longer choosing to feel any more vulnerable than I already did around him given the difference in our size. But he wouldn’t let me hide by looking at the ground as I waited for his answer. No, instead, he used two fingertips to raise my face up before telling me,
“Because I wanted pleasure to replace the pain.”
I swallowed hard at this and tried to escape the intensity of his gaze. Because there were so many sides to this man and his kindness was what disarmed me the most. His treatment of me had been almost barbaric, yet here he was now, with what looked like conflicted tenderness painted across his features. As if what he wanted to do and what he knew he shouldn’t do clashed, like two magnets pushing against each other and hoping to make the connection.
Simply put, he was at war. At war with himself, and I doubted even he knew which side of him would win because it could all change in any given minute.
Just like now, as he stepped away from me, folded his arms across his chest, and slipped back on his mask of indifference.
“Now tell me, how is it you came to be here?” he asked, startling me at his hard tone. Gone was the gentle promise he had whispered upon my skin only moments ago.
“You know how, I told you that I met Marcus on the way…” I started to tell him, but he quickly interrupted me.
“That is not what I mean, and you know it,” he snapped, interjecting on my past excuses. I started shaking my head, at the same time telling him,
“I came here on horseback.” This made him growl before storming back over to me and making me near trip up over the covers as I tried to back away.
“Enough!” he shouted.
My back was now at the wall and this time, at the very least, I was standing on two legs, no matter how wobbly they were thanks to his intimating presence.
“You try my patience, girl… now tell me, how is it possible you are here, thirty years past and you haven’t aged a damn day?!” I took in a shuddering breath, readying myself for the lie I had been working on while he was away and obviously dealing with his other prisoner. Which reminded me, I needed to know Marcus was alright.
Perhaps I could bargain?
“I will tell you, but only after I can see for myself that Marcus is alright.” At this he closed what little distance there was left between us and like he had done after my last dance, he caged me with the bulk of his body. His hand flattened above my head as he leant his weight into me, keeping me trapped. The snarl of anger directed my way wasn’t a good indication I wasn’t going to get my way in this.
“The Fool lives and that is all you need to know,” he told me firmly.
“Then my being here now is all you need to know,” I replied stubbornly, making him snarl this time and I forced myself to hold firm in spite of the scary sound.
“Then I shall leave and take my frustrations out on your friend,” he snapped before pushing from the wall and making his way to the door, causing me to panic.
“No! Please, don’t!” I begged. God only knew what Marcus was already going through, and the last thing I wanted to do was add to my friend’s misery. At this, Jared paused and turned his body side on enough to regard me.
“I can’t tell you what I myself don’t know.”
He narrowed his gaze for a few seconds before telling me,
“Not good enough!” Then he started walking again, so this time, I ran to him and grabbed his arm.
The contact between us was enough to make him take pause and look down to where I touched him. His sleeves were rolled up his forearms and he was minus the waistcoat and jacket he had been wearing on the bridge. I quickly started to retract my hand.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have…”
“What?! Touch me? Lay claim to what we both know is yours by right and declared as such by the Gods?!” he said almost bitterly and making me gasp as I took small steps back.
“Y-y-y-you know?” I uttered on a breathy whisper.
“What, that you’re my Chosen One? That you are this Fated Electus the Gods have gifted me with…? Oh yes, that Fool of yours told me many things!” I flinched at that, hating the idea of what must have been done to him for Marcus to have been forced to give away my secrets.
But of course, I knew the reason Jared told me this and I didn’t give him the response he wanted. His jealously was burning deep within his veins and my concern for Marcus was riding him hard. Hard enough to try and turn Marcus against me. Trying to make me feel a betrayal whereas I didn’t see any. I only saw a necessity to live and who was I to try and deny him the extra relief from pain? After all, it had been my mess we were dealing with and the trouble I had gotten him into by him helping me only doubled my guilt.
Jared sneered when he didn’t see the disappointment in my gaze he had obviously been hoping for.
“Yet here you are, still asking questions,” I pointed out, making him grit his teeth before admitting,
“It is true, he didn’t have all the answers I sought but then I was reminded that unless they come from your own lips, then they would be meaningless from anything other than the source.” I tried not to shrink back at that.
“Then let me see him and you will have them,” I said, pushing once again for more.
“No! You are fresh out of bargains, my little dancing girl, for I am at my limit. Now which is it to be? Told willingly from your lips or beaten out of his?!” I tensed at this and closed my eyes as the impossible situation was laid out before me, because really… what was stopping him from doing both?
Not a chance I could take. So, after a deep, defeated sigh, I gave him what he wanted.
“Alright… alright, I will tell you, just… please, please don’t hurt my friend,” I said, my tone as deflated as my shoulders were.
He didn’t agree to this but, at the very least, he remained silent and didn’t throw in my face how he could do whatever he damn well pleased. No, instead he simply stood like the immoveable figure of a man he was, once more crossing his arms over the large space of his chest, his muscles bulging, forcing me to have to focus on anything but the desired sight.
“I didn’t lie when I told you that I woke up and had no idea where I was or how I got there,” I said, reminding him of my tale of woe and when Marcus had saved me. He nodded once for me to keep going.
“What I didn’t tell you was that after I ran from you, back when… well, you know…” I let my voice trail off at this because, well, let’s face it, neither of us needed a reminder of that time, least of all him.
“Well, I found someone I thought would help me, and I trusted them, thinking that they would get me home. Only they…” His eyes narrowed at this.
“They what?” he asked, his voice now turned to granite and one look at his face, and I soon found out why as I had come to know the expression well… he was being protective.
“He betrayed me and instead of helping me get home, he used me and sent me here,” I said, and now I could add another easy-to-read emotion to his face… jealously.
“He? How did this man use you? Tell me!” His anger was bubbling over pretty quickly and I looked down to see his fingers had curled into fists. It looked like he wanted to punch the weapon of flesh into a wall. His knuckles cracked as they tensed hard enough, they turned white.
“Ella, my patience is held by a thread here, now answer me… how did this man use you?” His harsh, ragged tone made my head snap back up from staring at his hands and shifting my focus from the pumped veins I could see snaking up his forearms.
“There was something he wanted, and it was more important to him than helping me get home… but… well, it wasn’t anything, you know… nothing sexual,” I said, feeling awkward just saying it, let alone thinking it, as… eww much. I mean, jeez, he was family after all. So I hoped this was enough to get Jared to back down, as I quickly saw where his mind had been focused on.
However, the second he narrowed his eyes, I could tell he was also trying to scent the lie.
“You are not telling me everything,” he stated confidently, but at the very least, he didn’t call bullshit on the whole thing. And how could he? It wasn’t like there wasn’t a shred of truth to it. I just wasn’t about to tell him that it was actually my uncle who had betrayed my trust… and oh, that it just so happened that my uncle was the King of Kings, ruler of all Supernatural beings on Earth.
Jesus, but when did my life get so fucked up and complicated…? Oh yeah, when I snuck into a Demonic fight club at eighteen and fell head over tail for a HellBeast.
Speaking of which, he was still currently looking at me with a hard, unyielding expression on his face. One that didn’t exactly look like the picture of patience as he was forced to wait for my response.
“I don’t know what you want…” I started to say but he was having none of it.
“Thirty years have passed, Ella, so surely you do not expect me to forget this fact or be satisfied by such lack of an explanation.”
Damn it, he was like a dog with a monster bone! No pun intended… well, maybe just a little one.
“Well?” he pressed, still currently looking at me with that stern expression on his handsome, broody face.
“Yes, well given how you wanted to kill me the last time we met thirty years ago, then excuse me for not being totally forthcoming in all the details surrounding why and how I needed help getting home to begin with… or did you forget your threat to hunt me down should I remain?” I said, throwing his past back at him and using it as an emotional weapon.
His expression said it all… guilt.
“That may be so, but what I still don’t understand is if that be the way of things, then why risk your life again and enter my domain? After all, there are very few who would be bitten by the wolf and then choose to venture into its den, years later.” Damn it, but he was right, and this was the part where I needed to get creative.
“We believed it was the only place that I could find someone with the ability to send me home, back to my own time.” He raised a questioning brow at this.
“I find that hard to believe, but even if such a being happened to frequent my club, I am amazed you would risk your life a second time just to achieve going home, as you put it,” he replied, with a slight nod of his head at the end.
“Yeah, and why is that?” I queried, truly curious to see what point he was trying to make.
“Because living in the future is better than dying in it.” Damn, but that sound logic was hard to argue against, as he was right. Although he didn’t exactly have all the facts, which is why the only answer I could give started with a slight shrug my shoulders before words followed.
“What can I say, but some things are worth the risk.” He scoffed at that but otherwise didn’t comment.
