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"I'll keep myself attuned to your strength, Viola, but you deserve privacy," he had said before sitting down and resting his back against a tall tree with swooping branches. Mace took my hand and led me through the trees.
And now I find myself staring at a tree that feels like a tombstone, Mace pressed against my back. I'm struggling to keep my breathing level. I've been trying, really trying, to keep my fear of reliving this moment in, but I am not able to hide it from Mace.
"My numen," he says quietly, dipping his face into the side of my neck. "I cannot imagine the pain you are feeling right now. But I am here with you. I will not harm you. Your safeword still stands. Fuck the ritual. Fuck everyone in Krillium but you and I." I turn in his arms and look up into his vibrant green eyes, my hands gripping onto his grey shirt. "I mean it," he implores. "This world could burn, every single soul could be damned, andI would not lose even a second of sleep if it meant I saved you pain. I will not, cannot, put anyone above you, even if only for a moment. You are the only thing in this realm that matters. You, my numen, are the fucking sun that helps me grow, the air that lets me breathe, the food that nourishes my soul, and I will not let you shatter."
I collapse in his arms, tears streaming down my face at his confession, his pure, untarnished love for someone as ruined and mutilated as I have become.
From the moment I laid eyes on Mace Nightroot and heard him speak for the first time, I knew that the man does not mince words. Everything he says is with purpose, a goal clear in every inflection. But being aware of that and being on the receiving end of that targeted passion is something else entirely. His words crack open the vault in which I buried my trauma, and I feel it creeping through my veins, overwhelming my senses and pushing to the surface.
"Numen," he says, stroking the top of my head. "If you do decide to do this, let me make it good for you. Maybe doing this can help you regain that power that was taken from you."
"Do you really think it could?" I say softly, tapping a rhythm on his chest. "Do you think I could enjoy this?"
"I think so," he says, gently pulling me off his chest and holding me out in front of him. "It's just you and me. It's just us fucking in a forest. It's hardly out of character for us to do something like this."
I snort back a laugh and shake my head, rolling my eyes at hisattempt at levity, even if I am secretly grateful for it. "Did you mean it when you said you'd stop with my safeword?"
"Of course I will."
"And you meant it that you don't care about the ritual? That even if it fucks up the ritual, you'll stop?"
"Viola," he says, hand on my cheek, "when will you finally accept that you are the only thing that matters? I will do this only if you consent. Only if you are sure you are willing to do this."
Swallowing, I nod, closing my eyes, and taking a deep breath. "I think you're right that this could be healing. Replacing that bad memory with you."
"You'll need to tell me every detail so we get it right," he says, lowering himself to the ground and pulling me into his lap.
And I do.
I share every piece of that horrific memory with him, every moment of it. He listens and tries to keep his disgust and sadness off his face, but every so often, his mask slips.
Just sharing the full story helps me feel lighter.
But that doesn't mean I'll ever be fully ready for the next part.
The sound of fabric hitting the ground in front of me wakes me from my herb-induced slumber.
I open my eyes, scratchy and dry from sleep, and see a pair of bare legs in front of me. I try to get up and realize I'm tied to a tree,a rope around my shoulders anchoring me to the thick bark. I look up and see Mace, fully nude, looking down at me, a wicked smile on his face.
He crouches in front of me, his hand going into my hair. "Well, look at you, aren't you pretty? I'm so glad you finally woke up." I wiggle in his grasp, hissing as the rope burns my shoulders and the bark scratches up my back. "Oh, no, don't try to get away from me, dear. You'll ruin all my fun."
His voice is so dark, so unlike the one I am used to that drips in honey and caresses my ears. No, now it is all sharp edges, and it drags across my skin, leaving invisible trails of fear that I remember all too well.
I spit on the ground at his feet, and he laughs, tightening his grip on my hair and wrenching my head back. "What a nasty way to use your mouth."
"Fuck you," I say, moving more aggressively despite the pain the rough bark causes me. "Let me go."
"No, I don't think I will. I think your filthy mouth has a better use than spitting at me and swearing." He stands, his cock jutting out in front of me, and I turn my head, my mouth tightly closed. He laughs, using his other hand to slap his shaft against my cheek. "Come now, open up. It'll all go much quicker if you just acquiesce."
"Never," I snarl, ignoring the way I'm starting to heat between my thighs at his calm and quiet dominance, the slight pain on my scalp encouraging me to feel, seek, beg for more. "If you let me go now, I'll leave you alive."
Memories of that moment, of these words coming from my mouth a decade ago, start to surface, and my body tenses. Mace notices and loosens his grip on my hair just slightly to tap five times on my scalp, the sign we determined he'd use whenever he noticed me leaving the moment and journeying back in time. It does what we intended, and it brings me back to the moment, my eyes trained up at Mace. His face may be in a wicked, predatory grin but his eyes are so soft, so full of love, that my body starts to melt in his touch. He raises his eyebrow slightly, and I give a small nod that he picks up on. He throws his head back in a menacing laugh.
"You have no power here, girl. Now," he crouches again, grip on my white hair going uncomfortably tight again, and wrenches his thumb past my lips and pries my jaw open. I immediately snap them closed, biting his finger. He snarls and pulls his hand out, slapping me across the face. It's not hard, barely hard enough to even make a sound, but it does the trick, and my mouth drops open. "There we go," he says, standing up again. "Keep your mouth like that, and don't even fucking think about biting me, or I will slit your fucking throat and leave your corpse for the beasts to find."
I hold my mouth open, and he inches his cock past my lips, sinking into my open mouth. He yanks my head back, forcing himself deeper into my throat, and I can't help but swallow around him. Mace tastes like sin, and the salty, musky flavor that is all him overwhelms the memory he's reenacting. He groans as he slowly thrusts into my mouth, and I ache between my legs.I wiggle, trying to rub my thighs together, moaning around his cock as my own desire builds. He pulls out slowly, leaving just the tip between my lips, and I suck and lap at it like I'm starved. I know he's giving me the chance to release him and use my safeword, but I find myself having no desire to do so.
Mace must see that in my eyes because he dives back into my throat with renewed vigor, fucking my face roughly now, the animalistic male sounds that escape his lips driving me fucking insane. "There you go," he says through a groan, my nose hitting his pelvis. "I knew you could listen. I knew you could take direction. What a fucking good girl you are."
