His darkest devotion, p.1
His Darkest Devotion, page 1
HIS DARKEST DEVOTION
INSATIABLE INSTINCT, BOOK 2
ADDISON CAIN
©2024 by Addison Cain
All rights reserved.
No part of the book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Cover art by Simply Defined Art
CONTENTS
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Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
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“Unapologetically raw and deliciously filthy!”
- NYT Bestselling author Anna Zaires
1
I was doomed.
There was something sinister about the way a wet male body could feel against an innocent girl. How easy it was for Cyderial to distract me with touch. All under the guise that I would be calmed and feel better after a hot shower.
“Come.” Finger crooking, he’d drawn me from the bed.
Like a nervous vorec cub, I followed.
The more I learned of this man, the more I recognized that my years of observation, of my aversion to his iron fist, had shown me none of his true colors. I had been utterly fooled, and so had the humans who’d placed him in power.
He was dangerous in ways I had not considered.
A potential landmine of enticing smiles and soft words, set to explode and wreak havoc should his mate “be compromised.” And what that might mean to a brain as drunk on my song as his?
I now understood that newly mated males were unstable.
And Cyderial had already been unstable for years.
What did that make him now?
He led me across his bedroom toward the washroom, gentle with me, slow, as if I might bolt or struggle. Drawing me forward with eager grace and softly murmured encouragement, he persuaded. “Trust me to show you how well I can care for you.”
Trust? I had none. But I did have the impetus to learn all I could, to measure his behavior, and study the person who might have absolute control over the rest of my ageless life.
Someone who was already far more experienced, a proven tactician, and well-connected.
A General.
Where I had not even officially graduated from the academy—a subpar student with a reputation for deviousness and escape.
“Lorieyn, you do not need to look so scared.”
Scared? And here I thought I was being brave, allowing him to pull my naked body closer to the shower. I even thought my expression was passive. After all, it was the same countenance I would wear each time I cheated on my exams.
Yet, Cyderial could see right through me.
He could see through me, but I could not fathom what went on in his mind.
Another reminder I was thoroughly outmatched.
After leading me right into the cage of his bathing cubical, smiling, he urged me deeper into the enclosed space. With a wary eye, I watched as he adjusted the settings before water began to cascade over the pair of us.
I jumped with that first hit of spray. I may have even let out a very unsoldierlike yip. But jets of hot liquid came and warmed stiff muscle, pulsating up and down my spine, moving around me in a dance that rinsed the worst of the previous night’s residue from my skin.
“I knew you’d enjoy it.” His grin was feral, as was the way his eyes ran over my body when a long breath escaped my throat. “Good girl. Allow yourself to relax. You are safe with me.”
He was going to stay there, wasn’t he? Crowding me in the shower as he watched me scrub.
My unsaid irritation at his lingering presence evaporated far too quickly, warm water rinsing away my shame. And I did indulge a little. Otherwise, how was I to stay sane? Tipping my head back when a waterfall began to pour from above, feeling a silken stream running over my face, I sensed he sidled closer, placing his body between myself and the door.
Still, I sucked in a gasp when his whisper came to my ear. “Do you know how beautiful you are?”
One moment, I had been marveling at how exotic it felt to wash in warm water; the next, I was so startled I failed to snatch my arm away before he might take a hold of me. Yet, his onslaught seemed innocent enough; he only meant to rub silken foaming gel into my flesh.
He intended to clean me as if I were a child.
Yet, this was no innocent ritual. Wielding no pretense, Cyderial sought to entice. Long strokes, kneading fingers, while he lathered my arm as if touching it was a gift.
And I could not find it in me to rebel.
Not when I could calculate.
Having already allowed the general to do much to my body, to be inside my body, this didn’t seem the moment to protest. What harm was there in giving the male this opportunity, so I could observe what he would do with me?
I needed to be clean.
This was clearly how it was going to take place.
And whether I liked him or not, it felt very good.
The male knew exactly how to manage me. After all, he’d had ten years to study everything he might find to draw me into his proclivities.
“Trust me. Allow.” A terrible request from someone wielding a disarming, fixed stare.
Had it even been forty-eight hours since I woke to find myself in his bed, in his den, fully bonded and in his complete power?
Closing my eyes to him, I pulled in a breath and felt my shoulders ease away from my ears.
“Good. That’s good, Lorieyn.”
Anxiety rode me hard when his attention to washing my arms ended. An open palm slick with foam landed on my flat stomach, leaving a trail of sensation in its wake. From hip point and across my navel, he then stroked until he cupped my ribs and began working his fingers between the bones.
All the while, he cooed his soothing praise, moving slowly as if I were some frightened animal.
Knowing he prepared for intimate moments of this nature for years.
That he imagined all outcomes, had contingency plans in place for every nervous breath I might take, each complaint I might voice.
That, should I strike or refuse him, all he need do was thrum and scent the air.
Shift my weight to the right? He’d shift to the left. Should I turn my head away? He’d lay a kiss on my exposed throat.
Should I grouse, he’d thump out a single brazen pulse that calmed my racing hearts.
And when his diligent fingertips found a spot that made my breath catch, he’d chase out every tingle he might inspire my body to experience.
I’d never really understood the term “luxuriate” before.
Now, I understood why that word rolled over the tongue, why you had to feel it with your whole mouth. Rounded, sensory yet cognizant, it was a waving energy that lulled even as it roused.
And I liked it. After years of hard labor, pain, discipline, and hypervigilance, I liked it in a way that made me understand how tenuous my self-control might be under an expert touch.
Parting my lashes, I dared take an unhurried look at the seductive, grand liar with his hands all over me.
He was delighted to do as he pleased. Had been waiting for me to rouse enough to remember to glower.
Green eyes found mine through the steam.
This man was no stranger, no lover, no prince come to whisk me away to his castle tower.
No, the one testing techniques he learned from God only knew how many manuals was the very authority figure responsible for every day I endured since we met.
My mate.
“Lorieyn…” Taking his time choosing his next words, his tone matched his self-satisfied smirk. “It isn’t like you to be this obedient. You must want something.”
“I’m collecting data.” And that was not a lie.
“Hmm.” He eased closer, close enough that his body brushed mine. Looking down his nose at me, transfixed as if he’d chosen that precise moment to count the droplets of mist that collected in my lashes, he demanded I explain. “And what have you ascertained?”
“That you’re touching me in a very specific way… because you want something as well.”
Fingertips tripped down the side of my throat, leaving me to shiver and lose ground. His voice was molten. “I do want something.”
But if that something were sex, his cock would have already begun to burrow. Instead, it clung to my hip, stroking me just as his hands did.
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“You’re braver than this. Look at me, sweet mate.” Fingers caught my jaw, urging me to turn my chin up.
Yet I kept my eyes down, wondering how this man was able to deceive me for so long.
And it was more than the fact that he heard my song.
It was his callousness toward human life.
In all his years overseeing the academy, how many times had I heard him recite our vows? The hybrids’ solemn promise to protect humans at the cost of our lives. To remember why we had been created and blessed with such gifts. To acknowledge we would never grow old, that our vigilance must never slip. That the survival of everyone building a new society on this harsh planet depended on us.
And this man blatantly refused to keep his word.
“Promise me you will not harm the humans.”
“No.”
What else was he lying about? What other schemes was he up to?
Thumb tracing my pout, he murmured, “So, it's not that you’re afraid. It’s that you’re angry.”
Yes, he could read me as easily as he could any book. But it also wasn’t that simple.
This man had been responsible for my rearing and lessons. For my pains and punishments. To learn he was capable of things I would’ve never imagined had shaken me.
And I was powerless in our dynamic.
His obsession with my song gave me no ability to curb or contain him.
His whispered refusal of my pleas and coldness toward the humans was absolute, colored by a dark history Miranda had only hinted upon.
“And now you are full of fire.” Spoken with such benevolence from such a bad man, as if he knew the exact trail of my thoughts and mused to himself of my folly.
How had I not known we shared a lifetime of cat-and-mouse, in which I had been pounced upon and devoured time and time again? Yes, at the academy, I had grown cunning to get what I required. But my every last rebellion had been nothing compared to what he’d done.
I lived all those years full of dreams and had only just seen the stars.
Fog abounded—it was going nowhere. And I could not find my way to it. A century or two of time would mean nothing to a mate intent on keeping me.
Talons drumming against my thigh, my focus blurred as my mind worked through the absolute mess my life had become.
Suffering uncomfortable honesty with myself, I realized much of this was my fault.
I had been trained for war yet operated from a place of idealistic ignorance. I may as well have been playing with dolls and having tea parties during my tenure at the academy.
Ignorant of the ways of hybrid men, the odds were entirely against me.
So, I needed to work with what I already knew, reform my thoughts, alter my reactions, and consider uncomfortable facts.
Fact one: I had made Cyderial crazy enough to terrorize the academy. I even inspired him to hang boys. Therefore, every living creature outside his door was in danger, should he perceive them as a threat to me.
Fact two: I had no idea how to calm him into reason.
Possessing his unwilling mate made him all the more temperamental. How was I to handle an overly empowered male already under the influence of an urge to obsessively hoard his prize?
All he need do to round my opposition would be to lock me away, keep me drugged on his company, and fuck me into oblivion. Corner me in a shower and lavish me with touch, and I’d swoon, make little noises, and perhaps even enjoy it.
It could not be denied that I had a visceral reaction to his tactics, my own animal instincts calling from the most ancient parts of my brain that being locked away and fucked silly was exactly what I needed most.
That I should submit to his authority and be pleased.
That the fog could not fuck me, fill me, or keep away the fever.
To the awakened vorec stretching lazily under my skin, her urges must be appeased; otherwise, my higher thought was a slave to her demands.
And she did not want cold, wet, dangerous fog.
She wanted cock, and food, and to be petted until she purred.
As I rolled one shoulder under the downpour, the decadence of Cyderial’s touch roving where it would, the sweetness of his scent let me know his own monster had demands as well.
I could hear the beast whispering in his thrum, knew it roared in his mind, feeding the general’s burning desire to keep me for himself. To indulge his insanity and consider anyone outside his door a threat.
To do to me what had been done to Miranda—lock me away for ten years.
Armed as he was with over a century of experience, a mental reliquary of sexual tactics, and no one to challenge his motives, how was I to defend myself?
Nothing could stop Cyderial from doing whatever he wished.
And it frightened me.
Miranda’s disturbing warnings frightened me.
But it did not frighten the animal part of me in the slightest. Not now, since she had been acknowledged and compartmentalized.
As if to draw my thoughts back to him, Cyderial’s bold touch cleansed our shared fluids from my seam while he caged me in like cornered prey.
Watching him watch me, I observed his green eyes narrow as if he could read my thoughts and found them charmingly indiscreet.
But there seemed to be no offense in the male. Silently, he invited me to look my fill.
To consider.
To weigh facts and experience against imagined horrors and physical pleasures, just as I had been trained to do in the academy. Even as one finger breached me, swirling twice in my depths… because he could.
The involuntary hiss that slipped through my teeth, it wasn’t only a bark of warning. Not when the slut beast beneath my skin urged me to open my legs just enough to ease his path and left me trembling when I denied her.
After all, this man prepared me for this, had me beaten into greatness at the academy, so I could stand up to a monster such as he.
Prepared me to face an enemy. Given me the resources to manipulate almost everyone around me so I might thrive.
Learning from one’s failures was an art.
So, I steeled my spine as his touch withdrew from my slit. And I swear I saw his eyes flash a far more dangerous shade of green.
What pleasure there was in witnessing him tamp down his darker urges to take what I didn’t offer.
And perhaps, that in itself was power enough.
Cyderial wanted me to submit willingly; that was his ultimate prize. Not an easy overtaking of a weaker body—that had been the game Miranda’s mate played, and it had not gone well for him.
Cyderial knew this.
So the power I had over this man was solely in what he observed in those around him, the challenges he set for himself in my wooing, and in what he really wanted at the end of the day.
A companion who enjoyed his company.
He had waited for me to submit willingly before heat might make my opinion on the matter of sex impossible. I’d acquiesced, and he’d accomplished the first steps of his goal—to give me a taste of what could be had if I were willing.
As if he could read my thoughts, in that very moment, his glittering gaze said as much. “Tell me your secrets, Lorieyn.”
The brush of his wet body against mine was anything but innocent as he urged me to comply.
Because this dangerous and beautiful man was anything but innocent. Manipulation of every possible factor he might exert control over had taken place from the moment he’d heard my song.
I could not assume any interaction between us would ever be organic.
And narrowed my eyes to know all I suspected was blatantly true.
Time stretched noiselessly between us before he broke the silence, a soft smirk on his cruel mouth. “Come now. Tell me what you are ruthlessly adding up.” Thumb brushing over my lower lip, voice honeyed, a hint of danger lurked in his tone. “Do not think to hide your thoughts.”
