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July 29, 2024
Addie wakes to the brush of fingers running up and down her back, exploring and drawing shapes and making her body stir to life, an artist tracing the first streaks on a blank sheet. She holds back a groan, and her breath catches as the hand moves lower, the feathery strokes on her ass and thigh sending a rush of want between her legs. She knows he notices, the sound of his low chuckle making her shiver. His light touches turn rougher as he grabs her hip, his lips finding the sensitive skin of her neck, kissing and biting and teasing.
“Happy anniversary, my Adeline.”
A decade has passed since she offered herself to Luc, trading her soul in exchange for Henry’s. Since she secretly vowed to break him.
She’s had time to think, to carefully craft every step of her plan.
Gods are proud and narcissistic, blinded by their arrogance, and Luc might just be the worst of them.
He believes her to be in love.
She feeds the pretty lie with promises and smiles and sleepless nights, tending to it like a newly planted tree, and once Luc is entwined in its roots, she will snap them one by one, and he will shatter along with them.
Addie turns her head to capture his mouth with hers. “You’re eager to celebrate, I see,” she mutters against his lips, smiling as she feels his erection pushing against her backside. They’re both naked, not bothering with clothes after their lovemaking a few hours before. Sleep found her once Luc had coaxed a generous amount of orgasms from her, her muscles so spent and relaxed she felt like she could rest for days, but here she is again, wet and desperate for him. Her body can’t get enough of his—the constant ache in her lower belly is eased only when he’s buried inside her.
His hand finds its way between her thighs, and she jolts with pleasure as he slips a finger inside her before turning his attention to her clit, smearing her wetness on it and rubbing in circles. “So are you, my love. What a greedy little thing you are, always so wet for me.”
His words send a new wave of heat rushing through her body. Her walls clench and she whimpers, moving to turn around so she can straddle him and sink deep on his cock, but he stops the motion by grabbing her wrist and holding it against the pillow. “You’ll have plenty of time to ride me later,” he says, his voice full of sinful promises. Addie doesn’t miss the slight emphasis on the word time, and she smiles to herself at his certainty, at how he thinks this is their final and endless chapter.
Luc moves her so she lies on her stomach and swings a leg over hers, bracing himself on his elbows on each side. She welcomes the weight towering over her, the darkness older than time molding around her body. The feeling is warm and cool all at once, like a swim on a hot summer night.
He nuzzles her neck as he enters her in one hard, smooth motion, and she gasps at the delicious, nearly painful stretch. He’s big, and thick, and she will never admit out loud that she’s compared him to every man she slept with after their years together in New Orleans. Closed her eyes and wished it was his cock pounding into her, his voice reciting her name like a prayer.
Their coupling starts slow, Luc taking his sweet time to wake Addie properly with a lazy, sensual pace. She savors every inch of him as he hits that sweet spot, slowly building her climax, her eyes shutting in ecstasy and her fists clenching her pillow. Soon it’s too much, it’s not enough, and she wants him so badly she might go insane if she loses his touch, if she doesn’t get more of him…
Addie lets out a whine and thrusts her hips back. “Harder.”
He laughs and keeps his torturous pace. “Adeline, my greedy Adeline,” he chants. “Ask nicely, and I might oblige.”
“Please,” she says through her teeth. “Just fuck me. Hard enough to break the bed.”
Luc barks another laugh. “Brace yourself, my love.”
He grabs her hips, and she holds onto the headboard just in time as he unleashes himself.
Addie’s body arches and she throws her bead back in pure bliss, incoherent words pouring out of her mouth as Luc draws her hips back in time with fast, hard thrusts. It’s rough and hot and primal, and she can sense hints of his true self coming out, the monster, the devourer of souls with an uncontrollable appetite. She’s too far gone to be afraid, her climax building and building until she comes undone, the pleasure so intense she screams, her pussy clenching tightly around his cock. This is beyond the realm of what a human can feel without going insane, without dying.
Luc keeps fucking her as he finds his release, and Addie doesn’t think she will ever recover from this, from him.
Her body shakes as she comes down from her high at last, tears running down her cheeks. They fucked so much since yesterday she’d be unable to walk if her body didn’t heal so fast. One of the blessings of her curse—the strength to have sex for days.
Luc pulls out of her, and she feels his cum leaking out of her, coating the inside of her thighs and dripping on sheets. He lies down next to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and brushing her tears away with his thumb.
“I love you,” he says.
She smirks, trying to mask her triumph. “Because I’m giving you tons of sex?”
Luc moves his hand away from her face to give her ass a sharp slap, making her yelp.
“That certainly helps.”
Addie laughs before kissing him and murmuring against his lips, “I love you, too.”
The lie slides so easily on her tongue that it feels like the truth.
December 31, 2027
Addie wraps her scarf tightly around herself as she walks down the busy street, pedestrians rushing past her. They’re on their way to their respective New Year’s Eve celebrations, the excitement tangible in the air. For them, the New Year is a fresh start, a clean slate, a chance to start over. Plunging face-first into new beginnings, into the unknown, is scary, which is why they are so desperate for company. Tonight is the worst night of the year to be alone.
Addie had never minded until now, not for centuries. When you’re immune to the effects of it, the passage of time loses its significance, the years blurring together. December 31 is no different than any other day. At least, it used to be.
She watches a couple walking hand in hand across the street, laughing and talking, and her fingers hitch to be held, her shoulders feel too exposed despite her winter coat.
Luc is away, gone to collect souls around the world. She offered to go with him, but he claimed he’d be back before she had time to blink. Yet four days passed, and Addie is starting to feel restless. She’s gotten used to seeing him every day, waking up in his arms every morning. Long gone are the times where they would go years without seeing each other.
She toys with the wooden ring in her pocket. She hasn’t used it in over a decade—has not needed to since she and Luc usually spend every night tangled together beneath the sheets.
Sliding it over her finger, she waits for the darkness to appear. He will be delighted in the gesture, smug over the fact that she couldn’t spend one more night without him; he will believe she truly missed him, but in the end, she will be the one winning the game.
His presence envelops her, a warm, familiar embrace relieving her from the biting cold.
“My love,” his voice whispers in her ear. She turns around and kisses him, savouring how he tastes better than the finest wine, better than anything she’s experienced in three hundred years. He kisses her back eagerly, and she arches into his body, sighing in pleasure. The night sweeps her in, and soon they are in their home, in their bedroom, ripping each other’s clothes off.
“I missed you,” she breathes.
He chuckles lightly, running his hands over her back. “I would have been back before midnight, you know. I wouldn’t have deprived you of a New Year’s kiss.
She melts into him, her palms pressed on the plane of his chest. “Maybe I would have just kissed someone else.”
He stares at the ring still adorning her finger, a mocking look in his eyes, their shade a green so dark they appear black. He knows she doesn’t want anyone else, and even if she did, she belongs to him, and he would never allow her to kiss another. He owns her body and soul, and the thought angers and thrills her at the same time. She is his, but he is hers, too.
Addie pushes him down on the bed and kneels. She pulls his trousers down before taking his hard length into her hand, rubbing the head with her thumb.
“Shit,” he lets out as he grips the sheets, his cock twitching. Addie smirks, loving how she can reduce the night itself speechless. She pumps him a few times before licking him in broad strokes, feeling herself getting wetter, and she resists the urge to climb on his lap right away to seek her own pleasure and ride him into oblivion.
He groans loudly as she takes as much of him as she can into her mouth, bobbing her head, and he chants her name over and over, the sound more beautiful than all the symphonies she’s heard.
“Adeline, Adeline, Adeline…”
She squeezes her legs together, trying desperately to relieve the ache, and hollows her cheek, sucking and licking until he comes undone. She swallows greedily, licking him clean, then pulls away. He’s hardening again, ravenous and untiring, and she expects him to impale her on his cock, but he seizes her hips and slides her up over his body until she’s straddling his chest. She feels the blood pound in her core and knows he can feel her heat, feel how drenched she is for him.
“I missed you, too, my Adeline,” he says before lifting her over his mouth.
The first lap of his tongue sets her aflame, and she cries out, undulating her hips as he devours her. She braces her hand back on his chest, and there’s something so dirty, so sinful about offering herself to him that way, her bare cunt dripping in his mouth. He wraps her lips around her clit and sucks, and Addie loses track of time as she shatters once, twice, before collapsing on his chest. His cock rubs over her thigh, hard and leaking, and she’s ready for him again, unable to get enough.
She rises and sinks down on him, sighing at how well they fit.
Addie starts bouncing up and down, relishing the sound of their bodies slamming together. She takes him so deep she can feel him in her bones, in her very soul. He’s everywhere, around and inside her, the unadulterated bliss so intense everything else fades away from the world. Three hundred years reduced to this, to the feeling of Luc moving inside her.
They soon both reach their high, but it’s not enough, it’s never enough, and Addie isn’t sure of how long they go at it, of how many times she shudders around him and he comes inside her. It could be hours, or days—she learned that time works differently when he’s around, inconsistent and not responding to the same laws.
They stop eventually, and she rests her head in the crook of his neck, trembling, her limbs like jelly.
“You’re mine,” he says before kissing her forehead. “You always have been.”
And you always will be, he doesn’t need to add.
July 29, 2101
“What do you do with the souls?” Addie asks as she leans against Luc’s chest, the warm water of the bubbly bath swooshing around them. Four hundred years, and somehow she’s never asked him this question.
“Why ask this now?” he says as he wraps his arms around her torso, beneath her breasts.
Addie shrugs. “If I had surrendered after that first year, what would have happened to me?”
He stays silent for a moment as if gathering his thoughts, then answers, “My souls are outside of time and space, beyond the limits of this universe. I would have made sure you were at peace.”
It’s not a very conclusive answer, but she knows it’s all she’ll get.
She sips from her glass of champagne before setting it aside on the tub’s edge. They’ve been in the water for hours, but the water is still warm, her skin is still smooth, the bubbles haven’t disappeared.
“Don’t you eat the souls?”
He lets out a laugh before nuzzling her neck. “I’d rather eat you in other ways.”
She hums in contentment, heat rushing to her core. He moves her hands up to caress her nipples with his thumbs, sending jolts of pleasure through her. She melts into him, she always does, her body and mind reduced to a puddle in his hands. Nearly a century passed since she gave herself to him, and she knows it’s time to enact the final step of her plan, to hurt him badly enough for him to reject her. She could have done it five, ten, twenty years ago, but somehow “tomorrow” turned into next week, “next week” turned into next year, and “next year” turned into next decade. She’s so close to freedom, to get rid of him forever, and yet…
Freedom is what she asked for when she made her deal all those centuries ago, and he gave it to her in his own, twisted way. She begins to wonder if he could have done things differently, if freedom is even possible without loneliness. Are you truly free when you’ve got people who rely on you? Who expects things from you?
Luc’s hand runs down her stomach to cup her sex. “You are free, Adeline,” he says as if he can read her thoughts, and she isn’t sure if she hears his voice out loud or inside her head. “You chose to stay. You chose me, as I chose you. I refused to let you go, but so did you. Had you left, you would have come back. If you leave, you will come back. I am your home, as you are mine.”
Two of his fingers slip in and out of her, his thumb flicking her clit, bringing her closer and closer to her release. She closes her eyes as she climaxes, the darkness filling every pore of her skin, catching her as she falls. She wonders if he suspected her plan from the very start, knew that this was the beginning of a new game, not the end of one.
“You knew,” she states, half-conscious and limp in his arms.
A low, triumphant chuckle. “How course I did, my love.”
February 3, 2016
Luc watches Addie as she wanders the bookstore, hidden in the darkness between the books lined on the shelves. Daylight doesn’t suit him, but he’s always there, a perpetual presence by her side. She is angry, grieving, and he can see the violence in her eyes when she looks at him. The subtle bitterness in her sweet words.
His Adeline plans to hurt him, as he expected.
It was unlikely that she would forgive him so easily for what he did to the mortal. For gifting him to her only to strip him away after a few months, a crueller gesture than offering nothing at all.
Want you.
Need you.
Love you.
Her words are coated with venom—yet they are truths masked as lies, not the other way around.
Years will pass, and even though Henry’s memory will never fade, the feelings will, and once the boy is long gone and has turned to dust, once Addie has nothing, she will realize that she cannot break him, and he cannot break her.
What they have is timeless, stronger than the fabric of life itself.
The darkness feels Addie shiver as it slithers past her, caressing her like a gentle breeze.
She is the dreams that inspire symphonies, the secrets whispered in the dark, the lover lingering on silk sheets.
She is the boldness of midnight, the stars guiding an artist, the lyrics on a musician’s lips.
Adeline Larue was made for the night. Was made for him.