Free Claiming Ecstasy by Madeline Pryce

Chapter One
     
    Nicolas Larkin’s hot breath drifted across the back of my
neck with each thrust of his cock. Panting. Moaning. Fucking. My skin pebbled
with goose bumps despite the heat radiating between our writhing bodies. With a
twist of his cruel, elegant fingers on my clit, he wrenched a cry of tortured
pleasure free.
    I braced myself against the abrasive stone balcony scraping
my tummy with every thrust. Far below, the black Irish Sea churned and crashed
against jagged rock. Nicolas wound the wavy strands of my long, dark hair
around his hand and pulled, forcing my head back with a growl. Pricks of pain
stung my scalp and I soared with ecstasy. Frigid ocean spray misted the air and
dampened my exposed flesh. The scent hit me—salt, seaweed, brine and something
undeniably fresh. The aroma was bracing, cold and magnetic. It cut through my
bones and slapped me in the face.
    I was a liar. A whore. A harbinger of death. Everything my
mother had told me I’d grow up to be.
    Soon, I am going to be a murderer.
    My palms sweat against the rail I clutched. My hammering
pulse kicked up its beat with such fierce determination it had my head
throbbing. A different kind of pain filled me, one that cut so deep I felt it
in the depths of my beaten soul.
    He’s a monster, Jolie. I recalled the sharp, burning
snap of the whip—how the sound had cracked. Thin, razor-sharp straps of braided
leather sliced through flesh and I jerked under its assault. You are weak. A
disgrace. Mother paced around me, the points of her stilettos clicking
across shimmering white granite, the tails of her weapon painting a circle of
blood in her wake. I see the way you look at him, you filthy whore. You
think I don’t know you let him into your body? I saw you!
    Crack.
    He will slay all of us unless you stop him. You. Must.
Kill. Him. Death before dishonor, it is our code! Searing agony punctuated each
word. The Seelie court stood and stared, their judgment adding to my
humiliation. Only when you destroy him can you claim your place among us,
until then you are nothing. The queen’s words, beaten into my flesh, were
ones I could never forget. Not even while I fucked my enemy.
    Every second I spent in his dark embrace was a betrayal of
everything I had ever learned. He was an assassin. He was a stealer of
innocence. He was the vampire who had destroyed generations of my race and
taken vengeance on the people I was supposed to care about. He was the man
who’d destroy us all if I didn’t stop him.
    Tonight—the eve of my twenty-first birthday—either I cut out
my lover’s heart or I started a battle that would decimate our warring races.
    Kill one to save thousands.
    A sob tore free and mixed with the decadent pleasure twining
through my limbs. I reveled in every touch. Each thrust. This was my last
liaison with Nicolas—one way or another, one of us was going to die. Months ago
I’d made a promise to myself that I’d stop going to him, that I’d sever the
connection between us before I couldn’t follow through with my duty. The Seelie
had one motto—death before dishonor. Every encounter with the vampire king was
supposed to be the last time I used him to slake the cycle of gnawing
self-hatred eating me alive.
    I was nothing but a whore and a liar.
    “You are mine, Jolie,” Nicolas whispered, digging deeper
into my soul and bringing me back to him.
    These words, spoken in his heavy Irish brogue, increased my
arousal and I surrendered. To this. To him. If only for a little while. He took
away the pain and the emptiness. He soothed the wounds Mother had forever
branded me with, even before she found out I’d let him defile me. For these few
precious hours I wasn’t the fairy princess my people despised, but someone
desired. Wanted.
    He drew his mouth along my neck, teeth nipping the pulsing
vein before he moved higher. His voice was a sexy rasp against my ear. “I feel
the way you preen under my touch. See how you tremble, hear your moans.