Chapter 27
Later that night, Bloom and her entourage of four fierce Incubus warriors followed Icy's explicit instructions and made their way to the private dining room in one of the more secluded spires of Cloud Tower.
There was a political point to be made, a flex of authority and power to have Bloom ascend so many stairs. Her muscles had suffered worse in the training rings of Eros, but they tensed with every step she took. It was not that she was afraid; no, she would not dare to let any fear leak into her scent while her Incubus guards flanked her. She did not fear the witches, either.
No, Bloom tensed, ready to spring on her prey and take them down. Her first victim would be the man standing out side the door of the private dining room.
"If you would please leave your guards at the door. This is a private affair," Riven requested, his head inclined in respect. All in all, a complete turn around from his assassination attempt this morning.
Part of Bloom wanted to punch her hand through Riven's gut and rip out his spine. Another part of Bloom wanted to admire how well he cleaned up outside of those terrible Specialist uniforms. A suit and tie suited him. Bloom couldn't deny he had raw sex appeal. Riven knew it too, flaunting the barest wink of his eye.
This shady motherfucker...
Bloom didn't trust him, but she nodded to her guards, locking eyes so that it was understood they were not to leave this spire without her. Obedient to a fault, they remained where they were, sentinels in the doorway.
Satisfied, Riven stepped aside and let Bloom enter the dining room. Bloom expected to be greeted by three egotistical witches. Instead, she was greeted by a table set for two, a large candelabra in the center with gold-gilt plates of food sat around it. The lighting was low. A fire was set, illuminating the portrait of former Headmistress Griffin above the mantle, filling the room with the scent of smoke and pine.
"You look ravenous, Your Majesty."
Bloom had taken care to wear clothes to this meeting, though not much by non-succubus standards. The dress she wore was black, backless, and the deep vee of the neckline touched her navel and barely covered her nipples. Thick thighs slipped through slits on both sides, the fabric gathered on silver rings at her hips. She wore the diadem her mother gave her, heavy around her horns.
Still, Bloom didn't know if Riven was talking about the way she looked or her appetite.
"I was told I would be negotiating with witches, not the brainless fool."
"Ah, that," Riven said as he stood and pulled Bloom's chair out, the picture of a perfect gentleman. "My mistresses were called away on important business."
"What could possibly be more important than this?"
"I can't really say. However, I do think you'll find negotiating with me to be...pleasant," Riven's eyes sparkled darkly in the low candlelight, full of mischief. He sat down and immediately poured wine for them both. Bloom didn't drink but she watched him finger the rim of his wine glass with rapt attention. "Darcy gave me the power to agree to any of your demands if I see fit, with Icy's blessing of course."
"Of course." Bloom sat back in her chair, ran her tongue over the tips of her fangs. "Why don't you start with your list of demands, then I'll give mine, and we will see who reigns victorious?"
"This isn't a battle, Bloom. This is a conversation."
Bloom stiffened at the sound of her name coming from such unlikable lips. The last time Riven had called her by her name, they had been arguing in the middle of Downtown Magix, the Day of the Rose celebration long faded behind them. He had been an ass that time. He was an ass now, as his lips curved up into a cocky smile.
"Do you mind if I call you Bloom? It's how I know you best, after all."
"You don't know me at all."
Bloom wasn't the same girl she was last they met, and the changes weren't just physical. Betrayal had shaped her, carved out soft, weak places and made them strong as iron. Eros had made her accept what she was. Abaddon had made sure her heritage was a strength. And now the blessing of a mate had made Bloom eager to look to the future.
There was a future in Bloom's mind, an empire made of iron and blood, with her descendants on the throne. There was no place for witches, nor fairies, nor their troublesome brainless lackeys.
"No, not this new you, but I'd like to." Riven kept running his damn fingers over the edge of his glass. The high pitched ringing, soft and strident but unnoticeable unless you had ears sharp as hers, was driving her mad. "I like this new you. She is strong, fierce, unrelenting. You can't fuck with a woman like that. I'd like to think, had we not started off on such opposite sides of the track, we would have been good friends."
Riven and Bloom...friends? Preposterous. Even more so were the lingering looks Riven kept shooting her over the edge of his glass, the way his lips pushed over the rim, the way the wine coated his mouth a red dark as blood.
He was seducing her.
"What do you want from me, Riven?" Bloom asked, cocking her head to the side, studying him. "And don't say negotiations."
Riven licked his lips. "Am I that obvious?"
"I'm a succubus. I can smell the desire on you."
"Why shouldn't I desire a powerful woman?" he challenged, his gaze dark and hazy. "Or maybe you're the one seducing me. I am a brainless fool, helpless to resist the pull of the Succubus Queen."
"If I had seduced you, we would already be fucking."
"Is that a promise, Your Majesty?"
"What? Bored of your little witch already?" Bloom taunted, pushing herself up out of her seat only to push Riven back down into his as she straddled him, tits bouncing out of the skimpy confines of her dress. Maybe it was the cocky attitude, maybe it was the way neither of them really wanted to negotiate, or maybe Bloom just wanted to fuck something. She leaned forward and latched onto Riven's throat, sucking bruises to the skin. "I know I'm a better fuck than that frigid bitch."
Riven let out a stream of curses as he ripped at the fabric of her dress, deepening the slit until the metal clasps popped off and clattered to the ground. Bloom was bare underneath, the black material easily pushed aside so that the bare skin of her furred cunt ground against Riven's pants. Already, she was glistening and wet, smearing juices across his crotch.
Claws sliced through Riven's pants with ease. There was no time wasted on pretense or foreplay. Only biting kisses, hair pulling, nails raking down her back as she pulled Riven's cock from the window of his boxers and stripped it using the pre-cum gathered at the tip. Bloom was wet enough to take him as he was: half-hard and mostly-dry. She liked the burn that came with taking cock raw.
"Is this what you wanted?" Bloom whispered in his ear as she sunk down, taking him inside her with ease. He wasn't that big, that fat, that special. "You wanted to know what it was like to fuck me? What it felt like to be inside me?"
Riven groaned as Bloom started to move, rocking back and forth on his dick. There was nothing gentle about this ride, nothing slow. It was a dirty grind, groin to groin, Bloom's cunt rubbing up against his stomach, his balls. Surely, the guards outside could hear. The guards outside would judge. But the guards outside were getting a free show and the scraps of the pleasure Bloom left behind.
Let the whole Cloud Tower know that they were fucking. Let everyone come and see the spectacle. Bloom had no shame. She would not stop now that she had what she wanted in the palm of her hand.
"Tell me, am I a better fuck than Darcy?" she cooed, squeezing her walls around him with a precision only a succubus would know. Riven groaned, his head falling against blooms' collar bone, and he nodded, sweaty forehead smearing his scent across her chest. "Am I a better fuck than Musa?"
"Never...never f-fucked Musa," he gasped, clutching onto Bloom's waist, fucking into her with choppy thrusts.
"Oh?" This was fascinating news. Bloom could have sworn she smelled faint traces of the Specialist on that fairy whore.
"We would meet. Kiss. Grope a boob. But she wouldn't let me - " Riven snapped his hips particularly hard, and Bloom moaned like it was the best dick she'd ever gotten. Really, men were too easy. "Fuck," Riven swore.
"Yes, fuck me," Bloom encouraged, pulling his hair back so that she could continue mauling his neck where his pheromones were the strongest. Riven was a horny motherfucker, radiating sexual energy in waves so strong Bloom though she might get lost in them.
"I-I lied to Darcy about Musa to make her jealous," Riven gasped as Bloom bit down on his Adam's apple, fangs grazing the bob as he swallowed. Riven tasted like salt and sweat and smoke, but also the distinct animal flavor of human. Pig, Bloom surmised as she licked another stripe up his throat. He tasted like a fucking pig.
"Think of how jealous she'll be when she finds out you fucked me," Bloom taunted. His hands ran all over her, down to the swell of her ass and squeezing. "She won't need my nose to smell it on you. She'll see these marks on your neck, the marks on me, and she'll know just how good you gave it to me. She'll know she can never compare."
"Can't compare," Riven babbled, smearing open-mouthed kisses to her breasts, sucking on them as they bounced. Bloom arched her back, giving Riven better access to her breasts, her nipples that he twisted between his fingers, tugging and pulling...nibbling and sucking. The sharp hint of teeth made Bloom hiss, her talons digging into the meat of Riven's arms so deeply they drew blood. Riven moaned like the whore he was. "Can't compare."
"Come inside me," Bloom commanded. She needed the release, the hunger consuming her. Her vision ran red with the smell of blood and sex mingled in the air.
Strong thighs clenched around Riven, pulling her up and down, up and down, impaling herself on his cock over and over again. He wasn't big enough to hit the spot deep inside that brought her the most pleasure, but the stimulation to her clit was just as good, just as intoxicating. The chair underneath them splintered under the force, cracked, and sent them sprawling on the ground. Bloom wasted no time getting on top once more, and riding Riven into oblivion.
The glow of the fire stained their skin golden brown. Like two statues sculpted from bronze in the throes of passion and displayed in a museum for generations to ogle. History would have called them lovers. But this was no act of love. No, this was an act of pure passion, pure desire, pure carnage and possession. A sculptor could not see the waves of desire radiating like musical notes in the air, strands of pure pleasure wrapping themselves like cords around the core of each lover, fucker, fighter, fiend. No historian would document the veins that bulged from Riven's forehead, his arms, his neck, all turgid and purple blue. Like they would burst at the slightest increase of pressure. Perhaps they would question the cock, swollen and purpling where it disappeared inside Bloom, but that could easily be brushed off as a blessing of endowment.
Only a succubus in complete control would know what came next.
"Come inside me," Bloom said again, this time breathed into Riven's mouth as they kissed for the last time.
He needed no encouragement. He drained his balls into her. And then, she drained his life.
It was a quicker process this time. Bloom had learned control, learned how to efficiently suck the soul out of a man who was too cocky for his own good. A single, steady pull had the color draining from Riven's body, a technicolor flash of red to blue to pale to grey. Bloom breathed in that life, a deep, greedy inhale that had her flying high and coming too. She rode that desiccated dick until her body stopped spasming. When she pulled off, a spiderweb of blackened blue veins crawled up the base of Riven's cock, erect even in death. The only sign he had ever been alive at all.
On instinct, Bloom's vaginal cavity closed, holding the sperm safely inside her body. This was it: her body's natural reproductive response. All her instincts called to bed her mate, to empty this seed into Flora and create an heir. An heir is what Eros needed, after all. If anything happened to Bloom, the royal line would end with her. She needed to secure her future, both as ruler and as a lover. Offspring would tie Bloom to Flora irrevocably. They could raise the child together. They could be a family.
As idyllic as that future was, as strong as the impulses were, another, darker idea came to mind. A truly cruel form of torture.
Plan in mind, Bloom headed towards her chambers.
But first, Bloom searched Riven's jacket. Inside his pockets she found a folded piece of parchment (funny, that the witches actually managed to draw up demands), chewing gum, a holo blade, four daggers strapped into the sleeves, and an empty vial.
Curious, she stood, reached over, and took her wineglass - the same wine Riven had been suckling in his own glass, encouraging her to join him in the erotic display. She stuck her nose into the vintage and breathed deep. There, beneath notes of cardamom and chocolate and spice, there was something bitter. Something ancient, forbidden, ad magical. Something deadly.
Poison. She knew it.
Bloom threw the glass into the fireplace, the flames leaping at the spark of accelerant. Sparks flew up towards the ceiling, igniting Griselda's portrait and setting it aflame. Edges curled as the fire ate through the colors, leaving behind a charred, unrecognizable husk in a golden-gilt frame.
On the way out, she passed a guard - one of her own. The incubus bowed deeply at the sight of his queen.
"Take the body to the front gate and have it hung there as it is." There would be no modesty, no rest for Riven. Not even in death. "Let him serve as a message to my enemies as to what happens when you fuck with the Queen of Eros."