Chapter 61 A Tall Tail
(Apollo & Adelaide)
Adelaide gasped—half terror, half need. “Don’t…” she whispered. “Don’t—Apollo, please—”
He stroked her hip soothingly with one clawed hand. “Hush,” he murmured. “We’re not going to hurt you.”
Her stomach flipped. “We?” Her voice trembled.
Apollo’s lips curved at the corner.
“Little Flame,” he breathed, “he listens to me.”
His tail tightened its hold on her thigh— And then moved between her legs.
Her lungs stopped working. “A—Apollo—!”
Her hands flew to his shoulders instinctively, nails digging in as her entire body tensed in shock.
He lifted his head and watched her reaction with predatory focus.
“Look at me,” he commanded quietly.
Her eyes snapped to his on instinct. What she saw there made her breath falter completely. Heat. Possession. A hunger so consuming it was almost painful. She could almost feel that hunger crawling over her skin, tasting the air, sinking into her pores. It felt like being consumed from the inside out.
He lowered his face again, kissed the trembling inside of her thigh—
Then his tail pressed forward.
It was gentle a first. His mouth trailed flaming open-mouth kisses up and down the inside of her thigh, while his tail curled and rubbed and writhed against her clit, coating itself in her juice. The sensations were everything, pleasure built low in her belly.
Before she could fully enjoy the feeling, the bulbous head of his tail pushed at her entrance and slid inside her easily. Too easily.
The sudden intrusion caused Adelaide to arch upward with a cry she couldn’t swallow.
Her entire body convulsed—shock, pleasure, terror—all crashing at once.
Apollo growled in satisfaction. “That’s it,” he rasped. “Take it.”
Her hands twisted in the sheets, back bowing, lips parting around a trembling moan she tried—failed—to hold inside.
His tail curled deeper, and she broke.
Her thighs shook uncontrollably. Her breath came in ragged, desperate sobs. “A-Apollo— I— I can’t—!”
“Yes,” he whispered, voice shaking with desire and control slipping through his fingers. “You can.”
His tongue pressed against her again and he sucked her fluttering clit into his mouth.
His tail kept going, fucking into her with ruthless abandon, all while his sinful mouth devoured her clit.
It was bad. But so good. It shouldn’t be happening. But gods it was. It was forbidden, this kind of reckless lust.
The elders used to preach about lust like this, about this kind of reckless desire. Adelaide would laugh about it as Liam explored her willing body.
But this was more. More destructive. More volatile. This was The Devil.
Apollo groaned into her heat.
He held her hips steady, devouring her like she was the very air he needed to breathe. He pulled sounds from her she didn’t know she could make, drinking them from her skin.
She risked a look, a quick peek at whatever it was he was doing to her body.
He met her gaze. His hooded eyes were blazing with amber fire. Her slick coated his mouth. Her thighs still quivered at the sight. Her pulse raced like a trapped bird.
He looked up at her with a wild, hungry, all-consuming gaze. She whimpered.
His voice was a low, dangerous purr. “Good girl.”
Her head fell back as his mouth went back to work. “Gods save me,” she pleaded on a whispered breath.
The tail curled deep inside her, hitting something she didn’t know was there. She didn’t get to take a breath, she didn’t get to feel it again, she didn’t get a moment to understand.
Adelaide just shattered.
Her body jerked violently as pleasure detonated through every limb, every nerve, every inch of her trembling skin.
She came with a scream that she buried in her own wrist, body convulsing, legs clamping around his head as her climax tore through her like wildfire.
The world snapped apart.
Adelaide’s limbs shook violently, her breath tearing from her lungs in sharp, choked gasps.
And then the world changed.
She felt pressure—like something inside her chest cracked open, flooding her veins with molten heat.
It wasn’t pleasure. It wasn’t fear. It was something older. Something deeper. Something wrong.
Heat. Not normal heat. Not the flush of her skin. Not the warmth of his body.
A roar of fire, blooming from somewhere deep inside her.
She screamed—not in pleasure this time, but in raw, startled terror—as flames erupted across her skin, racing over her arms, her stomach, her thighs, engulfing her completely in a burning, blinding halo of gold and red.
The bed beneath her hissed. The air crackled. The shadows recoiled in a violent shudder as though bowing before something ancient—and furious. Veins of molten light flared to life in the stone walls, old runes igniting in a language her village priests had only ever whispered about in cautionary tales.
“Apollo!” she cried out, thrashing, clawing at her own body. “What—what did you do?!”
But Apollo jerked back, eyes wide—not in hunger this time, but in something that looked dangerously close to shock.
“I didn’t,” he growled, voice low and tight. “This isn’t me.”
The flames licked up her sides, curled over her shoulders, and danced through her hair like living fire. But they didn’t hurt. There was no pain.
No burning skin. No blistering heat. No agony at all.
Only warmth—deep, pulsing warmth that felt like it came from inside her bones. It was the same warmth as the dream-woman’s touch, the same inner blaze that had called her Daughter of Fire.
Her screams faltered. Her thrashing slowed.
She stared down at her arms, watching golden-white fire curl lovingly across her skin, shimmering like liquid sunlight.
“I’m not… burning,” she whispered.
She could feel each flame like a fingertip trailing over her skin—curious, gentle, almost affectionate.
The flames coiled around her fingers, wrapping them in loops of molten light. She raised her hands slowly, staring in horror and awe as fire obeyed her movement, shifting with her breath. When she inhaled, the flames brightened; when she exhaled, they calmed, like they were syncing to the rhythm of her heart.
“Apollo,” she whispered again, this time trembling for an entirely different reason. “What is happening to me?”
He didn’t answer. He couldn’t. Because the flames—her flames—were slowly beginning to fade, flickering down into faint glowing embers before sinking back into her skin, leaving nothing but warmth…and a faint shimmer like gold dust across her arms. The last spark lingered over the bite on her neck, flaring once in open defiance before winking out.
When the last spark vanished, the chamber fell into an impossible silence.
Adelaide sat up slowly, chest heaving, eyes wide and terrified. “I didn’t imagine that,” she whispered.
Apollo’s stare was molten, unreadable, shaken to his core.
“No,” he murmured. “You didn’t.”
But in the depths of his gaze—beneath the lust, the shock, the possessive hunger—something else flickered.
Fear. Recognition.
A memory he had spent centuries burying.
And deep beneath Hell itself… something woke. The old stones groaned, chains buried in the foundation rattling once, twice, as if some ancient prison far below had just felt a familiar spark and turned its face toward the surface.