15. Reyla
15
REYLA
I yelped and spun around, scurrying down the stairs.
I didn't make it to the bottom.
Merrick caught me and swept me up into his arms. He flung me over his shoulder on my belly, and his hand landed hard on my ass.
“You just killed someone,” I cried out.
“After they tried to kill us.”
Oh. Acting in self-defense was a different thing than willfully draining someone. I twinged because I’d assumed the worst. I hadn’t given Merrick a chance to come to me and explain. “I didn't mean to—”
“Silence,” he growled.
Where was the sweet, thoughtful man I'd had breakfast with this morning? The one who spoke poetically about the sea? In his place, I found a man who fumed, one who seemed eager to make me pay for my disobedience .
The world lurched as Merrick’s shoulder dug into my belly. Not because he was rough, or my seasickness had returned. His gentle yet forceful way of carrying me made my head whirl. I wasn’t accustomed to being handled like a squirming pet.
The ship’s lanterns flickered as he descended the stairs. The wood creaked beneath his boots, each step sending shivers of dread and some silly feeling I couldn’t name roiling inside me.
By the look on his face, what I’d done hadn’t pleased him one bit.
I clawed at his back, shoving away from the rock-hard muscles bunching there, but it was useless. His grip tightened, making escape impossible.
The air carried his scent, something rich, deep, and tinged with the pine of ancient forests. It filled my lungs and seeped under my skin, throwing my senses into turmoil. My heart pounded against my ribs, each beat heavy with a surging tide of confusion and something else entirely, something I shouldn't be feeling.
Fear? No, not that.
Anticipation? Of what?
Excitement. No, never that.
Merrick’s hand rested possessively on the curve of my ass, the heat of his touch scalding through the leather, burning away the last of my rebellion. Fury sparked within me to take its place, but was it for him or directed at myself, who’d made this happen?
I squirmed, pushing at his back while gritting my teeth. No one carried me around like this. “Put me down. ”
“Be quiet.” His voice rumbled through me with the weight of a storm about to break free from the churning clouds on the horizon. It sent a tremor of something wild through my veins. A primal awareness told me this man was no longer the gentle king but someone completely unexpected.
He turned down the hall leading to our quarters. Instead of opening my door and placing me inside, he made a direct line to the room across from mine—his suite.
I stiffened, digging my nails into the back of his tunic. “What are you—”
“Even in this, you disobey,” he growled.
Every muscle in his body hummed with tension, his heartbeat thundering against my palms. He reached his door, and with a flick of his fingers, it flew open with a rush of power.
Now there was a magical skill I’d like to possess.
He strode over the threshold, and the door snapped shut behind us with a thud that echoed through the quiet room, followed by a snick as he magically locked me inside with him.
He continued across his sitting area and thrust open the door to his bedroom.
I barely caught a glimpse of the masculine décor, the sprawling bed with regal bedding in shades of green and silver, a scattering of personal items, and a pile of papers on a desk in the corner, because in the next instant, he flung me onto his bed. He followed me down, trapping my body beneath his, his palms on either side of my shoulders caging me in place.
“You did not do as I asked,” he snarled, his green eyes sharper than cut jewels .
“ Told .”
“Excuse me?” Death lurked in his voice.
“You told me. You didn’t ask me to go to my suite.”
“And you disobeyed.”
The world slowed to shadows whispering across the walls as I stared up at him, my heart hammering in my chest, a raging beast I couldn’t control. I should fear the fury churning in his eyes, but instead, the raw intensity I saw there drew me in. I couldn't resist. Every nerve in my body hummed, aware of nothing but this man looming above me, pressing me down into the soft blankets, his heat a force I couldn't deny.
A part of me screamed that this was wrong, that it was a betrayal of everything Kinart and I had shared. But Kinart was gone, and instead of facing my grief, I was here, pinned beneath a man I barely knew yet couldn’t tear my eyes away from.
What was wrong with me?
I wanted to wrench away, to spit out the lump of dismay lodged in my throat, but my body betrayed me, responding to the press of his muscular frame, his heat seeping through my leathers to embed itself deep below my skin.
A rogue and unwelcome flame burst into life inside my belly, spreading down to my toes and up to my cheeks, a pulse of burning awareness. I should shove him away, scream at him, kick and bite until he released me, but all I could do was meet his intense gaze and wait.
Wait for what?
The fury stamped across his features slowly retreated, replaced by something deeper, more carnal. His eyes darkened, the cut green jewels turning obsidian. A spark lurked there I couldn’t decipher. Each controlled breath he took was a battle, his chest heaving with the restraint he struggled to rein in, and knowing that sent a shiver ripping up my spine.
No, this wasn’t anger anymore. It was something else entirely. Something sensual and mesmerizing.
And I was caught.
Trapped.
My own breathing halted, my lungs bringing the air’s escape to a stop. I was too afraid to disturb whatever edge we teetered on. His weight bored down on me, solid and unyielding, locking me into this moment with him. With a start that felt like a punch, I realized that I didn’t want to escape his grasp.
My chest ached from the pressure of him, yet I didn't fight it.
I should’ve been planning my next move, but my thoughts spun away from me, rooted instead in the heavy blanket of tension that wound tighter around us by the second, threatening to strangle me.
My body hummed with each shift of his weight, every brush of his body against mine hardening the iron cage he’d created around us.
I didn’t want to fight him.
Fuck reason. Fuck all of it.
Right now, all I wanted was to feel something beyond what loss and duty had turned me into. That fire in his black gaze promised relief from the endless ache gnawing on my soul.
Time might as well not exist as I lay there, entranced, vulnerable in a way I’d never been before. He controlled this moment, and I let him. For the first time, I didn’t want to be in charge of what happened next. I didn’t want to be Reyla, a queen by duty, or Reyla, the grieving woman lost in endless sorrow.
What if, for this heartbeat, I could be a new Reyla, one who could feel ?
Awareness lit inside his eyes like a fire being stoked behind the endless black. He leaned close enough, his breath fanned my lips. Everything inside me screamed for release I sensed only he could give me.
Merrick tilted his head to the side, a fraction of a move, but I saw it, and it sent my heart barreling down a cliff, plunging me into a freefall where the ground was no longer solid beneath me. In an instant, I realized how high the stakes had become. How desperate my longing was to see where this path, this new, dangerous, exhilarating path, might lead.
To see where this man would take me.
His eyes locked on mine, and the storm of emotions there got caught in my throat. Fire, a furious blaze, burned beneath his composure, but there was something else there too, a flicker of vulnerability. Now he was asking, not telling, but what did he want from me?
I’d been the one who agreed to this marriage. I was the one who said I was willing. But all I could think of was how hard he was fighting not to claim what appeared to be well within his grasp.
The gentle warmth of Kinart’s memory brushed through my mind, a familiar comfort I never thought I’d lose. Yet here I was, staring up at Merrick with my body thrumming with an intensity that bordered on pain, caught between the past love that comforted me and the burgeoning, erratic feelings for my new husband.
“You disobeyed me,” he said, more a growl than words.
“I did. You asked for a willing bride, not a prisoner.” The defiance scorching through me edged into my reply.
His head cocked and his gaze drifted to my mouth. “ Are you willing, my pretty little bride?”
“Y-yes,” I whispered, my voice barely audible, a confession more than a declaration.
He didn't move right away, but I felt the tension in his frame coiling, as if my words had unlocked part of him, a chained thing that ached to break free. The tender warmth in his eyes flared with need.
My breath caught in my throat as the weight of his stiff cock pressed against my thigh, a reminder of the fact that we were married, that he could take whatever he needed from me whether I wished for it or not.
Till death do us part.
His eyes flickered with that same primal pull I felt deep in my core. His movements slowed as he leaned closer, until only a hair’s breadth separated us, as if he was giving me one last chance to say the word that would stop this madness.
It stuck in my throat, impossibly lodged, because I didn’t want this to end.
I needed what lay in his eyes.
His mouth claimed mine in a searing kiss that rendered all thoughts moot. It wasn’t tender or tentative; it was an unleashed force, sweeping through me like wildfire, claiming every corner of my being with the ease of an unstoppable deluge. The world exploded into brilliant colors, and my body responded with untamed abandon, as if it had been dormant up until I met Merrick.
Shivers raced through me, freezing me in place even his mouth ignited my senses. All thought shrank to something both feral and tender.
This Reyla craved everything this man had to offer.
Instead of being scared of this, I found myself teetering on the edge of something immense, more dangerous than anything I’d faced before. I wrapped my arms and my legs around him, tugging him closer.
The taste of him overwhelmed me, tangling with the salty spice of the sea still lingering in the air around us. He consumed me, made the whole world narrow to the press of his lips, his heat, his ragged breathing mixing with my own. His fingers tangled in my hair, and his grip tightening as his mouth demanded more, demanded everything I hadn’t known was mine to give.
Need, pure and hot, swept through me in a tide, awakening parts of me long buried. A whimper escaped my throat, my shame mixing with something dangerous, something blindingly feral. My hands found their way to his back, and I anchored myself to him in this dizzying storm.
My heart pounded, the very air in my lungs stolen by the claim he had over me. I let it happen because in this devastating clash of our mouths, I found a new truth: There was life within me, beating, bright, and wild, and it begged to be free .
Merrick’s movements softened, his fury easing into fierce control. His touch became focused, until there was nothing left between us but the heavy thud of our hearts and the weight of this undeniable connection we’d suddenly formed.
I hadn’t planned for this.
But the truth was, I didn’t want to stop.