Ravenous (Taint of the Gods #1)

11. RIEKA

11

RIEKA

T he train never seemed to quiet. I’d left the party nearly an hour ago, and one would assume when the guests of honour left the part, it too would end; and yet I could still hear laughter in the other sleepers since every carriage door was open to the next. It was likely due to the inebriated states of at least half of the train’s passengers, a way to prevent passengers from getting stuck between the carriages because they couldn’t see the door buttons.

I could hear the sweet mumblings of two Feline-Blessed in their bunk at the end of the compartment, and I could smell S’vara in the next carriage with Tira and the results of her one drink on the washroom floor. There was no sense of privacy in this place, everything was in view of everyone; from the fact not a single washroom had a door and that everyone shared The Bathhouse , to the fact couples fucked in the bunks, their moans heard by anyone who either walked past or was lucky enough to sleep below them. A fact that Saska either cared nothing for or found appealing considering he was in the middle of fucking someone’s brains out when I arrived back at our bunk.

It had taken me a moment to realise who it was considering a person’s scent changed dramatically during the act. The Deogn man’s face was buried in Saska’s neck, kissing him as though his life depended on it. I learned something else at that moment too. As Emil’s large hands braced themselves against the muscles of the smaller man’s brightly tattooed back, the two rips I’d seen in Saska’s singlet that first night were because he was an Alatus. Yet whatever wings he had possessed before coming to this place were gone. Someone had cut them from his back. I’d seen sundering like this before, but where my mother’s roots were cleanly cut and organically mended so the skin had grown over the bone roots, Saska’s were raw and jagged, as though someone had cleaved them from his body. The roots still reacted when the muscles in his back rippled.

Neither one paid any attention to me when I crawled into my bunk. The sound of their lovemaking was drowned out by my thoughts, thoughts of Rhydian. Pondering how best to do exactly what I’d told him. How to make him fall in love with me. Telling him had been a gamble, but for a man clearly versed in the art of deception, he would see through my ploy before I could even establish it. It had been my only option. Rhydian knew what to expect and I didn’t have to hide my motivations. And it wouldn’t take as long as it had the others. As soon as I found out the type of woman that Rhydian was attracted to, I would become that. Men usually fell hard when their dream woman was offering herself to them on a golden platter.

I was so engrossed in my thoughts that I missed him. Rhydian had entered the sleeper carriage, pillow in hand and I hadn’t noticed until he tossed the damn thing onto my bunk.

“What are you doing?” I sat up hastily as he peeked inside the bunk, parchment and ink mixed amongst the pine scent.

“Why are you wearing all your clothes?” He gazed at my coat. I was wearing it, along with every other piece of clothing I owned. “You know the train has atmospheric controls, right?”

Yes. I was aware the train was heated. I’d sweated right through my underclothes the first night. But I wasn’t inclined to just leave them lying around, regardless of the marks those Spindles had weaved into the fabric.

Rhydian removed his leather jacket, threw it into the bunk and climbed in beside me, barely flicking a glance at my hand where it rested on my boot. Where Etrina was sheathed.

He shifted to get comfortable and saw that I still hadn’t moved.

“Was this not what we agreed?” his inner voice asked as he rolled around to face me. “I can leave if you wish?”

Slowly, I lowered myself back on the mattress, my back to the wall. Not a position I’d normally put myself in. But since he smelled of nothing more than curiosity, no antagonism, no animosity, I allowed myself to relax.

“You can stay.”

Rhydian continued to stare at me as if expecting me to say something more. My silence seemed to unnerve him. “You’re serious about this aren’t you, you’re really going to try to seduce me.”

“You climbed into my bed Rhydian. Not the other way around.”

He laughed under his breath. “Rieka, I don’t want you.”

The cord of his shirt hung loose dangling on the mattress, the material gaping open, revealing those intricate tattoos. I saw another rune I recognised. Ar’u. Strength in perseverance. I took hold of the cord and twisted the leather around my finger.

“I’ve heard that before. Never quite sticks.”

His eyes flicked down to my hands, trailed up my arms then stopped at my lips. Slowly, as if the act gave me pleasure, I took my bottom lip between my teeth and nibbled on it. The corner of his mouth lifted ever so slightly.

Pine needles and damp soil after a rain. Had he smelled like this that night? Apexes were alcohol intolerant by nature, prone to unusual reactions, but it didn’t stop us from drinking so my memory was hazy. I could recall certain things from the inn, his lips, the drinking games, the feeling of warm muscled skin under my fingertips, a flash of gold as his hair brushed over my cheek, but nothing else.

The men who I’d been with before were all the same. I always knew what they were feeling simply by the chemicals their body expressed. That combined with their heart rates provided everything I needed to obtain what I desired from them. But with Rhydian, even this close, he was unreadable. I could scent his desire certainly, his blessing could not control that, but his heartbeat—

Steady. Unnaturally so. It was damn frustrating.

The end of my braid lay by his hand. Rhydian reached out and began playing with it. “Is that all it took with the others—I presume there were others for you to be this confident?”

“Enough to know I’ll eventually get what I want. And what I want is to not be handed over to someone who would consider me a possession and not a person. Is that so hard to fathom in that overbaked loaf of a head of yours?”

He smiled, revealing a dimple. “You want your freedom and I can understand that, but it will not be me who gives it to you Rieka. Your price is too steep.”

“A price means nothing when it comes to love, Rhydian.”

“I have never given my heart to anyone. What makes you think I’ll give it to you?”

“ You may be able to mask your heartrate around me, but you can’t hide your scent. Desire is a remarkably powerful smell. Tell me you honestly don’t want me?”

Rhydian stopped his fiddling and looked up. Blue eyes searched my face, the colour a turbulent sea of chaos. “Why tell you something you already know? I find you to be one of the most attractive women I’ve ever had the pleasure of sharing a bed with Rieka. But sex and love are two entirely different desires.”

“In my experience, one has always led to the other.”

“Then someone taught you wrong.” Rhydian let go of my hair, took my hand and pulled the cord from it. He turned it palm-side up, undid the fastening of my glove and then in slow calculated movements, began tracing the lines of my palm.

“I may want you beneath me Rieka. My hands running down the curves of your naked body. My cock inside you, my lips sucking at your raw nipples as you cry my name through breathless moans. But it won’t be because of any seduction of yours. If I take you Rieka, it will be because I want to.” He dropped my hand between us and patted it like I were a child whose efforts he needed to commend.

Rhydian relaxed back into the bed, the arm closest to me wedged under his head like a pillow. He was insufferable as well as egotistical. Very well, drastic measures were needed.

I braced myself on the bed until I was hovering over him, my face so close I could taste the mint on his breath. If I were to speak aloud my lips would brush his. “Care to make that bet you so graciously offered earlier?”

It was my only chance. He had told Ghena he always kept his promises. I guess I would find out if he was a man of his word.

Rhydian didn’t move. He didn’t flinch as I continued to loom over him. I took his silence as his willingness to listen.

“On the day I win, the day you tell me you love me, you make me an oath. You Bloodhounds make those, don’t you? You swear to me, in blood, that you will never make me anyone’s slave, in any capacity. You’re so confident I’ll fail, what is there to lose?”

His head tilted, the look in his eyes contemplative. “Only if you agree to my conditions, to be revealed at my discretion, abided by you without question. Deal?”

The fact he never said how many conditions should have made me hesitate in responding, but I refused to get turned over to someone who considered people property. If agreeing to this bastard’s weird or kinky conditions meant I would be saving myself from slavery, then there was no question what my answer would be.

I leaned down and lightly touched my lips to the spot just along his cheekbone, so gently that anyone awake enough to catch a glimpse wouldn’t doubt my love for this duplicitous oaf. “Deal.”

Promptly, I withdrew my body from its proximity to his and closed my eyes to sleep, recording to memory the change in his scent when I kissed him. I did affect him at least.

Then just when I could hear the sound of his breathing slowing, falling into that steady rhythm of early sleep, I spoke once more, not caring if he heard me or not.

“When you do take me Rhydian—because you will—it will be because I let you.”

That night as he slept, I took Etrina and marked the bed frame with a single tally.

177 days until Marian 1 st