Chapter 21 #2
Brey’s sleeve caught my eye for the second time since the ward had returned us—wet with fresh blood.
“Just a scratch,” I scoffed.
Maybe he was in pain, or it was simply his loathing for me, but he didn’t respond. He marched past the garden of weeds and lumpy cacti in the turning bay and leaped up the cracked stairs as if he wasn’t injured at all.
By the time I entered the foyer, he was gone.
Groth gazed up the stairs after the king. As two guards pulled the doors closed behind me, Hanna hurried across the foyer. “What took you so long?”
I tore my eyes off the stairs and laughed. “Apologies.” Dryly, I said, “It would seem trying to avoid becoming a giant and flying serpent’s next meal is quite time-consuming.”
Groth blanched. “Snagorns?”
Hanna blinked numerous times before eyeing my ripped tunic and ruined boots. Her blue eyes landed on the disaster that was my hair, and her lips pinched. “Well, I’m glad you managed to avoid it.”
“Oh?” I raised a brow. “Are you done being petulant?”
With a roll of her eyes, she marched beyond the stairs, presumably to return to the kitchen.
Groth lingered. “Majesty,” he said quietly. “She doesn’t want you to leave.” He appeared to hesitate before grasping his cravat and admitting, “No one does.”
“Why?” A fair question.
It wasn’t as if I’d been exceptionally kind to him. Nor to Hanna, now that I was thinking about it.
Groth looked behind him, then back at me with tightening features. “I’ve already said too much. Forgive me.”
He vanished.
I frowned at the organisms sprouting from cracks in the tiles, and grimaced when I noticed the varying types of muck on my boots. Leaving them beneath the stairs for Groth to deal with, I headed to my tower.
I bathed and immediately crawled into bed, where I stared at the canopy of lace covering it.
Thunder rumbled in the distance.
Discomfort, or something like it, itched beneath my skin. I tossed the sheets away. It failed to help. Neither did throwing on my robe and curling into an armchair with a decanter of wine and the book I’d been reading.
Relief only came when I left my tower and went to Brey’s.
He sat on the side of his bed, shirtless and attempting to secure a clean tunic around his wounded arm with his teeth. Wet hair curtained his face and dripped down his marred back—sliced in places from the bones in that horrid pit.
He was well aware that I stood atop the stairs, so I just said, “I assumed you would’ve been feasting on one of your pets by now.”
Without taking his eyes off his task or the tunic from his teeth, Brey muttered, “Do you wish to borrow one?”
“I thought you didn’t like to share.”
At that, his gaze roamed to me—darkened at the edges. He spat the linen from his mouth. “Loathe it.”
My insides quaked from that look and the meaning in the response I’d provoked. But I couldn’t let it deter me. Fleeing would only make me feel even more foolish for coming here.
So I crossed the room to his bed.
Brey stiffened. As he slowly looked up from his arm, his gaze snagged on my bare legs. A slight grimace preceded his words. “If you need to feed, Sheya and Ergon are probably over at the staff cottages.”
“I don’t need to.”
I hadn’t felt any desire to feed since he’d given me his blood during the first ward. Not even the plum rapidly staining the tunic looped around his arm tempted me. One of the positives of being bonded, I supposed. Longer-lasting satedness.
“Then to what do I owe the displeasure?”
He wanted me to leave.
It only made me more determined to stay. “I think the bond is playing with me.” I sat beside him on the bed, and ignored how he tensed as I admitted, “I couldn’t relax. I felt strange.” I crossed my legs. “Until I came here.”
His silence and stillness lured my eyes to his face.
But his own eyes were fastened to my exposed thigh. A muscle feathered in his jaw before he averted his gaze and cleared his throat. “Well…” Once again, he tried to tighten the tunic over his wound. “Now that it’s abated, you can see yourself out.”
His voice had gritted. Not merely from annoyance, but from pain.
“You know why I felt restless.”
Brey didn’t respond.
Turning to him, I flicked my damp hair over my shoulder. “Trust me, my desire to leave far surpasses yours.”
“Very much doubt that.”
Ignoring those muttered words, I toyed with the ties of my robe. “You need to heal that wound, and my blood will do it much quicker than anyone else’s.”
Stiffening even more, he resembled an ethereal, tormented statue.
And I knew I’d need to speak to his baser instincts instead.
My sleeves reached just below my elbows. The black silk gaped as I brought my wrist to my mouth—and sank my fangs into my flesh.
Pain flared in a quick burst.
But I kept it from appearing on my face. Licking my own blood from my teeth, I extended my arm to Brey.
Dark purple trickled over my pale skin like two slow-forming bracelets. He stared at it, nostrils flaring as he caught a whiff of my blood. “Ethel,” he said, his smooth voice cracking. “I cannot feed from—”
“You can, and if you wish to return to full strength faster, you should.” Knowing it would give him the final push he needed, I said, “We have another ward waiting. Drink, then we can resume wanting nothing to do with each other.”
His throat bobbed, and his gaze crept up to mine.
Held captive by the fiery hunger brightening and drooping his eyes, I could only smile slightly and nod.
Blood dripped from my wrist onto his gray linen pants. The dark splash spread into a smudge, then cool fingers grazed my skin.
I fought a shiver.
Brey lowered his head at the same time he lifted my wrist to his mouth. He pressed his lips against the blood, then licked it.
My stomach fluttered.
I refrained from admonishing him or scowling.
He was no longer looking at me, and it wasn’t as if he could help it. A purr climbed his throat. His eyelids drifted closed. Taken by something darker than even his hatred of me, Brey lapped at my wrist and forearm until there was no trace of blood.
Fangs scraped against the sensitive skin of my inner wrist—right beside the punctures I’d made. When his teeth ever so slowly plunged into my flesh, heat drenched me in an instant deluge. It stalled my breath before causing it to leave me in a shocked and shaken moan.
As if in response, a throaty purr rumbled from him again.
This, I thought. This was precisely why I shouldn’t have fed him.
This was what he’d felt when I’d fed from him during the first ward. Instant and intense arousal. Which meant he knew that every time he sucked, a euphoric rush claimed me.
Sensation swept from my tingling scalp to my curling toes. My blood pulsed and became a whoosh in my ears that nearly masked the sound of my gasped breaths and Brey’s groans. My thighs clenched. My other hand scrunched the bedsheets beside me.
Then Brey’s lips loosened from my skin, and I thought the sublime torture might cease.
It didn’t.
His hold on me firmed. His tongue dragged back and forth over the tiny wounds he’d made, and my bones seemed to squirm. Again, he sucked. He drew from me in long pulls before swallowing a mouthful of my blood.
Sparks danced from his lips down my arm. Traveled through me to my core. There, they gathered and flared into a star that turned and turned until I feared I might climb onto his lap and beg him to end this.
Breath continued to flee me in gasped and noisy bursts. When one hitched violently, Brey lifted his lashes. Eyes ablaze, he watched me as he slowly unlatched his mouth from my wrist. As he licked the blood trailing down it.
My arm was then lowered. His hand shook, as if it were a struggle to do so. To keep from feeding again.
If this overwhelming heat hadn’t already flushed every inch of my body, I might have blushed. My gaze dropped to his makeshift bandage, half unraveled down his arm. The gash was now nothing more than a nasty scratch, and when I looked at his face…
Brey wasn’t merely staring at me. He seemed to be absorbing my features with such concentration that I couldn’t tell if he was hunting for my nonexistent ulterior motive or if he was just as aroused as I was.
But then he reached out.
I stilled as he collected the section of damp hair hanging at my cheek. Carefully, he coiled the maroon strands around his finger, and when he stroked them with his thumb, I felt it in places I shouldn’t.
His plum-stained lips parted.
I stared at them for far longer than I should have. So long, his rasped, “Thank you,” was akin to a sudden crack of lightning.
“I did it for me, really.” Exquisite discomfort ruined my tone, rendering it quiet and amused instead of crisp. “Not only was that restlessness aggravating, but we need you ready to save us from whatever horrors we encounter next.”
He huffed.
Our eyes met—locked in an unblinking dance. Before he could withdraw, I leaned closer and did something completely and incredibly foolish.
I kissed him.
If Brey was shocked, he didn’t show it.
But although he didn’t retreat, he also didn’t kiss me back.
For merciless moments, he stayed wholly still. All the while, I could have wept from reuniting with his soft mouth. My hands shook. Heaviness pushed at my closed eyes. Trapped air rattled my chest.
As he let me place my lips over and against his until I was certain I would never find a more perfect fit, desperation that had nothing to do with any type of lust swarmed me. Longing raked claws over my pounding heart—reminded me that no matter how much I’d tried to forget, it couldn’t.
Not when it still bled.
The heaviness in my eyes became a burn that constricted my throat, and I knew I had to retreat. Knew I needed to flee.
Then Brey cursed.
He opened my mouth with his, and I was turning upside down without moving at all.
His hands seized my face, as if to pull it away from his. Instead, his fingers delved into my hair. His palms tightened over my cheeks and jaw.
And his mouth tore into mine.
He kissed me as though he wished to smother each fractured breath I took. With a hunger he’d never shown me before. With a ferocity that made it impossible for me to do anything other than let him.
The taste of my blood lingered. But beneath it was the taste of him, and when his tongue swept into my mouth, I moaned and gripped his wrists—seeking more as arousal began to overpower my terrified heart.
A deep groan gave me the courage to move as his hold loosened and his mouth left mine with another ragged curse.
But before I could climb onto his lap, Brey stood and dug a hand into his damp hair. He held it there as he faced the bathing room door.
Rejection lashed me in scalding waves.
I refused to let it show. “I honestly have no idea why I did that.”
“The bond,” he said, a little hoarse. He cleared his throat. “It makes us aroused when we feed from each other.”
I knew that. We’d both known that after the first ward. I didn’t remind him. Though he wasn’t looking at me, I nodded. “Right.”
“Mm.”
I stood from his bed. “I should leave then.”
“You should.” So nonchalant, as if he hadn’t just bruised my lips with his, he turned and said, “Oh, and if you happen to see Groth downstairs, please have him send for Sheya and Ergon.”
Thunder grumbled. Time seemed to shudder to an ear-ringing halt.
Before I could stop it, a shocked laugh escaped.
Lowering his brows, Brey asked, “Is there a problem?”
“No.” Again, I laughed. It was that or snarl at him. “No problem whatsoever.”
“Your odd laughter certainly says differently.”
“I just find your cliché behavior endearingly amusing.” I closed the distance between us and placed my hand on his cheek. “So much so that I hope you enjoy your pets.” My voice became a whisper as my thumb brushed his cheekbone. “And when you’re hilt deep inside them, I hope it’s my face you see.”
“Darling…” He took my hand from his face and kissed it. “Of course it is.” Eyes agleam, he murmured, “I cannot finish otherwise.”
He released me and strode into the bathing room.
Rain arrived in a sudden downpour.
Tears singed as I stared at the floor. As I tried to think of something to say that might give him a taste of the venom coursing through my veins. But my aching chest and screaming self-loathing made it impossible to think of anything.
So I left, and when I found Groth loitering down in the hall, I said nothing.