14. Chapter 14
14
Nelle
M y father strode into his office and I hurried to catch up. I’d spent many an afternoon here on the leather couch with a book spread across my lap, listening and gathering information about the Houses and the Horned Gods while my father worked.
My father ran a frustrated hand over his face before leaning over his desk. “What possessed you to enter the den? Master Sirro… If he discovered what you are—”
“I know, I know…” The sensuality in how Master Sirro stared at me still clung to my skin with the slickness of oil. “But he didn’t.”
“No,” he snapped. “He just thinks you’re a girl who knows far too much.”
The way my father spoke those words, as if he were insulted, stunned me.
Everything I’d come to talk to him about was instantly forgotten as fury whirled through my blood. Bracing my legs apart, I squared my shoulders. “I was born into this world. I inhabit it. Wychthorn or not, I’d be a fool not to equip myself with every bit of knowledge I can scavenge.”
“You don’t need to. That’s what I’m here to do. I’m the one protecting you from it all—”
“Because I’m a girl?”
He hissed out an annoyed breath and turned away, bending over to pull open a drawer. Fishing around, he pulled out a fresh bottle of cognac and plonked it on the desk with a thump that rattled the glass surface. A French rose-crystal tumbler followed suit.
“Such utter rubbish,” I spat, not caring how his features darkened in anger. “Why shouldn’t I? Or Lise or Evvie? Why shouldn’t one of us be the heir to Great House— ”
“It goes to a male,” he growled, unscrewing the bottle cap. He didn’t even pour a measure; he filled it almost to the lip. “The first male born. It will either be Annalise’s child, or Evvie’s. Whoever comes first.” Because that had always been our way—the reign of our House handed down from male to male. But this was no longer the dark ages, for fuck’s sake.
It hurt that he should see us as broodmares. Rankled that he didn’t see us as smart enough, worthy enough, for the right to rule. Amongst our society, there were female leaders. Women who held the Heads of Houses. I was about to fling this at him when he interrupted.
“What did you come to see me for?” He suddenly looked weary. New wrinkles creased his face as if he’d aged ten years since coming out of that meeting.
Right, right… this was about my sister.
I pushed aside the anger. “Evvie shouldn’t marry Corné.”
His expression became impassive, unreadable. “And why is that?”
“Corné has a mistress.”
“Most men do.” There was no divorce in our world, and I knew I shouldn’t be so naive as not to take that into consideration. But I was, and I did. “Some women, too,” he added quietly, staring down into his glass.
I stilled. An icy fist tightened in my chest. This wasn’t how I expected the conversation to go. I thought my father would be raging. I tried again. “I don’t like how he looks at Evvie. As if she’s a possession he’s wondering how to break.”
His gaze narrowed on me as he gulped back a mouthful of cognac.
“And… I caught him hurting her,” I added.
He froze at that. “How?”
“He was holding her arm too tightly.”
He gave a dismissive snort.
My lips thinned and annoyance slashed through my veins. Saying it out loud like that seemed to soften what I’d witnessed.
My father’s nostrils flared as he took another long sip, wiping the beads of alcohol from his mouth. “We need this alliance with House Pellan,” he shared, before turning away to stride toward the window, the summery night sky obscured by storm clouds.
I followed at a clipped pace, crossing the room. Sage stalked beside me, his paws silent on the wooden floor. I urged my father, “You’re their leader. You don’t need to cement it with a marriage. The Houses are loyal to you.”
“There are undercurrents at play here, Nelle!” he barked, swiveling around and striding right towards me. I suddenly found myself backing up, nearly tripping over my feet. We stilled at his desk. He stabbed the desktop with his forefinger. “Houses have been removed from their position at the Horned Gods’ whim or by deception from other Houses!”
I knew that. Of course I did.
Anger glowed in his bright blue eyes. “It’s not for you to worry over.”
I huffed, crossing my arms over my chest. “No. I’ll stick to worrying over the Crowthers, shall I?”
His temper flared hotter, and he pounded his fist on the desk, startling me. Dark amber liquid spilled from his tumbler. “Evvie is a Wychthorn. She will do her duty as a Wychthorn. She will marry who I see best, whoever will benefit our House. Exactly like Annalise did. Like you will too!”
My whole body trembled with fury. “Except you didn’t choose the Crowthers for me. They did!” Before he could say anything else, my tongue ran away with itself. I flung an arm outward. “So you’ll marry Evvie off to Corné, quite happily, for an alliance to secure our position as Great House, even if he hurts her? Even if he breaks her spirit? Even if he humiliates her with his mistress?”
A cold wind stirred in the office, ruffling the loose paper strewn over his desk.
A snarl from the creature as it uncoiled with my anger.
I advanced a few furious steps and stabbed a finger at his face. “Because by doing all those things, it’s not only Evvie who gets hurt. It’s our House he’s ?saying a fuck-you—”
“NELLE!”
We faced one another, both of us breathing hard, both of us livid.
Then a shift came over him. His shoulders slumped and his gaze softened. “Nelle,” he said again, this time almost apologetically. But I knew there was nothing I could say to change his mind. We were what we were—Wychthorn daughters used to gain an advantage. That’s all we’d ever be to my father.
I backed away, tears threatening, not from despair but from burning rage. I spun on my heel and fled, running along the twist and turn of hallways, down the graceful spiral staircase and onward until I arrived at my mother’s favorite room, where the Pellans had gathered with my family. Sage paced around my jittering feet.
I hovered near the threshold of the party for a few minutes, unsure of what to do. Who could put an end to this engagement? The smoky doors were open, and both guards waited for me to enter, but I lingered in the foyer, watching as Aldert Pellan rejoined the family gathering. My father returned by another entrance to the room, his half-drunk glass of cognac pinched between tense fingers .
I bared my teeth. My father—he’d caged me ?in this estate like one of my mother’s birds in her pretty aviary.
I needed to talk to someone. Not Evvie, nor my mother—
Maybe Danne.
My angry gaze scouted the room, wishing I’d miraculously find Danne in there. But I didn’t. I snatched my phone from the pocket of my skirt.
I’ll do it. I’ll call Danne and vent—
Maybe it’s too late in the evening. Maybe I’ll interrupt him in a meeting.
But isn’t that what friends are for—to lend an ear?
Stabbing the screen, I scrolled furiously for Danne’s number, only half aware of approaching footsteps.
On the cusp of pressing call, I glanced up and found Graysen staring down at me. I paused as a fierce look cut through his features—his gaze snapped to the Pellans, back to me, and down to my phone. For some strange reason, he seemed as angry as I was.
How long has he been watching me?
“Danne Pellan. That’s your friend, isn’t it?” he ground out. “That fucker.”
How he’d pieced it together, I didn’t give a shit. But I ?did not appreciate what he said, or how he said it.
“He’s just a friend,” I bit back.
“But you want more.” It wasn’t a question.
I startled, the anger dampening. Sure, I liked Danne, but I doubted he liked me in that way.
“You stay away from him,” Graysen snarled, shoving a finger in my face.
I knocked his hand aside, my mouth thinning, and anger rising once more. “Why? Why should I?” Why on earth should Danne Pellan matter to Graysen?
His gaze darkened, and his jaw clenched. “Keep your distance from Danne Pellan.” With one last glower, he spun around and stalked toward the smoky doors.
I watched his broad back as he strode from me. Fury hissed through my blood, had the creature slithering along my bones. Graysen was as bad as my father. I was a possession. Passed from my father to him. From one gilded cage to another.
“Fuck off, Crowther. I’m sick and tired of being told what to do, by you, by my father!” My temper grew hotter and hotter. The creature inside of me snarled. I never backed down when I damn well knew I should keep my mouth shut. Hissing at his retreating figure, I shook my fist. “Danne’s my friend and I’ll do what I like!”
Graysen whirled around. “You’ll fucking do as I say! ”
I balled both of my hands, practically shrieking. “You don’t own me. You don’t get to tell me what to do!”
He was closer now, his words spoken with a dangerous calm. “Oh, but little bird, in one month I do. In one month, you’ll turn twenty and I’ll own every single inch of you.”
I blinked, my eyes flaring wide. “You do realize you’re a walking, talking cliché? Do you ever listen to yourself? Gods, Crowther. Do as I say. You’re mine . Blah, blah, blah. Yeah, we all get it. You’re the alpha. The guy with the biggest dick in the room.”
“I prefer the term ‘cock,’ little bird.” A smug smirk. A mocking wink. “Glad you noticed.”
I nearly imploded on the spot with fury. Unwinding my adamere bracelet, I started snapping the length in irritated tugs, stepping closer to him. “You know what, Crowther—No!”
“No?”
“This is what is going to happen.” I shoved a finger into his hard chest. “I don’t want to marry you. You don’t want to marry me. As soon as I reach twenty, you’ll shred up that stupid contract and let me go.”
He straightened to his full height, and his anger matched mine. “Still thinking you can order me about it? Still behaving like the spoiled Wychthorn princess. Snapping her fingers, thinking, I’ll dance to your beck and call and do whatever you demand.”
“Let me live by myself.” As soon as it slipped from my tongue, the idea gripped me hard. He could… He could let me go… I could live wherever I wanted. New York or a seaside village. I could live, really live. Talk to people, travel… Not even my father could drag me back to the estate. I’d disappear and hide from the Horned Gods. No one would find me.
“I see that devious little mind at work. Don’t bother with that line of thought. You’re mine. You’ll always be mine and I sure as fuck won’t be letting you go!”
I loosened a string of curses that had his eyebrows rising.
Then I whirled away.
“Where the hells are you going?!”
“Wherever I like,” I ground out while spinning back and advancing on him with a hand braced on my hip. “What can you do?”
Because I was slowly becoming aware that though my birthday was coming up soon, there was also time between now and then. The contract binding us together granted Graysen some power over me from the age of nineteen—he could spend one day a month with me, as well as join me on a House matter or a House celebration, like my sister’s engagement this weekend. But he didn’t actually own me. Yet.
I could walk away right this moment and he couldn’t do a godsdamned thing about it.
“I’m not twenty yet,” I gritted out. “ You don’t get to tell me what to do just yet . Maybe I’ll get shit-faced and vomit all over your expensive suit .” My gaze cast about the room beyond the smoky doors, at the Pellans. There wasn’t a single male in that room I had any desire or interest in, but Graysen didn’t know that. “Maybe I’ll go tabletop dancing. Maybe I’ll screw every single Pellan here.”
Graysen’s hand ?ensnared my arm, his fingers tightening their grip. He got right into my face and growled. “Nobody steals that from me.”
A cruel smile lit my lips— Ah, so there is something about me Graysen desires .
I gave him my best smirk, tugging myself free, and took a step back. “Who says it hasn’t already been given?” You didn’t need to kiss to have sex.
He barked a laugh. “Gods, Wychthorn, don’t bother trying to fool me.” He stalked closer, backing me up into the wall, his arms boxing me in. Shamefully, that hyperawareness of him sparked again. It crackled and fizzed through the air, scorching my skin, and heat flared through my chest.
He bowed his head and his roughened jaw abraded my cheek as he breathed into my ear. “You’re still a virgin. I can scent it on you. It tastes of newly ripened peach begging to be plucked.”
I sucked in a sharp breath, furious with him, but more furious with myself as my cheeks heated, confirming he was right.
“I’ll never give you that,” I hissed.
No way was my first sexual partner going to be a menace like Graysen Crowther!
I ducked beneath his arms, getting only two paces before my fiery rage had me whirling back around. “Piss off, Crowther. Why don’t you find someone else to fuck with, or better yet—fuck!” My hand slashed through the air, the adamere beads clinking as the bracelet arced with the motion. “I’m done with you. From now on, I do as I please. Do who I please!”
Silly, silly girl, taunting him like that. Because ‘who I please’ obviously translated to Danne Pellan.
But instead of heading through those smoky doors into the gathering of Pellans, I stormed toward my quarters.
Sage kept up with my furious pace as I ran along hallways, through vast open rooms and smaller ones, all beautifully appointed but utterly unused by my family. I resided in the eastern wing, alone.
Heavy footfall resounded down the long hallway stretching behind me.
I glared over my shoulder, knowing exactly who the hells was following.
Godsdammit, why can’t he let me be?
Graysen’s expression was thunderous. “Where are you going?! I’m not done with you yet!”
It occurred to me then, for the first time, that my father’s guards didn’t shadow me. They never had when Graysen was in my presence. It was only Sage who had my back. The wraith-wolf’s ghostly body shimmered in and out of existence as he gave a soft snarl.
Dashing into my quarters, I spun around and tried shutting the door, but Graysen shoved his foot in, blocking my escape.
Sage danced by my side, growling and barking loudly. One word from me and he’d tear through Graysen. But I was so keyed up, burning with rage at Corné, at my father, at Graysen’s absurd demands, I wanted to handle him by myself. There was a part of me still grounded enough to remember not to unleash that dark creature inside me. But I still had strength.
To my fury, Graysen advanced, and I fled through the living quarters into my bedroom, slamming the door in his face only to have it kicked in. The door jolted against the wall, vibrating and swinging back open.
His tall, broad form filled the doorway. His anger swamped the room. This was the first time he’d ever been in here, but his entire focus was solely on me. “Danne Pellan is a sick fuck, just like all his brothers!”
Ridiculous. Danne was nice and kind and funny. The opposite of Graysen. “You’re the sick fucker!” I roared back. “What’s your problem with him?!” I didn’t give him time to answer. “Is it because he’s interested in me?!” Because, gods forbid, someone actually likes me. “You sure don’t, so why the hells do you care?!”
I hopped on one foot, unbuckling the shoe from the other, sliding it off to hurl it across the room. It hit the headboard of my bed and fell with a soft thud onto the carpet. The second shoe followed swiftly. “Get out!”
He didn’t.
Instead, he stalked closer.
Power coiled around my bones, fortifying my strength.
He stepped right into my space. “I don’t give a fuck about you. But that guy—”
“Get the hells out of my bedroom and out of my godsdamned life, Crowther!”
He stood his ground, feet braced apart, looking like he could tear me into smithereens.
I’d warned him. I surged forward, slamming my hands against his chest, and shoved hard, so hard the immovable Graysen Crowther stumbled back— actually stumbled.
Surprise flared briefly. Then he snarled, rushing forward, slamming into me, shoving me onto the bed.
I bounced up and down, rolling over—
And he pounced—
But I was ready for him.
We tangled on the mattress, jostling and struggling, my nails raking and fists pummeling. Sage barked and howled, his powerful muscles rippling as he bounded around my bed, waiting for my order to attack.
Both Graysen and I unleashed our rage against one another. Raging that we were stuck with one another and couldn’t get out of this ridiculous boon the Horned Gods had granted. To be fair to Graysen, he didn’t actually hit me. I, however, held nothing back.
I tumbled onto my back. He lunged forward, looming over me. I drove a foot into his chest, knocking him off, only to have him grab my feet and drag me across the mattress.
“I didn’t realize your strength.” He was panting from exertion, which gave me some pleasure. “Where does it come from? Your father’s bloodline or your mother’s?”.
I answered him by swiveling around and slamming an elbow into his belly.
He was strong and skilled while I was a twisting, howling hellion, lashing out.
He huffed a dark chuckle as he wrestled me into submission.
Both of us breathed hard and glared harder. Our stormy eyes clashed as if all nine hells had broken free. And in some ways, it had. I’d torn the sleeve of his shirt and blood oozed down his cheeks where I’d raked my fingernails. And he’d ripped a few buttons from the front of my dress, the material gaping wide.
He’d pinned me beneath him, locking both my hands by my head at the wrist. I huffed, wanting to scratch his eyes out.
Golden flecks, like constellations, glittered around his pupils—
Why haven’t I noticed that about his eyes before?
The mood in the room shifted.
There was something about him. Me. Us. That neither of us understood. But it was there, thrumming between us. The air grew heavier, warmer, rippled and shimmered. Our combined fury heated into something else. Something new. Something that we’d both been dancing around since we’d first laid eyes on one another as children, and had only intensified the older we got.
He rolled us over so I was on top, my thighs straddling his hips. He fixed my hands to my side, keeping them there beneath his own.
“Let me go.” But it came out breathlessly, almost like an invitation.
His breath came in excited, ragged pants. “I knew you’d be like this.” He flashed a delighted grin. “It’ll be war whenever we finally fuck.” His palms were spread wide over my hands and his long fingers cupped my ass. And now I realized what was beneath me—a hard length, impossibly large between my legs, pressing against my sex.
No one had ever, and I mean, ever, gotten this close to me.
I froze in place. I didn’t know what to do or how to react, but my body did. My breasts tightened and something, right there, at the apex of my thighs, strummed. Heat spread from my core and had me sucking in a sharp breath, my eyes flaring wide.
“Is that your first feel of an erection, little bird?” He drove his hips up, angling and shifting me back and forth to bodily rub up against him in an obscene carnal move.
The friction of rubbing against his erection had my sex throbbing with an exquisite, greedy sensation. Pleasure exploded from my core, sweeping down my legs to the tips of my toes, up my chest, over breasts growing heavy, nipples tightening—
Holy.
Hellsgate!
Gods, it felt like nothing else.
Once or twice I’d touched myself with inexperienced, fumbling fingers. But that was nothing compared to this.
“Is it?” he coaxed, voice gone velvet.
He knew it was. He knew I was a virgin, that I’d confessed I’d never kissed anyone.
He groaned, low and guttural, his eyelids growing heavy, as he slid me back and forth. His smoldering eyes, dark and primal, were locked on my mouth. My gaze dipped down as his tongue darted out to wet his full bottom lip, white teeth flashing.
And I inhaled a tiny gasp, everything inside me melting at the sight. His gaze flicked up, and I squeezed my eyes shut. I couldn’t let him see my weakness. That every single inch of me hummed—for him .
Yet, I couldn’t resist from purposely squirming against him to deepen that lustful ache spearing through my center. My movements made his erection pulse and grow harder, and gods, the feel of that considerable length only intensified that greedy strumming between my legs—
His erection felt enormous—
My core grew slicker, dampening my panties.
My eyes flew open, and shock rounded my mouth.
How could I be aroused by someone who despised me this much? How could he?
I didn’t understand. “You don’t even like me.”
“I despise you,” he said with a half-smile, almost with sorrow.
“Your…” What do I say? What do I call it?
“My what?” His gaze sharpened and his smile broadened. He knew exactly what I meant. “Go on, my what?’ he purred, challenging me.
I cleared my throat. “That thing pressing into me says otherwise.”
“Cock.”
I spluttered, my cheeks heating, refusing—
He flipped us both in a whirl of male strength. His hard body pressed me deeper into the soft mattress as he raised my arms above my head. One of his hands caged mine, and the other hand wound my braid around his wrist. His fingers fisted my hair, tugging to arch my neck and give him access.
I stilled, inhaling through my nose, my scalp burning.
Wh-what is he doing?
Heat. A sting. Soothing.
The contrary sensations of his mouth slowly registered as he worked his way up my throat. Pain and pleasure plaited together. A lick. A nip of teeth. Open-mouthed kisses. His rough voice rumbled against my flesh. “Go on, say it, little bird. Say cock.”
The words were a sensual lick between my thighs.
And my mouth went bone dry.
I should have felt shocked. I should have been shoving him off. I should have been screaming at him.
But I was doing none of those things.
The words were humiliating, my reaction more so. My inner sex painfully clenched around nothing.
I gasped as he kissed tiny kisses along my jawline. His scent, that woodsy cedar scent, washed over me. Intoxicating and heady .
His face drew flush with mine and his forehead rested against my own, his eyes hazy with lust. His lips ghosted mine as he said, “Say, that cock pressing into my pussy says otherwise.”
And he rocked into me—
And everything, everything —
Caught fire!
I was adrift in a sea of feeling. Tossed and pushed and dragged under on heated, whirling currents of sensation. Pulsing. Skin alight and tight. Aching. My voice was gone. All coherent thought eluded me. Just lust. Desire. Need. Want.
The creature inside arched and purred and thrummed in time with my heartbeat, with the pulsing of my clit.
And the air stirred. A warm breeze swirled, ruffling curtains and loose papers on my nightstand, as that power I kept locked inside slipped free.
What is happening to my body?
Gods, what is this?
Why did the feel of him, that masculine bulge, the thin fabric of my panties, the fine material of his dress pant—even the harsh zipper, the placket—added something obscene and desirous as he rocked again and again and again, and some dark part of me craved it, craved him.
He chuckled, his breath kissing my lips. “You like, little bird? Want more?”
No.
Yes.
I don’t know.
He ground himself against that small bundle of nerves at the apex of my thighs, winding me tighter and tighter and tighter.
“Wh-what are you doing?” I whispered on a rough breath.
“If you want me to stop, tell me.”
Yes.
No.
I couldn’t think. My world was spinning around me, so many thoughts threading through my mind. But the loudest: more, more, more.
And when he touched me—those calloused fingertips releasing my wrists to lazily glide down my arm, my neck, my shoulder, brushing along the curve of a breast—those thoughts exploded into fragments I couldn’t hold on to anymore. Couldn’t string into sense. I became something else, drowning beneath an undertow of sensation.
Freed, my hands pawed at him, pushed him away only to pull him closer, tightened and released, and grabbed for more. His muscles twitched wherever I touched him.
He groaned, low and gruff and desperate, his breath hot against my throat. “Gods, that scent of yours…” He slowly ground his hips against mine. And this time—
I knew, I just knew, I was on the cusp—
Just one more rock—
One more grind of his erection against my clit—
And I’d fall, fall, fall—wings spread wide to take flight—but I’d fall instead.
My back bowed. My eyes squeezed shut. And I bit down on my bottom lip hard—swallowing back the cry, the moan, the desperate need to push back, to grind back against him and steal it for myself.
His hand cupped my breast, and he pinched my nipple beneath the silky fabric of my dress and the soft thin cotton of my bra. “Oh gods—” A moan escaped my throat. My hips bucked. Bucked again when I felt his mouth kiss and lick my throat, his firm lips brush along my jawline.
I was there, right there, swaying on a precipice, ready to fall—
“I want inside, little bird,” he muttered, his voice thick with desire. “I want the first feel of your pussy clenching my cock.”
And the words speared through my haze of heat.
My eyes flashed open to find his half-hooded and glazed over with lust, the abyss of those black eyes endless with want.
This was Graysen Crowther. My enemy.
I couldn’t want him.
You do.
I don’t.
This was a joke. He was making me into a joke. A joke he’d probably share with his brothers. How easily he’d made me wet. Made me want him back.
His mouth hovered over mine. My lips parted—
He groaned, the vibration from his throat dancing along my lips, nearly undoing me.
And there was an incessant need to let him kiss me, to feel his tongue push inside—
But he was wrong, so wrong.
His tongue slowly slid along my lower lip and even I couldn’t hold back the moan. Couldn’t stop myself from pushing my hips back against his, my hands clenching and releasing his shoulders over and over and over again .
He answered with a desperate growl, and his lips claimed mine, tongue licking into my mouth—
Gods, his mouth, his lips were so right—
But I couldn’t—
I didn’t want to be the joke, the girl he laughed at.
And I bit. Hard.
He jerked back, infuriated, his words muffled behind the hand he pressed to his mouth. “The fuck?!”
And I slapped him with everything I had. His head whipped to the side with the force.
He roared, the sound of his fury exploding through the room. He surged forward, grabbing hold of my arms, and leaning over me.
I bared my teeth. “Sage.” Barely a whisper. But the soft sound was nothing to a wraith-wolf.
The mattress dipped, and Graysen froze. Pain flared in his gaze, overriding the lust and rage. He gritted his teeth and narrowed his eyes to slits. “Tell your fucking dog to unlatch its fangs from my leg.”
“When you let me go.”
He uncurled his hands from my arms, one finger at a time. I scrambled from beneath him, scooting from the bed and rising to face him. We glared at one another, and this time my fury outmatched his.
Sage snarled and wrestled his head from side to side, his jaws digging around Graysen’s calf, as he tried to drag him from the bed.
I deliberated a moment, a good lengthy pause before calling Sage off. The wraith-wolf took even longer to obey my command, panting hard and still snarling as he unlatched vicious fangs from Graysen. Blood dripped onto the carpet.
I jabbed a finger at the door. “Now get the fuck out of my bedroom!”
Beneath his shredded pant leg, the flesh was slick with blood and saliva, but it didn’t seem to disturb him in the slightest. Without a wince or even a limp, he pushed himself off my bed, stalking toward the open doorway. Before he left, he turned back, lingering at the threshold, his hands loosely gripping the door frame above as he relaxed his posture, his body swaying forward. He gave a smug grin as his gaze slowly swept over my body and his voice was low and lazy. “You can hate-fuck me anytime you want, little bird.”
Rage burned my blood. I knew there was no way I could kill him with that heightened speed and strength of his, but I couldn’t resist the attempt .
I yanked my skirt out of the way to snatch up my dagger—
Whipped my arm back—
And threw the weapon so fast he barely had time to react.
Graysen jerked his head back just as his hands clapped around the flat of the blade, stopping it from outright burying itself in his forehead. But the very tip of the deadly weapon had broken skin. He glared at me while blood dripped from the wound in long, thin streaks over a thick eyebrow, running down the side of his nose in lines of crimson. A creaking sound filled the space between us as he shifted his hands so his fingers clenched around the hilt and the tip of the blade, threatening to snap it in half with his anger.
At that moment, in those heartbeats separating us from what could have been to this, he could have done anything. He could have thrown the dagger back, faster, harder. Could have lunged for me again and made me hurt. Instead, he did the one thing I didn’t expect. He tossed the dagger up into the air in a careless arc, so it thudded into the mattress of my bed, and he threw his head back and burst into laughter, a full belly rumbling of genuine laughter that shook his entire body. His eyes sparkled with amusement. “See how it’d be, little bird?” A wink accompanied his cocky grin. “War. Fucking. War.”
The door slammed behind him when he left and I spun around and flopped down onto my bed, only to jerk back up after smelling his intoxicating scent on my linen.
I was angry at him, at the humiliation. But I was angrier at myself, at my body’s betrayal. Why the hells did I want him? Why did he inspire such a reaction? His touch, his taste, his scent… Gods, it was all over me.
I should shower, definitely.
Only pride had kept me from kissing him back and doing other, more sensual, intimate things with him.
Despite all his threats, all his past denials, I’d aroused him. Me.
He’d aroused me too.
I shook my head, trying to shake the thought of him from my mind. How he felt, his hard body pressing against mine, pushing me deeper into the soft mattress, rocking into me.
I squeezed my thighs together. Gods, I was still simmering and scorching and wanting some kind of release.
Sage nuzzled into my side, disrupting the building sensation between my legs and the ache in my breasts.
But part of me wondered, as my gaze flicked to my bedroom door, what it might be like with someone like him. Graysen Crowther wasn’t the type of guy to make love. He’d fuck. And he was right, it would be war.
I paced the room. I wasn’t in the mood to rejoin Evvie and the Pellans. Too jumpy and twitchy, my nerves too strung out. “What am I going to do, Sage?”
Ignore him? Avoid him? Two more days with him is going to be hells.
The creature let out a rasping chuckle.