Chapter 29
Twenty-Nine
A good brownie –
Uh... what was I saying? - Arienna
I tense under the onslaught of Richard’s fingers. He doesn’t fly us straight back to the capital of Kholar – something I know even with my eyes closed because it takes us so long to get there.
It’s like he’s punishing me because he hates me, and it’s the reminder I need to tell myself his death will be a good thing. Seeing the cruelty on his face as he looked at Karl made me sick. How long until that’s how he looks at me?
As much as Karl hurt me, he never broke any of the rules.
Brownies have sex with everyone at all times; only in Fabia’s books is it called cheating and seen as wrong.
So I was the one who was a bad brownie. I was the one who tried to stop him from having fun.
My sister is beautiful; of course he would want to fuck her.
Half the town’s slept with her. And when I saw them together, it was my bad feelings that were the issue.
So no wonder he ran into the comfort of my mother’s arms. She gives the best hugs.
But I’ve only been with two people. Everyone thinks I’m not pretty enough or good enough in bed or whatever enough, but my sister is so popular. And I was just hurt that once again, she got it all while I got nothing.
“Karl’s not a bad brownie,” I rasp as the wind rushes past my face. “Please don’t kill him.”
“Don’t talk about him,” Richard growls. His teeth dig into my shoulder, and I jerk against him on a gasp.
“But he –”
His lips close over mine as he turns my head, swallowing down my protests.
I start to pull away, but the bird drops in a sudden dive, and I clutch at him on a squeal.
He turns me in place as Maeve levels out; now I’m sitting facing him.
My heart still pounding, I wrap my arms and legs around him, desperate not to be dropped.
He holds me tight against him. His lips roam from mine to my neck and back again.
My hands are locked too tight around him for him to explore any further.
“Relax,” he says, his tone deep and guttural rather than the smooth silk it was on the way over.
Demanding rather than seductive. Taking rather than giving.
His hands slide into my hair. “Look at me.” A slight tug at my roots causes me to shiver. I keep my eyes squeezed shut and shake my head hard.
“Dammit, Arienna, look at me.”
I suck in a breath at the harshness of his voice. But there is something else beneath it that calls to me in ways I don’t understand. Cracking one eye open, I look at him.
And the wind fades away, smothered beneath the blood rushing through my ears. The bird, the height, the blurring trees – they’re all gone. It’s just him and me, and eyes so violent and raw and… broken that I –
His lips crush down on mine. His hands slip between our bodies.
He pushes me back, just enough so he can lean down and claim my nipple between his teeth.
I gasp as he bands an arm around my waist and pushes his dick against my pussy.
Even with the clothes between us, the friction is too much.
Too demanding. Too promising. Too wicked and dark and possessive in a way that causes me to shiver.
To buck.
To grind, chasing those sensations until I fall apart in his arms.
He groans against my breasts, licking and sucking and not relenting, forcing me to take more than I feel like I can bear.
My body convulses against him. My words lost to the wind.
My mind lost to his touch, and my heart lost to those dark, troubled eyes that look at me like I’m going to be the death of him.
But he’s the one who’s killing me.
I cry out as another orgasm takes me. His hand is in my jumpsuit, his fingers curling inside me wicked and slow. His lips are back on mine. His fever runs hot and wild as he takes and takes. And all I can do is hold on, consumed by a fire that leaves nothing but ash in its wake.
By the time Maeve lands back at the castle, my lips are swollen and my body is marked beneath the wet stains on my clothes.
He lifts me off the crow, sets me on the ground, and immediately releases me.
My legs give out, not from the flight this time but from the tilting of my world.
How can he touch me like that? Twist my body to his will like that?
And with those same hands, go to kill Karl like it’s just another summer afternoon?
Will he hesitate at all when he kills me?
“Will you show him mercy?” I ask, looking up at him on the floor of the balcony. Will you show it to me?
His jaw tightens. His eyes harden, the glimpse of earlier vulnerability I saw in them now gone. “Think of all the stories about the Demon of Raza,” he says coldly. “Has he ever once given mercy?”
Then he turns. Leaving me here, on my hands and knees, he strides away and doesn’t look back.