Chapter 34
On our last night together, we played a board game.
Thyme and Nelly were quite good at I Eat You, as they played often, whereas Edith and I both kept getting eaten. We stayed in Edith’s rooms to avoid the sight of my bags packed with no return date planned.
It would be the first time in my memory being separated from Edith by my own choice, and each time I thought about it too hard, my throat would catch.
We ate a lot of food, laughed and played, and Edith and Nelly drank some wine. I spent most of the time snacking from the tray of sweets and watching, as if I might memorize every moment of this evening and take it with me on the unknown journey ahead.
I waited until they were all asleep to dampen the fires and head back to my rooms. Impulsively, I wondered if I might be able to locate a certain Ambush Master instead.
The guard I asked pointed me to the left, down my own hallway, toward the end, but the second I turned the corner, my body was grabbed up off the ground by solid, warm arms.
“Told you I’d come find you,” he whispered, dropping me with a smirk before him. I shook my head, smiling as he took my hand and began to pull me behind him.
“Blake—”
“Come with me for a moment. I have something for you.”
He didn’t need to know that I’d already been seeking him out.
His rooms within the palace were immaculate and cold, entirely different from his bedroom at Yvonne’s.
His bed was perfectly made, not a fur or book or scrap of paper out of place.
As if the room itself took on the intensity of who Blake had to be as Ambush Master and the king’s remaining Twin Blade.
I felt a sense of loss as I entered and sat on the bed that was infinitely softer than the thin mattress at Yvonne’s, and yet so much less welcoming—like the heart of Blake was missing in here.
He held up a hand before delving into his closet suite, which I could see mainly consisted of the leathers and metal he wore here.
When he returned, hands behind his back, he stepped toward me until he hovered over my seated position on the bed, legs crossed as I leaned against the large metal headboard.
The heat from his gaze sent shivers down my spine as I dared to glance at him.
He was so incredibly gorgeous. There was no mistaking the intensity in his eyes as they locked onto mine, a silent understanding passing between us.
“I have a late birthday present for you,” Blake said.
He pulled out two slender objects before dropping them into my hands. My fingers curled around the smooth handles, my mouth parting.
They were ribbon wands, engraved with intricate designs that shimmered in the light.
When I unfurled them, the ribbons didn’t just float like silk. They moved with weight, a presence, slicing through the air in controlled arcs. My breath hitched. These weren’t just for dancing. The edges gleamed with veins of storm-green metal, pulsing with power.
Thundervein.
They were weapons. Beautiful, deadly weapons that I would be able to wield with precision. These would allow me to turn fighting into a dance, a deadly dance.
“I thought there was hardly any thundervein left. Where did you get them?” I murmured, running my fingers over the metal, feeling the faint hum beneath my touch. Awe tightened in my chest. “What is this fabric?” It shimmered unlike anything I had ever seen before.
“Phoenix silk,” he answered, rubbing the back of his neck. “It’s practically indestructible, and the incredible thing about it is that it can be set alight without burning to ash.”
“Expensive, too,” I murmured.
He shrugged and avoided my eyes.
“What are you not telling me?”
Too quickly, he answered, “Nothing.”
Phoenix silk was expensive, but his family was incredibly wealthy—and by virtue of his power and position, I knew Blake was as well. But the thundervein was beyond price.
“Where did you get the thundervein?” I asked again.
A red flush crept up his neck. “I melted down my dagger.”
I stared at him, my breath catching in my throat. “You—what? To make these ribbons for me? You’ll be unarmed.”
Without a thundervein weapon, he’d be at a great disadvantage against a demon—and now was when we’d need it most.
He smiled at me, that gods-damned dimple flashing in his cheek. “I’m never unarmed, Rubi.”
Blake’s hand reached to where he kept his thundervein dagger, pulling out a near twin, though the etchings were different.
Putting my ribbons down on the bedside table, I stood and walked toward him, examining the blade nearer to its pulsing power.
“What…” My voice trailed off, eyes darting up to his, carefully watching him.
A heavy sigh left his lips. “I melted mine down. This was my brother’s, Zayden’s. The twin blade to mine.”
Twin thundervein blades given to the Twin Blades.
“I didn’t know that.”
He shrugged again, belying the grief behind his confession. “I’ve kept it for so long, hidden away. It hurt too much to even look at it for a long time.”
But he’d done it, for me. My vision blurred as I blinked away tears, shaking my head.
He grinned and stroked my cheek, brushing a tear away. “Anyway, you needed it more than I did. Because I am quite competent with a wide variety of weapons, while you—”
“Shut up,” I said, reaching on my toes to slap a hand over his mouth. I felt him smile against my palm before he placed a kiss there.
“I understand what this means, Blake. Thank you.”
He rubbed at the back of his neck again and smiled. “Use it wisely.”
I nodded and pressed a hand over my heart. “I swear. I won’t use it against you.”
Blake laughed and shook his head. “You should go back to your rooms. Get some sleep before tomorrow,” he said, but his eyes told me something different.
My stomach muscles pulled tight.
“I’m not tired,” I said, putting my new gifted weapon on the side table and sitting on his bed, then leaning backward on my elbows, stretching out my body in invitation.
“No?” he asked, eyes lighting up at my words. “Perhaps I can help with that.”
He sank his knee into the mattress between my legs, his hands planting into the comforter on either side of my head. Blake dipped his head to my neck, pressing a long, slow kiss to the skin, before pulling gently with his mouth.
A low, involuntary moan slipped past my lips, and Blake’s eyes flashed dangerously. There was no more hesitation. His mouth came down on mine, hard, ravenous, like he was claiming something he’d waited far too long for.
His tongue slipped between my lips, deep and forceful, tasting, claiming, leaving no room for anything but the searing passion between us.
I tilted my head, desperate for more of him, pulling him against me, reveling in the heavy weight of him, feeling him shift and harden against me.
He rested his weight on one elbow, never breaking our kiss as the fingers of his free hand slid beneath the hem of my tunic, tracing up the curve of my waist.
“Why is it the night you’re in my bed,” he whispered against my lips, yanking on my long tunic, “you’re wearing something practical to sleep in?”
His fingers inched higher, until he found the swell of my breast. I gasped as his rough fingertips rolled my nipple, a jolt of pleasure spiraling straight to my core. He was squeezing just hard enough to make me shudder, my legs wrapping around his waist, pulling him closer, needing him closer.
“I’d prefer one of those ridiculous skimpy nightdresses you like to wear to tease me.”
“Tease you?” I gasped. “I was not.”
“You were,” he insisted, pulling back for a moment, his hands settling on my hips to lift me closer, my core pressing to his hardness. “It was torture.”
My hips arched instinctively against him, seeking more contact, more friction, as if I could somehow fuse myself with the molten heat of him.
He leaned down again to kiss me, more ferocious this time.
He bit down on my bottom lip, the sharpness of it sending sparks dancing across my vision, and I whimpered, the sound full of desperation and want.
“Tell me I can have you, songbird,” he begged, pulling his shift up and over his head. Warm and handsome and breathtaking in the dim firelight of his room, every muscle and dip and valley played upon by the shadows and light. “Please, tell me you want this, too.”
Part of me wished to tease him more, to flirt and play—but there was a slip of vulnerability in his gaze. Something…lonely.
How long had it been for him? Did he find sex and intimacy too revealing for himself? With all his secrets and intensity and devotion to duty, was there no place for him to be this—walls stripped down? Just Blake?
“I do,” I breathed, staring up into his eyes and letting my own walls down as much as I knew how, so he could see exactly how desperately I craved him. “Please, Blake.”
He shifted his weight, his body pressing hard against mine as I raised my legs, cradling his hips between my thighs.
His erection, thick and pulsing, pressed against my center through the thin barrier of our clothes.
The pressure was maddening, and I could feel the throb of him, desperate and needy, as it aligned perfectly with the ache building inside me.
His lips found my neck, biting and licking a path down to my collarbone.
My pulse thundered beneath his mouth, each nip a delicious tease.
His hand slipped lower, tracing the line of my tunic, and with a swift, fluid motion, he pulled it up and over my head, baring my chest to the cool air.
I trembled beneath him, anticipation crackling in every nerve as hands moved to the drawstring of my leggings, the light tickle of his fingers as he untied the knot, causing my stomach to jump.
He took his time, rolling the leggings down my thighs, brushing a kiss to the inside of each knee as he pulled them lower until he finally freed me of them.
His hot breath ghosted over the exposed skin of my thighs.
I was fully exposed to him, completely naked, and something in me snapped, my desire pulling taut.