Chapter 24 #2
I shift to my knees. These are more than scratches. Some are deep and probably painful, and they are not healing well on their own.
“It should be easy,” I tell him, which isn’t a lie. They’re not complex wounds, but they’ve been there for days now, and they don’t look good.
Even though I could sleep for a week, eating and drinking have replenished much of my strength, so I begin my work.
His strands are becoming so familiar, and each time I tinker with healing him, the tiny darkness of his stolen death hums and churns and sparks, a little lightning storm inside my heart.
It’s strange, that connection. That reaching out of energies.
But I find I like it, feeling attached to someone other than myself.
It doesn’t take long to heal his scrapes.
I decide to heal the cut still marring his lip, too—the wound I gave him.
When it’s over, I relax and open my eyes.
A yawn awaits, but my mind shuts it down, instead opting to send my hand straight to Alexus’s body to check my work before I can think to rein myself in.
I dance my fingertips lightly up his healed skin, where a shallow cut traveled from below his navel to the bottom of his chest only moments ago.
His midsection flinches at my touch, and he shifts his hips. “Raina.”
I freeze at the sound of his husky voice, stopping my inspection over his pounding heart. Only it wasn’t an inspection, was it?
It was an exploration. My hand caressing, not analyzing.
I jerk away and look up at him, my pulse throbbing so hard it’s all I hear. “I am so sorry,” I sign. “I should not have—”
He grabs my hand and brings it back to his chest, to the place over his heart. “Don’t be sorry,” he whispers.
Those green eyes stare back at me, a dark and promising storm, and I can no longer make myself care that he’s the Witch Collector.
All I can see is the man who’s been with me for days now.
The man who carried me from a fiery village, who washed blood from my hands, who thought of me and me alone when he woke from near-death. A man who kept me warm while he froze.
I see a man. Nothing more and nothing less. And I want something from him, though I can’t tell if I only crave the comfort of closeness or if I’m searching for something more.
He trails his fingertips along my jaw. “It would be best if you didn’t look at me like that.”
I lean closer and lick my lips. “Like what?” I sign.
He gives me a piercing look. “Like you want me to kiss you. Because I will.”
Softly, I rub my thumb over his healed lip. He slides his hand into my hair, fisting the roots, a pleasant invitation shining in his eyes. Desire tumbles down my spine and pools low in my belly when he tightens his grip.
I don’t move. I just hold his stare, a challenge that I hope I’m up for.
I’m fully aware I’m testing any resolve either of us might’ve had concerning one another, but the barriers I’ve assembled in defense of hatred no longer seem necessary when it comes to Alexus Thibault.
I know what I want, even if I shouldn’t want it.
Even if I’ll regret it later—if there is a later.
And right now, I want his mouth on mine, delirious from exhaustion or not.
I want to forget. To find peace, even if only for a little while.
Alexus slides his hand down my side to the back of my knee.
In one swift movement, he drags me onto him, my legs straddling his hips.
He removes the dagger and belt from my thigh, tossing them aside, and tips the hood of his cloak from my head, untying the laces at my throat.
His fingertips forge a fiery path across my collarbone, over my shoulder.
When the cloak falls away, leaving me sitting in leathers and the remains of my dress, a chill courses over me.
The air is a mixture of the surrounding cold, the blazing heat of our fire, and the warm comfort of a meadow.
It makes my skin feel alive and sensitive, hyperaware of his every subtle touch.
With his torso still bared and his hands resting on my hips, Alexus stares up at me like I’m some kind of enchantment. Hesitation dances in his gaze, too, and I’m not sure why.
“You are so tempting,” he says. “But you need to know something.” He takes my hand and presses it to his chest once more. “There is darkness inside me, Raina. Darkness you will not like.”
I trail my palm over the curve of thick muscle, across his hard nipple, and down his stomach, making him flinch again. “There is darkness inside me, too,” I sign. “Perhaps our darknesses can be friends.”
He does have darkness. I’ve seen it, like I’m seeing it now, moving like a phantom behind his eyes. I heard the wraith. I know Alexus has secrets.
And I don’t care. More than anything, I want him to touch me, and when he finally does—when he runs those strong hands up my thighs to my waist, traveling along my ribs to my breasts—the pressure of his grip sends burning desire tearing through my blood.
Alexus folds his arm around me and draws me down, wrapping his fist in my hair again. I plant my hands on the log behind him, but he tugs me closer, until there’s no space between us.
Every rigid inch of him presses between my legs, and he is divine. It’s a heady moment, making me long for so much more than a kiss.
He brushes his mouth against mine, a whisper-kiss, the contact so gentle yet so painfully forbidden, if only by me. Still, I quiver down to my toes when his lips ghost across mine, like he’s savoring every curve, preparing to devour.
He meets my eyes again, another flash of hesitance, of too much thought. But the battle waged in his mind ends, and he truly kisses me.
I don’t expect the raw hunger that ignites at the sweet taste of him, but in the time it takes for my heart to flutter, I sink my hands into his dark hair, and it’s me who’s devouring.
I can’t think around anything other than this yearning inside me, this rush, the way his heat and hardness tempt me beyond all rationalization, the way his tongue sliding against mine makes me gasp. I was supposed to kidnap him, not kiss him. Not want him so badly that I can barely breathe.
We become a tangle of roaming hands and kisses, any indecision about the situation gone.
I tug Alexus’s shirt over his head and marvel at the sight of him.
Those broad, round shoulders and arms that could hold a woman for days.
Then I dip my mouth to his chest, dragging my teeth over his firm, scarred flesh in a soft bite.
He groans, a sound of ecstasy that sets fire to my senses. I’ve hated being helpless these last days. Powerless. But right now, I feel like a god.
Skillfully, he unthreads the laces at my back, one by one, kissing me all the while until the garment loosens. I sit up, strip free of the bodice and my thin undergarment, and toss them both aside. My witch’s marks glow in the firelight, shades of gold, crimson, violet, and silver.
Alexus rests his hands on my waist, stopping me from returning to him. “Let me look at you.”
He skims his warm palms over my naked skin, admiring my marks, my curves, every dip and hollow. My body responds, tender parts tightening, aching, throbbing, so keenly aware of his eyes on me, his hands learning what takes my breath.
He’s breathing so hard, his lips slightly swollen, his hair mussed.
It’s a lovely sight that I tell myself only makes me swoon because I don’t want to die out here without knowing pleasure once more before the end.
Pleasure only he can give. This has nothing to do with anything more than that.
Nothing to do with my heart. Nothing at all.
“Gods, Raina.” He closes his hand over my breast in a possessive grasp. “I want you so much it hurts.”
I don’t intend to make him wait. It’s been a long time since I’ve been with a man—been with Finn—but instinct becomes my guiding light.
I lean down, pressing my naked body against Alexus’s bare chest, and trail my tongue along the column of his throat. In response, he whispers my name, a choked, desperate sound, like he can’t take much more when we’ve only just begun.
I love the way my name sounds falling from his lips. I want to make him say it a hundred times more. I want him to beg me to kiss him, beg me to take him inside me, beg me to never stop.
He grazes his rough palms over my shoulders, curves those long fingers around my ribs, and I arch against him, my skin tingling when his touch slides down my back and over my hips. Digging his fingers into my backside, he presses all that hardness between my legs, making me shiver, making me want.
This is desperation. Desire so enthralling that I roll my hips over and over, demanding and greedy, like I might die if he’s not inside me soon.
He slips his hand between us, tugging at the ties of my trousers.
Breaking our kiss, I lift my hips for him, and he slips his hand inside the leathers.
I close my eyes on a gasp, letting him touch me where I want more of him.
He’s deft with that hand, and in seconds, I’m climbing toward the point of no return.
I press my forehead against his, panting with longing. This shouldn’t be happening. It shouldn’t be the Witch Collector drawing such damp heat from my body, making my mind numb to anything but the ache he’s stoking like a fire.
That thought evaporates as he presses his teeth into my shoulder, returning my soft bite from earlier, and dips his hungry mouth to my breast. I move against his touch, rolling my hips, chasing the promise that lives in the feverish swirl of his tongue, the rough tip of his finger.
He drags his teeth from my breast and kisses a scorching path to my ear.
“Don’t stop. Take what you need.” His lips move hot at my throat, and then close over my mouth, swallowing my sighs as he whispers, “Come for me,” against my lips.
Those words send me to the very edge of euphoria, my eyes closed and Alexus’s mouth consuming. But his handsome face, imprinted on the backs of my eyelids, vanishes before I reach the pinnacle. In its place floats the smug, damaged countenance of the Prince of the East.
I jerk away from Alexus, the coiled pleasure inside me unwinding like the threads of a dying life, and the fire within me turns to ice. I keep my eyes closed, holding that connection, determined to do something about it this time, though I don’t know what.
“My, my,” the prince says. “You grow more interesting by the minute. What do all these lovely marks mean?” He shakes his head.
“Never mind. I’ll have time to learn them later.
For now, I thought I’d let you know that I figured out what kept pulling me back to your mind.
It was something I didn’t know existed until I sensed it all over you, but it’s something I terribly need back where it belongs, and I intend to make that happen.
” A laugh bellows out of him, a smoky, obscene sound.
“This is goodbye, Keeper, for now. I hate to leave you in this terrible construct, but you’ll be safely trapped until I’m ready for you.
And you obviously know how to keep yourself entertained.
It’s been lovely. My sincerest thanks for the show.
” He leans in and raises an evil brow. “But more importantly, thanks for the God Knife.”