Chapter 9 #2
It’s not real, I reminded myself. What did sirens have? Sin…sinndra. He could weaponize my emotions, and I just happened to be horny right now.
Locking his eyes on mine again, Drustan adjusted his grip on the knife to angle the tip of the blade toward me.
My breathing staggered, and heat bloomed from my chest to my vagina as he gently started to drag the blade across my collarbones.
Not enough to break the skin, but enough to make a flurry of goosebumps erupt.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up straight, recognizing the danger I was in.
But instead of fear, all I felt was wetness start to gather between my thighs.
He made one pass across my collarbones, keeping his other hand braced against the wall near my head, as he towered over me in the secluded hallway. I was pinned between his arm and the decorative vase I was admiring earlier.
Nowhere to escape to.
And yet, when he parted his lips, I wondered what they would taste like against mine.
“Is this how humans show their interest?”
With his words, he started to gently drag the knife in the opposite direction against my collar bones, and another hot flush coated my entire body. All the way down to my toes. I clenched my thighs together, suddenly craving friction as I struggled to understand his words.
“Huh?” I asked, gripping my skirts in my hands, desperate to hold on to something.
“If you wanted my attention,” he hummed, his eyes dropping to my mouth as he stepped even closer, “You did not need to resort to such extreme measures.” The knife slowly dragged down, down, toward my lifted and proudly on display cleavage.
Right when he began to tease the top of my breasts with the knife, my nipples hardened. The knife was still coated in his own blood, and when I noticed some of it leaving a trail on my skin, that’s when I fully registered what he was saying.
“Excuse me?” I asked with a pant. I swallowed around nothing, my throat dry.
The corner of his mouth lifted, and his eyes locked on mine again. I watched in real time as his pupils kept expanding and contracting, almost filling the entirety of his golden irises as he leaned even closer, dragging the knife back up my chest, teasing the side of my neck.
“Stunning,” he whispered, ignoring my question.
“…mine.” His tone changed to a low growl with the claim, and my knees almost buckled from the dominance he manifested with it.
The one word from him melted parts of me I didn’t realize needed to thaw.
My shoulders instinctively dropped. My jaw unclenched, and my lips parted.
Towering over me with his massive body, he studied me with an intensity that made me shiver.
I had never, ever, felt so small. I was vulnerable, dressed in flimsy skirts and a corset that was feeling too tight.
My nipples were probably poking holes through the leather, and I fought the urge to check.
But then I realized what he said.
Mine.
“Oh…” I breathed as I watched him lean down, his eyes on my lips.
His intention was clear. I waited until his breath was able to fan my face.
I considered letting it happen for half a second.
Stealing at least one taste of him before I put a stop to this madness.
My sudden, surging hormones were begging me to lean into him in return.
He got so close that his face was blurry, before I finally forced myself to speak, “No.”
He froze; his lips close enough to ghost over mine. He stared at me, and I wondered if I was blurry in his vision, too, or if Hyvenmerians didn’t deal with blurry vision when in proximity as humans did.
But then his lips pulled back into a smile, and my confusion surged with my libido.
“No?” he asked with his devilish grin, softly dragging the knife along my jaw.
He still had the knife. The one I stabbed him with. This man was holding me against a wall at knifepoint. And yet my clit was throbbing.
Your arousal isn’t real. It’s just his sinndra. His sinndra.
I needed to get out of here.
“No.” I repeated and swallowed around a dry lump in my throat. “Actually, I should leave.”
Surprisingly, he nodded his agreement, but then he said, “With me.”
I snorted, surprised that that was my reaction as he used the tip of the bloody blade to admire my dangly hoop earrings, creating a new wave of fire under my skin. His grin twitched, as if he found his own amusement in my reaction.
“No thanks.” I slowly shook my head, dislodging the blade from my earring with the movement. “I—”
“Should leave with me,” he interrupted, taking the final step that closed the distance between us.
Our chests were now completely flush together.
His feet bracketed both of mine, drowning me in his body heat as he removed the blade from my skin, twirled it in his grip, and tucked his arm behind his lower back.
“No.”
“Why not?” he asked, leaning in to brush his lips against my jaw. I tilted my head back, hating myself just a little bit as I gave him more room to explore my skin.
“That’s—” I bit back a whimper as his lips gently nipped at my earlobe, before trailing up the shell of my ear. “That’s not how this works.”
His chest rumbled against mine, sending a new wave of shivers down my body as I clenched my thighs together even tighter, my underwear completely ruined.
“Then, tell me,” he whispered, his hot breath fanning my neck. “How will this work between us, Vanessa?”
Oh god.
It was unfair how seductive he made my name sound.
I didn’t remember my eyes falling closed, but I fluttered them open at the sound of him deeply inhaling my hair, as if breathing me in affected him as much as breathing in his scent affected me.
It took every muscle in my body to hold perfectly still; to not start grinding against him like an animal in heat.
Then I realized something. I’d never once introduced myself to him. Alarm bells started going off in my head right when Audrey’s voice broke through our intimate moment.
“Vanessa?”
That was Audrey’s voice, and it made me jump.
Oh my god, Audrey. Liam. Fergus. The party. It was as if a bucket of cold water had been splashed over me, snuffing out any flame of arousal from the moment.
Well, not any flame. I could still count my pulse based on the throbbing between my legs. But it was snuffed out enough for me to get a clearer head again.
The growl in Drustan’s chest turned threatening, and his massive body tensed over me as he turned toward my best friend.
Her hazel eyes were wide, her expression horrified, as Drustan lifted the bloody blade toward her, no longer hidden behind his back.
Liam and Fergus stood on either side of Audrey. Liam, wearing his constant hostile expression toward the siren prince. In contrast, Fergus only looked disappointed while standing tall with crossed arms. Like a chaperone who caught teenagers canoodling at a high school prom.
“Aud,” I gasped. As Drustan turned his body toward my friends, with his mouth pulled back in a threatening grimace, complete with the bloody cake knife raised in a defensive hold, I shoved him away from me.
He barely budged, but I still managed to bolt toward Audrey, who opened her arms for me as I ran into her.
“Are you okay?” she asked me in a whisper.
“I’m okay,” I assured her as I turned back toward the siren prince.
His eyes were on me, back to their gold color. He pushed himself off the wall and sighed, flipping the knife in his hands casually.
“Hello, old friends,” Drustan muttered.
Something sank in my gut at his words. Like a veil of manipulation was being pulled off of me.
“Explain to me,” Fergus sighed in annoyance. “How and why the Prince of Lyndoruun ended up hidden in the drapes with a human at my ball?”
As Drustan’s eyes locked on mine. A mocking tone coated his voice as he replied, “Have you seen the female, Fergus? How could I possibly resist such a creature?”
I scowled, anger boiling my blood as I stepped forward and spat, “Call me a female one more time. See what happens.”
Confusion marred Drustan’s features for a moment before a cool, uninterested expression smoothed over them.
I was manipulated so easily by him. I understood Liam’s constant hostile energy toward Drustan.
I was completely powerless against a siren like him.
Had Drustan kept me tucked away for a few more seconds, I probably would have caved and gone anywhere he asked me to.
Drustan’s lips twitched before he gave his attention to Liam, who took a threatening step toward him.
“Why are you holding a bloody knife, Shaw?” Liam asked accusingly. Audrey immediately started to coat her hands over my body in a panic, before I shooed her off.
“Why don’t you ask the human, Dahl?” Drustan replied, sounding more bored than anything as he danced the blade between his fingers without cutting himself once.
Fergus turned to give me a proud smirk, then he faced Drustan again as he said, “It’s getting late, and it’s a bit of a journey back to Lydhavn.”
“That it is,” Drustan replied. “Though I am intrigued. Where have the three of you been, while you left your human companion unprotected?” I glared at him, but he didn’t react.
“It almost looked as if the fae and nereid princes were conspiring with the halfling.” The threat was clear in his voice, and I balled my hands into fists as everyone stayed quiet.
Drustan’s eyes fell on each one of my friends before he released a heavy sigh of exhaustion, “Hopefully, the peace our territories have been able to maintain over the decades will remain intact.”
I’m going to strangle him, I thought, picturing my hands wrapping around his neck.
Drustan’s eyes landed on me as his lips tipped up in a grin.
We’ll work our way up to that, my song. His hypnotic, warm voice rang in my mind.
I immediately gasped and took a step back, “What the fu—”
“Don’t be delusional,” Fergus said calmly. “Why are you suddenly interested in our affairs now, instead of finding the bottom of every bottle within your reach?”
Drustan’s gaze flitted around the room behind us, as if searching for an answer.
“Time will tell.” He lifted a shoulder before stepping forward with the knife.
The three of them immediately blocked Drustan from approaching me, and his red eyebrows jumped at the threatening positions all my friends took.
He chuckled to himself, amused at the obvious hostility, before he twirled the knife one last time.
Drustan slowly lowered to a kneel on the ground, gently placing the weapon on the ground, before smirking at me and standing tall again.
“Until next time, Vanessa.” Drustan winked and lyskifted into thin air.
I released the breath I had been holding as soon as his voice echoed in my mind.
Liam grumbled but relaxed with the siren prince’s absence, turning toward Audrey and me, “I’m sorry that he—”
“He spoke in my mind,” I muttered. All three of them froze, and it was the first time I had seen Fergus look genuinely concerned about anything all night.
“What?” Audrey asked, resting her hand on my shoulder.
“Drustan, he—” I shook my head, barely comprehending my own words. “He spoke in my mind. He talked to me.”
Liam’s nostrils flared, Fergus’s eyes widened, and Audrey stood stock still.
A beat of silence filled the hallway before Liam finally grunted out, “How is that fucker still alive?”