Chapter 49
Belle
Steeling myself against the crisp air, I lifted the fabric of my skirt and ran down the lichen-covered stairs that led into the rose garden. Time had made the garden feral, and moonlight cascaded over the wild blooms and statues, giving them an eerie lifelike quality.
The wind carried the scent of the frosty mountains—and the rich aroma of smoke and spice. A shiver swept down my spine. Valen was here.
The chase was up. There was no way I could avoid him now.
My legs urged me to run, but I refused to give the king the satisfaction. I slipped behind a wall of fragrant blossoms, taking a moment to slow my breathing and settle my heart.
“You can’t hide from me, Belle. You can’t run.” His voice cut through the air like a blade, the fury in it unmistakable.
My spine stiffened, and I slowly turned. My breath faltered. Moonlight cascaded off him, driving off the darkness that clung to him like a lover. His body was tense, coiled and ready to snap.
I took a step back, and a thorn from the unruly hedge pricked my skin. Valen’s eyes tracked my movement, and he dragged his teeth over his lower lip, something unreadable on his face.
“I wasn’t hiding,” I said. “Just avoiding you.”
The golden flecks in his eyes glinted as he angled his head in a way that was more animal than man. His mouth curved, sharp and humorless. “Don’t lie, princess.”
“Why?” I laughed bitterly. “That’s all you seem to do.”
Heat blazed off him, and the air between us grew charged, like a storm raging on the horizon. His jaw flexed. “What the fuck were you doing at the ball?”
There it was—the fury, smoldering like embers beneath that damned mask.
I met his gaze, my own anger rising to match his, mirrored flames. “I was looking for answers—the kind you refuse to give me.”
Valen’s nostrils flared, and his body tense with barely restrained violence. “And you think you’re going to get them from the general?”
I was done playing games. I wanted to see the lie on his face. “Are you sending the Crimson Host to invade the Bloodvale?”
Valen’s eyes narrowed, cold and calculating, and he hesitated for the briefest of moments before answering, “The moment Sarkis set foot in the castle, I told the bastard to march his army straight back to Eradessa.”
I studied his face in silence, holding his glare. His eyes smoldered, and his lips pressed tightly together. It had to be a lie, but I couldn’t find it.
He couldn’t be telling the truth, could he? At least not all of it.
“Why didn’t you invite me tonight?” I asked.
He closed some of the distance between us, and heat poured off him, violence humming beneath his skin. “I didn’t want you anywhere near the general or his men. Yet, I find you in his arms, whispering in his ear. What the fuck were you doing with him?”
His jealousy burned as brightly as his anger.
I raised my chin in defiance. “Dancing.”
“He was touching you.” Something dark flashed across his face, and the ferocity in his words curled through me.
“Why do you care?” I narrowed my eyes, suspicion burning a hole through me. “The moment the general’s men stepped out of the woods, you said a debt had come due, and Sarkis said he was here for me. What am I? A hostage? A trinket to be traded amongst men?”
“No.” Rage flashed across his face. “I will never hand you over to that bastard.”
I clenched my fists, trying to ignore the way his possessiveness quickened my heart. “You speak as if I’m yours to give. I’m not.”
“You’re not,” Valen said solemnly. He took a step toward me, his molten gaze dragging over me, slow and unrepentant. “But that won’t stop me from murdering any male that lays his hands on you.”
Heat pulsed low and unbidden inside me. Gods, why was I drawn to this male? He was everything I shouldn’t want, and yet his possessive rage had awoken traitorous emotions in me.
“I never asked for your protection,” I said, my breaths coming quickly. “And I don’t want it.”
I turned to leave, but he caught my arm and pulled my back flush against him.
“Now you’re the one lying,” he purred, leaving trails of fire along my neck and something wicked in their wake. “I think you like that I’m a vicious, possessive bastard when it comes to you. I think you like that I ripped the general off you.”
I struggled in his arms. “And what gave you that ridiculous impression?”
He slipped his arm around my waist, his lips tracing the expanse of my neck.
“The blood pumping through your veins. The flush of color along your collarbone. Plus—” He nipped my ear lobe and slid his hand up the line of my ribs, pausing below the curve of my breast. “The scent of your desire. It’s like warm honey and jasmine blooming in the dead of night. I wonder—will you taste as sweet?”
Holy gods.
“You’re mistaken,” I said, voice trembling as I angled my head, giving him access to my neck, not wanting him to stop. “That’s rage. Revulsion. I despise you and everything you stand for.”
“Maybe.” He cupped my breast and squeezed. “But you want me.”
I exhaled, hating the way my body responded to him, and yet, I leaned into him, feeling his hardness pressing into my back.
“An unfortunate effect of drinking your blood,” I said breathlessly. “Nothing more.”
His lips curved against my neck as his warm fingers dipped under the fabric of my bodice, freeing my breast to the chill night air. “The effects of my blood wore off days ago.”
No. It couldn’t be true.
I let out a soft gasp as he dragged his thumb over my hard nipple. “My blood only amplifies desires that were already there. What you felt then, what you are feeling now, it’s all you.”
His gravel voice scraped over my skin, leaving it hot and wanting. Liquid heat pooled between my thighs, and I arched into him, inviting his touch.
“You’re confused, Your Highness. Projecting. You’re the one who wants me.”
“I do.” His tone was clipped, as if he’d just come to terms with the confession.
He palmed my breast as his other hand slid around my hip, dipping dangerously close to the apex of my thighs.
“I’ve wanted you from the moment I scented you, princess.
The moment you appeared on that road, riding that buckskin mare.
I was planning to kill the lot of them until you appeared. I became utterly obsessed.”
Desire burned through me, a desperate ache that craved his touch, but the shock of his admission couldn’t be ignored. I pulled away and twisted to face him. “You saw us on the road? Were you responsible for that tree barring our path?”
A glint of amusement rose behind the heat in his eyes, no longer golden but a warm amber. “When I laid eyes on you, I knew I had to have you. Knew I had to drive you to me, for I could think of nothing else.”
The trees.
Outrage doused the intense need pulsing at my core. He’d orchestrated it all. “You monster! You’re the reason for all of this.”
I shoved him, but he was a mountain that didn’t budge, so I stormed away, frustration burning through me like a comet.
He grabbed my arm and scooped me up, lifting me to his hips. “I chose the path, but you chose your fate.”
“Put me down,” I ordered.
“No.”
His smoky masculine scent curled around me, and need pulsed under my skin. I wanted to kick him and claw his eyes out, but instead I found myself wrapping my legs around him, not caring that the skirt of my dress had ridden up my bare thighs.
One of his hands slipped beneath the fabric, inching higher. My skin pebbled, not from the chill in the air, but from the intensity of his gaze and the heat of his fingers on my bare flesh.
“What are you doing?” I whispered.
“Taking what I want.” He leaned in, eyes burning with something possessive, brutal, and hungry. In a single deliberate stroke, he dragged his tongue from the center of my bottom lip up through the seam of my mouth.
It was hot. Claiming. And full of sin.
His rich honey gaze locked on mine, questioning and inviting, a promise of what could be. He wanted my permission, and I wanted him to claim every inch of me.
“I hate you,” I said breathlessly.
“I know.” He grinned and lifted me higher, catching my nipple in his mouth, sucking and teasing it with his tongue until I moaned.
I rolled my hips against him, and he slipped one hand under the silk of my undershorts, his skilled fingers kneading the flesh of my bottom in a dangerously wicked way.
I gasped as need sparked through me. One inch more, and he’d discover just how much I ached for him.
“Tell me, princess. How did you escape your rooms undetected?”
I dug my hands into his hair and smiled, knowing that the mystery was probably eating him alive. “My magic.”
“I want to know how.”
“It was easy.” I arched my back and pressed my core into him, urging him to take me in his mouth again, to slip his fingers a little lower. “I just slipped past your guards.”
“Unlikely.” His breath heated my skin as he dragged his lips around my nipple, deliberately teasing.
It was agony. I wanted more. “You’ve only seen a fraction of what I can do, Your Majesty.”
His teeth met my taunt by grazing over my sensitive skin, eliciting another sharp moan from my throat. He removed his hand from my undershorts and let me slide down to his hips, my core dragging over every hard inch of him. “I have no doubt you’ll show me.”
His hooded gaze fell to my lips, and I saw the restraint slipping from him. The dragon king was about to ruin his longstanding reputation.
I slid my fingers into his hair and fisted them, stopping him before our lips touched. “This is a mistake.”
“I’ll add it to my list.”
“I thought you didn’t kiss.”
Something shifted behind his eyes. “I don’t.”
His voice was thick, and his lips brushed mine tentatively, as if expecting me to end this madness.
Instead, I drew him toward me and pressed my lips to his.
The kiss started slow, his tongue sweeping against mine, gently and deliberately, as if he were tasting and savoring me.
And gods, he was delicious. He tasted like summer wine and smoke, and something about that sent heat low in my belly.
My core ached with a desperate, frenzied need that I knew only he could ease.
His fingers slid down the line of my jaw, angling me so that he could devour me, his movements no longer languid and teasing but demanding and hungry. There was nothing sweet or gentle, just us tangled in a fevered and volatile dance that wouldn’t end well.
I didn’t care. I twisted my fingers in his shirt, pulling him closer. I wanted to consume him, to destroy him, to make him worship me above all the other women I knew he entertained. It was utter insanity.
And yet it felt as natural, as necessary, as breathing.
His hardness pressed between us, and I moaned as I rolled my hips against him, desperate to release the building need at my center. He cursed and gripped my bottom, stilling me.
“Careful, princess,” he said, his voice a low rumble. “If you keep rubbing against me like that, we’re going to end up doing something you’ll regret come morning.”
I growled in frustration, wanting to ignore his words and chase this wild pleasure. Would I regret it? Probably. Valen and I were like fire and oil. Combustible and bound to set the world around us on fire.
We should stop. We had to stop.
He must have seen the battle on my face, because he quirked one eyebrow in that wicked way he did. “Unless I’m wrong?”
“You’re not.” I shoved back and slid out of his arms, irritation and unslaked need waking something feral in me. He could have taken me right then and there, but instead he’d suddenly decided to become a gentleman.
“Such restraint,” he purred.
I lifted my chin and pretended to be unbothered, channeling my frustration into straightening the rumpled folds of my dress. “As I said before, this was a mistake. One that won’t be repeated.”
“I’m certain it won’t—seeing as you have utterly no interest in me.” His smoldering gaze swept over me, a hint of either delight or mockery in the curve of his lips. “But you’d better head to bed, princess, before my restraint runs out.”