Chapter 26
Chapter
Twenty-Six
A DANCE WITH A MONSTER
“ W hat do you really want from me?” I ask, failing to claw back the desperation in my voice.
“What do you think I want, Aerinne? Other than what is obvious.”
The evening deepens, the air a touch too chill on my bare skin, or maybe that’s the company I currently keep. Trees rustle, night creatures begin to sing. I know these lands, these forests, but the male holding me against a tree makes this place almost mythic, and he uttered the word scent.
Maybe I'm overreacting.
A long nail brushes the valley between my breasts then his hand slides up, fingers spreading until he comes to my throat and gently squeezes. The tip of his nose grazes the line of my jaw, stops right where jaw meets earlobe, and once again his chest expands as he inhales.
I don't move.
I'm not a fool .
If I twitch before he shakes himself out of this, I'll be taken down like prey. Scenting is the first sign he's given that this may be the beginning of a true rut—and it came on like flipping a switch.
Damn it.
It's not something any male would mimic for show. They don't like to be in it, and we don't like to be the recipients of it. Only stupid humans think it's romantic or flattering.
“I asked a question,” he says softly, his lips on my jaw.
“I. . .don't remember the question.”
“Ah.” His breath warms my skin then he lifts his head. The thumb pressing against the side of my throat lifts, caresses my bottom lip, presses down. “What do you think I want?”
Old, years counting into the thousands. Powerful, will made manifest almost as if by thought alone.
What Low Fae in history has waged a war against an Old One and survived? I can't think of a single name. And I am barely Low Fae.
“I can't begin to guess,” I say, hyperaware that if he leans even slightly forward his entire body will press along mine, of how he must be able to feel the flutter of my pulse, how he must be able to hear the uneven exhalations of my breath. “I don't know you.”
An undecipherable emotion crosses his face, gone as quick as a shooting star, leaving only intensity behind.
I stare up into a penetrating gaze edged with the kind of desire that should be impossible between a High Fae Prince and a lowly halfling, but there's no such thing as impossible when a rut is involved.
“And you don't know me,” I continue. “What is this about?
I don't for a minute believe you took one look at me and decided you wanted me.” Though a rut can be instantaneous, or it can take years to manifest. Every couple is different.
Maybe his will be a slow burn, and that will give me room to maneuver.
“One look? No, not one.” He nuzzles the side of my neck.
I have to get him to stop scenting me without triggering his aggression. “Wait. Let's think about this logically.”
Faint amusement in his gaze when he lifts his head. “My halfling, since when do you pause in your headfirst rush towards chaos to assess logic?”
I scowl. “You don't know me.”
“You keep saying that. To you, it is the truth.”
The Prince lowers his mouth, hovering over mine and for a moment I think—for a moment a searing flash of heat in the air—and then he pulls away, releasing my throat, and I—I don’t want him to.
The instinct silences me. I can’t keep ignoring these responses.
Is this—did I trigger it? Did my scent change, and signal him? I force myself to think the word.
Yevserra.? 1
He lets me exhale before his hands sweep up my sides, settling on my upper ribcage.
“You are unclaimed.” A quiet statement of fact, shorn of emotion. But I shiver, feeling the threat. “I sense no other's touch on you. Fortunate for them. Your House must have protected you.”
“None asked for me and if they did, I can say no all by myself.”
Curling my hands around his wrists, I tug, ignoring how every caress coaxes an answering ping of desire. Maybe it's not yevserra. I'd be dead not to physically react to the seduction of a beautiful, virile male. Not even I am immune to the lure of power. I’m still half Fae.
I can’t deceive myself, no matter how desperately I want to. The way I'm beginning to respond to him, so insidiously that I didn't recognize it at first and despite every screaming objection, is the hallmark of only one thing.
He allows me to push his hands away, a strategic retreat.
“There were offers, Aerinne.” His voice is cool. “You are Muriel Kuthliele’s only daughter and you have held your House against Montague for a decade though you are scarce more than an infant. There were offers. There will be no more, however.”
If this is rut, and he's going to acknowledge it publicly, I need to warn Faronne. And tell Nora.
If this is a rut, and this is yevserra. . .I’m screwed.
“Is it your intention to stake a public claim?”
“I intend to do more.”
The Prince captures my lips without warning. No mercy, only that false gentleness hiding ever present danger.
The press of his mouth demands entry, but when I open, he takes his time.
Sucking my bottom lip into a swollen mess, the tip of his tongue slipping right inside as if requesting entry, then surging forward when I don’t deny him.
He controls my mouth, plays with my tongue, and though he tastes like lust and urgency, still, he kisses me as if he’s content to do nothing else, forever.
Well, that’s a damn lie.
His mouth, his tongue slipping into mine, awaken answering heat I struggle to bank, furious with him, furious with myself. My spine begins to arch and I stiffen to remain ramrod straight.
His kiss is savage, starved, coaxing, all at the same time and the hands on my rib cage tighten to the point of pain. It takes both my breath and my will, and questions if I need either. To live, I only need him.
His breath, his will.
With this kiss, he shatters any lingering delusion of freedom.
I make a noise, somewhere between a mewl and a moan and a plea, and shudder.
Renaud releases my lips, trailing his fire and brimstone kisses up my jaw, along my rounded ear, his breath tickling my insides. I press my thighs together in defense against the growing ache.
Think. I need to think. “This can't?—”
“Can’t, Aerinne?”
A wealth of warning in that word, in the darkening voice.
There are other signs now; the full-blown pupils turning his eyes black, the unblinking stare, the way that stare slowly trails from my lips, to the pulsing vein in my neck and once more to my lips.
As if he’s deciding whether to kiss me again, or tear out my throat.
Rut.
He’s right. He warned me. The Courts will fling me at him—least of all in the hopes that any urge for violence and mayhem after fully awakening will be sated in me. It won’t be the first time the Fae toss a sacrifice to a beast and sit back to critique the carnage.
He decides on a third option and those long, sharp nailed fingers slide under the thin straps of my gown to push them down my shoulders.
My nails dig into the back of his hands before he bares my breasts. “Renaud, no.”
Brilliant black slashes me. “. . .no? You are mine. ”
I slap him. His head snaps to the side with the force of my blow.
The forest goes still.
Maybe I am a fool after all.
“That's what I said, High Lord. No.”
It is the most difficult no that has ever left my mouth.
The nerves in my body make the denial a lie, and I'm afraid of denying him, but I won't let him take me like this.
Tear off my dress and take me into the ground after only our third meeting, with the Court a minute away.
I am worth more than this, even if my surrender is the price of peace. I am still worth more.
The Prince turns his head back to me and there is nothing normal in that movement. Inhuman, mortals would whimper. Adalessikai don’t have a direct translation for the concept, other than Dark.
The leviathan behind his eyes wakes.
He seizes my throat as every hair on my body shrieks at me to beg forgiveness, curl up into a ball at his feet and hope he thinks I’m dead and it’s too much bother to abuse my offensive corpse.
“Renaud!”
His nails dig in just short of breaking skin. The air ignites with his growing rage.
My hands are strong but I’m half-human and female. They'll never be as strong as his.
He grips the back of my head, fingers curling tightly in my hair and yanks my neck back, arching my spine, and then he's bending down and that mouth with the slightly too sharp incisors is on my breast, biting down through fabric I refused to let him remove. He could have torn it off; he didn’t.
That tells me much. Some of it good, most of it bad.
Still, I cry out fury and denial, even as my breasts swell and pebble. The humiliation, the indignity , brings a snarl to my lips.
I wedge an arm between our bodies and slam my fingers between my breast and into his mouth, uncaring if his teeth slice me.
The Prince resists, grabbing my wrists and slamming them against the tree, scraping my skin. It takes him one hand to secure me; I learned from our fight I won't win in a direct physical confrontation against him.
“You're a monster,” I spit.
His lips curve slightly, but I sense neither amusement nor triumph. “Yes.” The word is soft, sibilant.
“Let go.” I tug at his hold.
The hand still in my hair tightens, bringing a pinprick of enraged tears to my eyes as I stare up into the forest canopy.
If I strike him again, if I defend myself, will he kill me?
I'm almost frozen with indecision. The truth is. . .I have no idea how to handle this situation. I haven't decided what atrocities I'm willing to endure for the sake of survival. And so I am frozen.
“Don't do this. Damn you, Renaud, don’t do this.”
When did I begin using his name? It seemed preposterous when he made the offer, but the obscene intimacy of this moment makes using his title mockery.
Slowly, his fingers leave my wrists. But I don’t move. Not yet.