52 #2
“The other kingdoms could learn from that.” Residual tension melted from my body when I inhaled his scent deep. After a few more greedy whiffs, I surrendered to my curiosity. “What did you say to her earlier?”
He pressed his hand more firmly into my lower belly, forcing my ass into his erection. “I said if she cannot share my mate with me, then we will fight, and I am much bigger than her.”
Unable to trap it, I laughed.
He held me tighter. “Bird in the rain.”
My throat burned.
Silence came again. Though it wasn’t uncomfortable, it took effort not to break it. Not to seek remedies for my battered heart. Fearing I wouldn’t get any, I stayed quiet.
Before I knew I was falling asleep, I was waking.
Voran’s deep and growled breaths warmed the top of my head. Groggy but in much less pain, I carefully uncaged myself from his arms—worried he’d wake.
He didn’t.
His lashes shadowed his cheeks, the latter severe even in sleep. I wanted to touch them, those soft and slightly parted lips, and the groove between his twitching brows. My heart felt too tight in my chest as I watched him.
As I wondered when he might have last slept.
I left the bed and padded into the bathing room. Closing the door, I leaned against it and blinked the wet from my eyes.
I was still bleeding, so bathing was pointless.
But I grabbed soap and a washcloth, and turned on the basin faucet. While waiting for the water to warm, I cleaned my teeth with a fresh bristle stick, then rinsed my mouth and filled the basin with water.
I stood naked before it, a towel beneath me, as I washed my body. I didn’t see the door opening in the mirror, but I sensed him there—and the displeasure searing into my back.
Looking at his reflection, I asked, though I didn’t need to, “Are you annoyed?”
He exhaled a mirthless chuckle. “Am I fucking annoyed.”
I frowned.
“You think I’m merely annoyed by this?”
“The cramping has eased. I wanted to freshen up.”
Voran remained scowling for several heartbeats, and I realized he wasn’t solely referring to me leaving the bed.
Then he pushed off the doorframe and walked over. Nodding at the cloth, he held out his hand. “Give that to me.”
Foolish—the sudden urge to cover myself. He’d seen every inch of me. “But I’m almost done.”
A brow arched as he waited.
Cheeks warming, I said, “Please. This is hardly flattering.”
Again, he just waited.
“Fine.” I dropped the cloth into his hand and made to leave. “You’re worse than Dusk.”
He blocked me. I looked up at him, confused.
His eyes danced. “I will finish you off.”
It felt like my entire body blushed then.
He didn’t ask where I was up to. He could likely scent it. Crouched before me, he cleaned my inner thighs, then my legs. When he reached my feet, I had to grip his shoulders to keep my balance.
“Stop,” I laughed out. “They can wait.”
He dug the cloth between my toes, and I nearly fell, laughing more as I tried to get away from him. He caught my waist, steadying me. “Careful, little bird.” His hand slid up my side as he rose, skimming my breast before reaching my neck and jaw.
My eyes closed. I swallowed and stepped back.
Voran turned to the basin, tending to the water and cloth. Accent thicker than usual, he said, “Theela brought bleed cloths with breakfast.”
I wrapped a towel around me and went to find them.
Voran emerged from the dressing chamber with a pair of tight-looking pants. “If you insist on being on your feet, wear these. They should hold a cloth in place.”
Though I wasn’t sure I wanted to leave these rooms while I still bled, I did want to walk around them. So I collected a cloth from the basket Theela had put upon the mantel before taking the pants from Voran.
Or trying to.
He tugged.
I stumbled forward and scowled at him.
He smirked. “Allow me.”
I rose onto my toes to distract him by whispering at his mouth, “I’ve allowed you far more than you deserve, King.”
I successfully pulled the pants from his hand and shut him out of the bathing room to don them and the cloth. With the towel tucked around my chest, I then hunted for a loose tunic. I had none, so I settled for a slip and a black velvet cloak.
As I buttoned the cloak, I returned to the bedchamber to find Voran back in his boots and tending to the fire.
“Eat.”
I wasn’t hungry, but I knew I had to. “I need to show you something.”
I’d hidden the blade between the mattress and bedframe. I pried it free, then sat at the table. There, I unwrapped the cloth covering the blade doused in wolfsbane.
Voran brushed his hands and stood. His eyes didn’t lower to the table—to the blade. They stayed on mine as he said, “Wolfsbane.”
“You can scent it.”
He gave me a nod.
I swallowed and stared down at the thin blade. Early morning light seeped between the drapes to touch the gleaming silver. “He’s asked me to kill you.”
“I’m aware.”
My eyes rose to his. “You are?”
“I was told your father paid you a visit. I was also told he attended the wedding only because he had a similar mission for you.”
“He was going to ask me to kill Raxon.”
Another nod.
Of course, he knew. This was, and always had been, Voran’s kingdom. Those loyal to him, and those wishing to prove their loyalty to him, would now be leaping at any opportunity to gift him useful information.
“You think I don’t care about you.”
Shocked by the change of subject—and that he would speak about this after we’d avoided it—I just blinked.
“That I only pursued you so you would accept our bond and I could then use it to take back what’s mine,” he added.
Unable to deny it, yet unable to hold his gaze, I selected a strawberry from the fruit bowl.
“You think that means I didn’t want to do it.
That I wasn’t painfully hard the moment I first saw those purple fucking eyes.
That I wasn’t at risk of salivating from how your tunic and pants molded to your ass and tits and hips.
That I wasn’t imagining you naked and fluttering those dark lashes at me. ”
Goddess.
I shook my head. “Voran, that’s really not what I—”
“You evidently have no fucking idea what you do to me. What you’ve always done to me.” Gruffly, he said, “And you fail to remember what I said about two things being true.”
“That won’t work.” Though my soft tone betrayed me, I glared at him. “Not with this.”
Teeth gnashing, he repeated, “Won’t work?”
He could stand there and glower at me all he wished. I’d meant what I said. So I nodded and bit into the strawberry.
“Then tell me, Ayla.” His voice gritted. “Tell me why it won’t work.”
“I shouldn’t have to.”
Flames snapped in the taut silence.
Voran continued to scowl at me. An eye narrowed. “I gave you a wyvern.”
I almost laughed. “That’s supposed to prove you care?”
He spread his hands. “It is a wyvern.”
Rolling my lips between my teeth to keep from smiling, I reached for water as someone knocked hard on the door. Too hard for it to be Celestine.
“I think that’s for you,” I murmured, and sipped some water.
But Voran didn’t move. As if I were a problem he didn’t know how to deal with, he stared at me until the knock came again. Harder this time.
He sighed and marched across the room.
At the door, he stopped. “Keep it.” He didn’t turn to face me as he said, “The blade. Put it somewhere safe. Somewhere only you know.”
Dusk waited until the door closed before waddling over the bed and jumping to the floor. She licked her maw, climbed the other chair to the table, and helped herself to my bowl of oats.