Chapter 23 Bryony #2
The embers in his irises glow. “I thought about having you in every way.” The admission seems torn from somewhere deep. Somewhere aching. “Against every wall. Bent over every table. In every bed. I’ve fucked you a thousand different times in my head. Made you scream. Made you beg. Made you break.”
Heat pools between my legs. I know what he’s doing—he’s telling me what he’ll do to me if I lose.
Making me imagine all the ways he’d take me.
But I’ve been living with the Wolf leaving me wet and wanting for five weeks.
Every damn night he heals me, my body reminds me how good he could fuck me. It’s not going to work.
I bring the bow back up. “That’s too bad. Because tonight, you’ll go to bed aching and desperate. And alone.”
I let the last arrow fly. It hits right in the center, not even a millimeter of space between its sisters. A perfect grouping.
Victory.
“I won,” I taunt, facing him. “Say I won fair and square.”
He stares at me, and he looks furious. Ravenous.
“Come on, Wolf. Three little words. ‘You beat me.’”
Scowling, he snatches the bow from me and tosses it aside. “Fair and square? That was cheating, you arrogant creature.”
I grin slowly. “Was it? Or did I outplay a stronger opponent? Move. Countermove. Disarm. Attack, remember? It’s not my fault you walked right into it.”
For a breathless moment, I can’t tell if he’s going to kiss me or kill me.
But then he laughs, and it’s the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard, resonant and deep. And dangerous.
His amusement feels like he’s slitting my throat.
“Just wait,” he says, leaning into the weapons cupboard to pull out a leather bundle. “When you least expect it? Payback’s going to be a bitch, Devaliant.”
The Wolf sets the bundle on a table and unrolls it to reveal two daggers perfectly matching the ones he gave me in the garden. They’re exquisite—the steel folded and layered in the unmistakable rippling patterns of Turpori craftsmanship. These aren’t just weapons. They’re works of art.
“Satisfied?” he asks.
“They’ll do.”
“Oh, they’ll do, will they? Entire kingdoms have been razed for steel like that. Maybe show a little appreciation.”
I can’t tell if he’s serious or trying to get a rise out of me. It’s impossible to know with him.
I reach for the blades, but he’s suddenly there at my back, scent invading my senses. Making it difficult to focus on anything but him.
“Want to know a secret?” he asks, plucking a dagger from its sheath.
He sets the edge above my collarbone. Not pressing. Just resting there like a promise. Like a threat.
“The first cut is always special. These blades are ancient. They’ve tasted kings and warriors. Generals and thieves.” His free hand slides up to grip my jaw, angling my head back. “They remember every drop of blood that’s ever christened them.”
My breath comes faster now. “Is that so?”
I feel his smile against my neck, hungry and sharp. “Oh, yes. They remember everything.”
There’s a sudden, bright flare of pain as he slices the blade across my chest. My lips part on a gasp. Before I can process what’s happening, he ducks down and—
His tongue sweeps over the shallow cut.
A whimper slips out of me, and he answers with a groan, lapping up the trickle of blood. He ends his taste with a tender kiss.
“Been wanting to taste you for weeks,” he murmurs. “Ever since you stopped talking to me. Drove me fucking crazy.”
This isn’t happening.
But it is. And worse—I’m leaning into it. Into him. Into this dark, twisted thing between us that feels too much like falling off a cliff. No handholds, no rescue—just him and me and the long plunge to the bottom.
When he finally pulls back, his pupils are dilated, black overtaking his golden irises. He lifts the bloodied dagger and traces his tongue along the edge. Savoring every last drop of me.
“How long do you think this’ll last?” His voice is rough with want. “One more month? Two? Before I get bored?”
The more interesting you are, the longer you live.
And just like that, the moment shatters. A red haze falls over my vision. With a snarl, I wrench out of his hold and shove him back into his chair. He goes down with a grunt of surprise, those massive wings flaring wide. Then I pluck the dagger from his grip and slash it across his bare chest.
And I lick the gash before it can heal.
“Now this blade will remember how you taste,” I hiss, stabbing the dagger into the chair inches from his head. “And so will I.”
We’re both breathing hard now, our chests touching. Hearts beating against each other. He glares up at me, but his hands slide to my ass, yanking me flush against his aroused cock.
“Fuck, I hate you,” he growls.
I lean in close, lips brushing his ear. “Then hate me harder.”
His hips jerk, rolling up to meet me in a slow, dirty grind that makes my breath catch.
I match him without thinking, our bodies falling into a rhythm as natural as violence.
Graceless. Artless. As inevitable as gravity.
My head falls back as he thrusts up against me.
The chair creaks with each movement, a counterpoint to our harsh breathing.
“I hate everything about you.” His hands roam over my back, my sides, grasping. “I hate your smart fucking mouth and how it asks too many questions. I hate how you feel against me.”
Liar, I think as he dips his head and flicks his tongue over my pulse. You love it.
I rock into him harder, chasing friction.
His fingers dig into my hips hard enough to bruise, to mark me.
I imagine him covering me in blue and brown and yellow shaped like his fingers.
Like the imprints of his teeth. Every mark would be evidence of his unraveling control, hidden beneath my clothes like secrets.
“I hate how you touch me,” he rasps, lips moving to my jaw. “Hate that I get so damn hard whenever I see you.”
It’s aggressive, almost violent, the way we collide. The way his hips slam into mine, his hard cock grinding against my pussy through our clothes.
But there’s poetry too. In the rough noises he makes when I ride him just right. The reverence of his touch, his mouth as he kisses down my neck. His breath shaping secrets against my pulse. Like a dark liturgy. Like worship.
And maybe it’s madness—this desperate urge to offer myself up to his mouth and hands, to take in all his darkness. To let his edges cut me open until we both bleed.
I don’t give a fuck if you die, he said weeks ago. But I’ll make damn sure he remembers me. I’m going to carve myself so deeply into his bones that when he kills me, he’ll never be free of me.
I wrap my hand around his throat, squeezing until I feel his pulse spike against my palm. Hard enough to make my point.
Leaning in, I let my lips graze his ear. “This is killing you, isn’t it?” I whisper. “Wanting me?”
He goes rigid beneath me.
Got you.
“If you want to understand a thing, you have to learn its nature, right?” I say, throwing his own words back at him. “You know what I think? You hide behind cruelty because it’s easier than admitting I make you feel anything but rage.”
He sneers. “Shut up. You’re nothing.”
“Nothing doesn’t make you pace outside my door because I’m not talking to you.
Nothing doesn’t drive you insane.” I press my nails into his chest, relishing the way his muscles jump.
“I’ll bet there isn’t a day that goes by that you don’t think about me.
You hate me because I’m under your skin, and you’re still trying to dig me out.
You fell apart when I wasn’t speaking to you because you need this, don’t you?
My attention, my touch, me.” I roll my hips again, slower this time, deliberate.
Relishing the way his mouth parts on a breath.
“Yeah, you need this so fucking bad that you get yourself off thinking about all the ways you could have me. I’ll bet you come with my name on your lips and hate yourself after.
” I brush my lips down his jaw and breathe, “I’ll bet wanting me eats. You. Alive.”
I pull back slowly, drinking in the sight of him. At my mercy and speechless for once.
“Tell me something, Wolf,” I say into the charged space between our mouths. “When you dream of me now, is it with my blood on your hands? Or your tongue between my thighs?”
His fingers dig into my hips hard enough to leave marks, and for a moment, I think he might finally snap and take what we both know he wants.
But I don’t give him the chance.
With a final, vicious grind, I yank my knife out of the chair and climb off him. I don’t look back as I gather the blades and collect my fallen robe.
“I’m going to go enjoy my new knives. Sweet dreams,” I tell him with a grin and a little wave.