Enzo #2
The bond hummed between us, settled in a deeper register than it had been in before tonight. The wound the bath had left between us had finally closed, and in its place was this: Nadia breathing beneath me, soft with exhaustion, marked by my mouth, safe under my hands.
I bent and kissed her throat. Her mouth. Her temple. Only then did her eyes open.
Pitch and green mixed with gold and dazed at the edges. For once, she had nothing sharp to say. That undid me more than the rest.
I brushed my thumb over her cheek, careful now because it had finally earned its place again.
“There you are,” I murmured.
Her eyes narrowed faintly, as if she wanted to object on principle but couldn’t quite find the strength.
I smiled despite myself and kissed her once more, softer than she would forgive me for later. Then I slowly pulled out of her. She made a small sound at the loss, and every possessive thing in me answered it.
Her body was loose against the table, eyes half-closed again, breath still uneven.
Beautiful.
Mine.
I bent and kissed her forehead. "Stay there."
"Hardly going anywhere," she muttered.
But when I drew back, her fingers caught my wrist. Weakly. The small, unconscious grip went through me harder than any plea would have.
“I’m coming back,” I said.
Her lashes lifted. For one raw second, there was no blade in her gaze. No joke ready. No wall rising fast enough to hide what the words had done to her. Then she scowled.
“I didn’t ask.”
“Of course not.”
Her fingers tightened once, then let go.
I crossed to the basin behind the screen and wet one of the cloths the household had left folded by the bath. My hands were steadier than they had any right to be. Hers were not. I heard the faint scrape of her nails against the table as she shifted, trying to gather herself enough to sit up.
“Don’t. Move.”
“I hate when you use that voice.”
No, she didn’t. “I know.”
“You’re very proud of it.”
If it kept her right where I wanted her? Absolutely.
I wrung out the cloth and came back.
Her eyes tracked me, still heavy-lidded and furious around the edges, but softer beneath it. Too soft. Soft enough that she looked away the moment I saw it. Then her gaze caught on my shoulder.
The place where she’d bitten me was already healed. My body didn’t hold damage the way hers did. The thin lines from her nails were gone. The bite had closed. Only the blood remained, a dark smear against my skin where her blunted teeth had broken the skin.
Her hand lifted before she seemed to think better of it. Two fingers touched the spot anyway.
Not a wound. A memory of one.
Her frown was small enough that anyone else might have missed it.
I didn’t.
“I healed,” I said quietly.
“I know.” Her fingers lingered one breath too long. “Shut up.”
So I did.
I took that small, vicious mercy and cleaned the blood at the corner of her mouth first, where a smear of mine had dried from when she’d bitten my shoulder.
Then her throat. Each shoulder. The places where my bites had already closed, though hers healed more slowly, even with my blood moving through her.
By the time I lowered the cloth between her thighs, her hand caught my wrist again. This time, her grip was stronger.
I stopped.
“Nadia.”
Her gaze flashed to mine. Embarrassment, sharp as a blade glittered in her eyes with exhaustion right beneath it. And under that, the small unwilling relief of being cared for in a body that had spent too many years being treated like a weapon and not a woman.
“Let me take care of you,” I murmured.
Her throat worked. For once, she didn’t have a clean answer, and it almost broke me.
Then she looked away and said, very softly, “Fine.”
I set about doing exactly that. Slowly. Carefully. With none of the brutality she’d asked from me before and all of the gentleness she would have bitten me for naming.
The hot cloth cleaned away the remains of her climax and mine both. Her cheeks flushed deeper, but she didn’t pull away. Her fingers stayed around my wrist the entire time, holding on.
When I finished, I tossed the cloth toward the basin and lifted her off the table.
She didn’t protest.
Her arms came around my neck. Her head rested against my shoulder. And then, so gently I might have missed it without the bond, she turned her face into my throat and pressed her mouth there.
Nadia would deny she’d done it later, and I’d let her.
“You’re deeply weird, Veyne,” she murmured against my skin.
My chest tightened around something too dangerous to name. “I’m taking care of my mate.”
“I said what I said.”
I carried her to the bed, pulled back the dark-green coverlet, and laid her down. But when I would have straightened, her hand closed around mine again.
Still not asking and managing to beg all at the same time. Her grip tightened and then fell away as if her need for me was something to be ashamed of, something she’d be punished for, something she needed but couldn’t allow herself to want.
So I did the only thing I could. I stretched out beside her.
She rolled toward me without thinking, then seemed to realize what she’d done and went very still. I pulled the coverlet over both of us before she could retreat from me.
“Nadia.”
“What?” Half-embarrassed, half-tempered fury, that single syllable was a dagger in my heart.
Didn’t she know? Couldn’t she tell? I’d been gone for her since the moment she stepped out of the shadows in that courtyard.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
Her face pressed against my chest. A long breath left her, slow enough to hurt.
“I didn’t ask.”
“No, you didn’t.” Her fingers curled against my skin, and I rested my hand over hers. “You didn’t have to.”
She went quiet in a way that felt more dangerous than any threat she’d ever made.
“If the hold burns around us, I will carry you out of it,” I murmured. “If the Court comes for you, I will stand between you and every blade they send. If you wake angry, I will still be here. If you wake afraid, I will still be here. If you wake pretending neither of those things is true—”
“Enzo.”
“I will still be here.”
Her breath caught once against my chest. Then she hid it by biting me—a tired, useless little nip against my collarbone.
I closed my eyes, trying not to let my satisfaction bleed through the bond and knowing I had already failed.
“Vicious little thing,” I murmured.
“You like it.”
“I fucking love it.”
She closed her eyes against my chest, one hand resting over the place she’d bitten my shoulder as if she could keep the memory of it from fading too quickly. Sleep found her within moments.
I held her, but I did not sleep.
Princes slept when their enemies were dead. Commanders slept when the perimeter was secure. Mates slept when the woman in their arms was safe.
None of those things were true yet.
And I wouldn’t rest until they were.