The Hollow
SOUNDTRACK: Midnight Eyes by Lumie
~ GRACE ~
Something inside me ached. My belly was hollow, my skin heated. My lips felt thick, and my tongue too dry—was I ill?
Words dripped from me, thick and slow, like honey, and made Vane’s eyes widen.
Want… need…
When he grabbed my hair and tugged my head back, his gaze burned.
The sensation of his fingertips on my scalp sent goosebumps skating down my spine.
Instinctively, I arched into him, my hips pressing forward of their own accord until I brushed against his thighs.
He went still, his eyes darkening. Our gazes locked, and I wasn’t sure I breathed.
Then he descended upon me, lips open and soft, tongue seeking, tangling with mine in a heated slide that tore a gasp from my throat.
That ache inside. The empty space. The yearning. Somehow touching him, tasting him, breathing him, soothed pieces of it.
Desperate, I curled fingers into his hair and held him to me, panting, trembling in the onslaught of prickling pleasure that coursed from where he kissed me, down, to sensitize my nipples, and make my belly jangle.
His hand slid from my hair to my neck and I shook. He curled me tighter against him, sheltering me.
Gone was the violent anger he’d used to overpower me, replaced by trembling touches, coaxing me closer, long fingers curling, his nails scraping at my nape, the pad of his palm pressed to my throat, his thumb stroking the side of my neck so that when I swallowed convulsively, I felt him against me.
Then a song rose over the trees—two voices, one high, one low—ragged calls that I’d never heard before, but they hummed in my ribs, and danced in my belly.
The dragons.
The female screamed, and I jolted, overwhelmed—images flickering in my head of gleaming scales and beautifully arched necks, accompanied by a rush of shuddering pleasure so acute my knees weakened.
Vane caught me, a low, deep moan broke in his throat, and his breath rushed out of him, thundering against my cheek. But as my head sank back, my eyes closing against the onslaught, he only tipped his chin and deepened the kiss.
The moments that followed unfurled like new, spring growth. Tremulous and breathtaking.
Silk strands of his hair slipping between my fingers.
Soft, warm lips sliding against mine.
The peculiar thrill of the stubble on his chin scratching my jaw.
The iron strength of the arm flattened against my spine to keep me pinned against him.
The warmth of the broad, flat hand splayed between my shoulders, cradling me.
Tingling pleasure rising, radiating wherever his other hand roamed—my face, my side, my waist, my belly, up to the neckline of my shirt, then pausing, before slipping under, his calloused palm against my skin.
When he cupped my breast, I arched, frantic with pleasure. Mindless. Reckless.
I should have felt shame, yet all I did was ache for him.
What was happening to me?
A still, small voice shrieked caution. Urged me to run. But it faded in the wake of his touch, his kiss.
My eyelids fluttered as I pressed my tightening breast into his palm, my breath catching when he teased the aching peak with his thumb.
With a rushing exhale, he turned his head, tilting to make the kiss new, deeper. It was all I could do to cling so I wouldn’t fall, pleading, begging for more.
My breath came in short, shallow puffs. My fingers cramped. My body seemed to float. I was aware of nothing but the press of him, of his kiss, of his touch, and that growing ache between my legs that urged me closer.
More.
Now.
When he unbuttoned my shirt in jerky little tugs, then started on the belt I’d used to keep the too-large trousers over my hips, I almost sobbed with relief.
Finally, my body sighed.
Finally, my heart echoed.
This was it. That jagged, driving need I’d heard the noblewomen whisper and titter about. The union with a man that heated their cheeks and made their eyes hood when they spoke of it.
I’d thought it a legend. A tale. A myth. An excuse.
But as the belt on my trousers gave under Vane’s shaking grip, and he groaned as he slipped magical fingers between my thighs, as my blood rushed to meet his touch, and my pulse pounded in my ears—and other places under my skin—something drove me forward, to grip him, to cling, to plead.
Mate.
Mine.
The search was over. I knew it like I knew the sky was blue: This passion, this hunger, would not be sated by anything less than him.
I didn’t know how it had happened. I didn’t know why.
But that made it no less true.
I gasped as the conviction in my chest clicked, like a lock sliding home. I lost all pretense or awareness of anything beyond him.
Our kiss grew faster. Deeper. Desperate.
I leaned in, breathing his name, clawing at his shoulders, hips bucking into his touch in an attempt to soothe the frantic need.
“You’re so fucking beautiful. Oh God, Grace—”
“Please.” I was shameless. And happily so. My heart soared.
Finally. After all the male eyes averted from my gaze, all the masculine smiles and energies pointed at other women, I’d found him when I wasn’t looking.
His dark eyes thrilled.
His strong body drew me.
His hands, his kiss, his voice… he called to me.
He was home.
I almost laughed into his mouth, and pulled him closer, heart racing even faster when his grip tightened as surely as mine.
I was dragged under the surface, drowning in him. And gladly.
In my world, married love, and especially physical intimacy, were singularly regarded as disappointing. Firmly placed in the realms of duty, while those same engagements outside the marriage bed were painted in shame.
There was no love in noble marriage, only obligation. Faithfulness was a chore. A state to be endured for the good of the family name, and the purity of blood.
I’d always wished for more than simple reproduction. I yearned for connection. To be seen. Heard. Valued for something within me, something other than my name, or bloodline.
Yet, when I grew old enough that the whispers of the women were no longer silenced when I entered a room, my oddness had already become apparent, and most of the men showed a particular wariness.
They did not see me as a prize.
Then, I learned that most men and women believed the only real passion came in the forbidden, the thrill of a hidden tryst. The risk of shame and scandal.
As much as I’d wished I could gladly give myself up to those fancies that the women described—though, they always kept their words to innuendo, because I wasn’t married—in truth, I had no appetite for more secrets, or shame.
My parents loved each other. But they’d never shown heat. And the noble women I’d met who were enthralled, who sought heat, did so with those outside the marriage bed.
I couldn’t help but observe that, in the event one of these affaires was uncovered, it was the women whose lives tumbled to nothing, while the men who’d tumbled them might sweat for a few months, even years.
Yet never truly lose much beyond the respect of those who maintained some semblance of honor.
So, with no hunger for scandal, no resilience for shame, and no willing husband on the horizon, I had made it to twenty-three years old—almost twenty-four—without being touched by a man.
And in recent months, as my parents spoke of debt and honor and the need to replenish the estate’s wealth, as I faced a cage of their reluctant making, I’d told myself I was missing nothing.
That the romantic fancy of a man whose eyes followed you in a room, and whose hands twitched only for your skin, was nothing but a myth to entice na?ve girls into marriages with men they wouldn’t otherwise choose.
The married women said so, I reminded myself. Their giggles and sly looks were never for their husbands.
Slowly, my hope of passion, love, and tenderness, faded away.
Still, I had attended the Festival of Lights to enjoy my final freedom, and with the last shred of a chance that somewhere in the noble clans was a young man who might at least hold my heart.
I’d scanned the ballrooms for any forgotten young heir that might be my estate’s saving grace, while still teasing a smile from my lips, so I might not be forced to marry a peer of my father’s. But I’d carried no real hope of even an interesting prospect. Let alone passion.
Then I met Bren, and her general, Donavyn Arsen. And I watched a man of power and status be nothing short of consumed.
That little voice I’d been stifling, that tiny flame of hope, leaped to life. A candle nearly snuffed out, but swelling to ignite a fire.
But on reflection, my future seemed even more hopeless.
The thoughts swam through my foggy head in snatches, between heaving breaths and desperate kisses. Bringing with them sudden, inexplicable joy.
I’d been wrong.
They’d been wrong.
The proof was right here, in the circle of my arms. His breath heaving even more than mine. His body responding to mine. Hands trembling with want as he stroked me and sent flames roaring through my veins fit to start a forest fire.
Vane offered such delight, such relief, I let my head fall back, out of the kiss, inhaling deeply and gripping his hair as he dropped his chin to kiss down my neck and send an entirely new wave of pleasure coursing through me.
I would never have offered myself this way to any man. But to him?
Nothing had ever felt so right.
“You are… mine,” I gasped, an echo of that breathless thought the female dragon had shared with me.
Vane went still, his face buried under my jaw, his delicious fingers still delving my body.
I froze, still smiling, but opened my eyes to stare at the sky above, turning gold and pink as the sun sank behind the mountains.
He, too, must be overcome by the discovery of this… this… whatever it was.
The dragons called again, and my chest swelled. I curled my fingers more tightly into his hair as a trembling wave washed through my body, and seemed to course through him as well. We both groaned. It was a relief to hear the need in him as tangible as my own.
Vane came to life again, his breath and lips brushing the side of my neck, raising more goosebumps. Then he lifted his head and, panting, stared into my eyes. I returned the adoring gaze, overwhelmed with hope and awe.
My body hummed with need. Parts of me I hadn’t known existed, suddenly alive with a hunger so intense, it wanted to overwhelm thought.
But the tiny little voice that had so plagued me for years, spoke up again as he stared down at me, his shoulders heaving, and his brows began to pinch.
His black hair was straight, but messy because I’d clawed hands through it.
It flipped out around his ears and nape as if it needed a cut, though the disorder of it suited him.
Made his angular features less severe. Long strands fell over his eyes and he stared at me, as if through the ebony bars of a prison.
The thought sent a thin thread of chill through my heart, and I instinctively tightened my grip on him.
Vane held me against his chest, yet his eyes never left mine.
The color of his were difficult to decipher, his pupils were so large, and his eyes deeply set behind high cheekbones, shadowed by dark brows, and that hair.
His lips full and wide, though I was certain I’d never seen him smile.
Instead, before, they’d always been pursed to nothing, tight with disdain, or irritation.
Not now, I reminded myself breathlessly as my body sang with another call from the dragons. I lifted my head intending to pull myself up and kiss him.
But as I leaned up, something flashed in Vane’s eyes and he jerked away.