Chapter 45 Unfinished Business
Unfinished Business
RADVEN
Send her home.
Alastor was right—getting Marigold out of Therador would solve many of our problems. It was almost worth the risks.
But I wasn’t eager to let her go—or give up the carnal distraction she provided.
Pluck off the petals
Slice off the wing
I pressed my finger against the edge of my blade, using the pain to cut off the voice in my head before it could dig its claws in too deep. If I would no longer have physical pleasure to distract me from my impending madness, there were other ways. They were just slightly less satisfying.
Yes, we needed to let Marigold go. She was a liability. A wild card. And, if I was being especially ungenerous, a burden. I recognized all that, even as my body throbbed with the unfinished business between us, loath to let her go.
My thoughts on the matter were clear to me. What confused me, in this moment, was Alastor.
My brother had always been tricky to read, even for me.
On the surface, he was all about Therador, for obvious reasons.
But he’d been strange about Marigold from the start.
At first I’d written it off as frustration at his own attraction—because he was attracted to her, despite his denial.
I’d seen the way his eyes lingered on her.
Alastor liked to pretend he was above such things, even to Oak and me, but he was still a man, however nobly he pretended otherwise.
But it was more than that. There was something he wasn’t telling me about Marigold, something that went beyond his notice of her big eyes and soft lips.
My brother pulled his eyes away from her, turning to me.
“She should be able to open a bridge from this side,” he said. “If we get her back to her own world then all of our problems will be solved.”
Pluck off the petals
Slice off the wing
The voice in my head was trying to wriggle back in, but I pressed my finger down on the blade again, hard enough to draw blood.
My gaze slid to Marigold. She’d been desperate to create a bridge when we were back at the inn in Far Meadow, but she looked rather stricken by the idea now, despite the fact she was still visibly trembling from being exposed to so much essence tonight.
Even with the pearls around her wrist, this world was still toxic to her.
Was it fear that made her hesitate now, or something else?
“What’s the matter, butterfly?” I asked. “Isn’t that what you want? To go home?”
She looked at me. “I thought you said that attempting something so big would draw the Circle right to us.”
“It doesn’t really matter now, does it?” I said with a shrug.
“Mordren clearly has some other means of tracking you.” Yet another mystery to add to the tangle I was attempting to unravel.
I hesitated, then added, “And after tonight, I’d say it’s worth the risk.
” Better to remove the liability. If I needed a distraction, there were plenty of other women around here who would have been happy to warm my bed. Plenty of other pleasures of the flesh.
So why did that option sound so much less appealing than what was standing in front of me?
My eyes traveled back to Alastor. He was rigid, his face flat. He didn’t add anything, only nodded his agreement with my assessment of the situation.
“We’ll travel outside Ring-Around-the-Hill, of course,” I continued. “To be safe. No reason to draw any more attention here. We can go up into the hills, somewhere secluded. And be done with it before the sun is high.”
She nodded, slowly. Like she didn’t fully agree but didn’t want to say so.
“Did you want to stay?” I asked. Let it be her decision.
Her eyes snapped to me so fast that I knew I’d hit on the truth. Or close enough.
“No one’s going to force you to go,” I said carefully. “It’s your choice, butterfly.”
“But what’s the alternative?” Alastor countered. “If she stays here, she’ll always be in danger. Both from the Circle, and from…herself.” He gestured to her shaking hands. “She doesn’t belong here, and she never should have come to Therador in the first place.”
Marigold stiffened as my brother spoke, color returning to her cheeks. She was a sensitive thing, allowing herself to be riled at what was objectively the truth of her situation. All of us could see it, even if we wanted to pretend otherwise.
But perhaps she realized as much, because she deflated slightly before saying, “You’re right. It’s best if I go.”
That settled it, then.
There will be other distractions, I told myself firmly. Other pleasures.
Still, it was a pity. The exquisite taste of her still lingered on my tongue, sweet and luscious. There was so much pent-up desire in her, just waiting to be spent. I’d been enjoying drawing it out of her, bit by bit.
“We should leave as soon as possible,” Alastor said. “Before any of the others track her here.”
Why the sudden urgency, Brother? I silently growled. What are your true feelings in all of this? But I’d let Alastor have his secrets for now. They’d come out eventually.
He was right, though—now that the decision was made, it was better to be done with this.
Pluck off the petals
Slice off the wing
I bore down on the cut on my finger until a fresh spike of pain cleared my head once more.
To Marigold, I said, “Gather your things. We’ll leave as soon as you’re ready.”
“I’ll go get us some horses,” Alastor said. “Meet you by the northwest tunnel.”
He marched off, and I followed him with my eyes, still wondering what he was hiding from me. He was too eager to be rid of her.
“I don’t really have any things,” Marigold said when my brother was gone. She was still twitchy, still fidgeting as if she couldn’t bear to be still, even for a moment. “Just… There’s a little boy asleep in my room. His name is Jex. Will you tell him I said goodbye? And help him find his family?”
“Of course,” I said. Maybe Talon can finally do something useful with that extensive ‘network’ of his.
“Then…I guess I’m ready.” She put on a brave face, and I respected her enough to refrain from questioning her commitment to her decision.
Instead, I slipped closer to her, letting my mouth twist into a smile.
“Tell me honestly, butterfly, are you going to miss me?” The madness was pressing at my mind again, trying to get in, but I focused my attention on her.
She’d given a little jump at my question, but now some of the fear and tension left her expression as a blush bloomed on her cheeks. Her fingers fluttered at her sides.
“Are you all right with me going home and leaving our bargain unfulfilled?” she asked, a playfulness returning to her. She was getting better at our game, and it was a shame I wouldn’t get to see how she continued to progress.
“We’re leaving quite a bit of unfinished business between us,” I mused, reaching out and sliding a finger beneath her chin.
“I suppose I’m going to have to find a way to live with that.
” I could feel a tremor in her skin that I suspected had nothing to do with her sensitivity to essence.
The voice in my head quieted a little more as the air thickened between us.
Something flickered in her eyes. “This is really it, then? After I go back, I’ll never see any of you again?”
A complicated question. “Nothing is impossible. You could always make another bridge. But that defeats the purpose of you leaving, doesn’t it?”
She nodded, those soft lips dropping into a frown, and I couldn’t stop myself from tilting her chin up a little further and bringing my lips close to her ear.
“Maybe you could come back for an hour or two,” I murmured. “When things are a little calmer.”
Her skin heated under my touch. “Just an hour? That’s all you need?”
Hot desire coursed through me at her teasing tone. I pulled back, looking down into her eyes.
“A night,” I told her. “Come back for a night, and I’ll show you what you’ve been missing all your life.”
Her breath caught, her pupils dilating before my eyes.
Or,” I said, leaning closer, “You could bring me there. And I could have you in your own bed, without my brothers or the Circle to interrupt us.” My thumb slid along her bottom lip. “I have every intention of finishing what we started in that alley. And teaching you how to return the favor.”
Her cheeks deepened to a deep pink the same color as her tongue. “I know how to return the favor.”
“Mm, do you?”
In response, she flicked her tongue against the tip of my thumb.
Another surge of yearning burned through me, and I pulled my thumb away and immediately replaced it with my lips.
This wasn’t what I’d intended to do. I’d only wanted to tease her a little, to put her at ease, to momentarily quiet the voice in my mind. And yet here I was, pushing her back against the wall, my hands sliding up her sides.
She didn’t stop me. In fact, she wrapped her arms around my neck, her mouth falling open beneath mine, her tongue soft and pliant against the touch of my own.
We had little enough time, but there was time enough to devour her, to release more of that hot, sweet desire she had coiled up so tight inside of her.
Time enough, if I chose, to pull her skirts up around her waist, to wrap her legs around me, to slide into her and take her right against this wall.
Normally I’d savor it a little more. Tease it out of her. Taunt and lick and nibble until she was begging for me to touch her, taste her, rut myself deep inside her.
But not tonight. Tonight it had to be quick, and there was enough of that unspent desire within me as well that I would have little trouble keeping things hurried and urgent. There was no madness in this moment, no ache inside me, only pure desire. Pure truth.
I grabbed her skirt, pulling it up her thighs as my mouth tore across her jaw, her cheeks. I had the fabric bunched up around her thighs before my lips met a wet, salty tear.
I paused, lifting my head.
Another tear spilled down her flushed cheek, and when she blinked up at me, more shone in her lashes. She was visibly shaking again.
“It’s nothing,” she said before I could ask her what was wrong.
“I just… I know this is the end. Of…whatever this is.” She gave a half smile, and another tear spilled over and trailed down her face.
“I know I have to go. I know it’s the best thing.
The right thing. But…I’ll miss this. All of this.
I wish I didn’t have to say goodbye so soon. ”
I reached up and brushed away the last tear with the back of my finger.
“You don’t have to stop,” she said softly.
“I don’t want you to stop. I want a few more moments of…
of just this. Of letting go of everything but pleasure.
” Her fingers twisted through my hair, gripping tight as if I were her anchor against everything coursing through her right now.
“Please, give me this before I have to go.”
She didn’t have to tell me twice. Her words were the plain truth, echoed in her eyes and in her touch. And I was too hungry, too desperate, to refuse her.
My mouth captured hers again, and I pulled up her skirt once more, pushing her hips back against the wall. My hand slipped between her legs, and she gasped against my lips as my finger slid against her.
My cock strained against my pants when I felt how slick she was already. How her body quivered against my touch. I was already imagining how tight she’d be, how I’d be the first man to learn what sounds she made when she was completely full.
But her body had to be made ready first. As much as I wanted to sink myself deep into her, with no more delays, I wanted her to enjoy this, too.
I tore my lips away from hers, then dropped down to my knees in front of her. She only needed the slightest nudge from me to spread her hips wider, and then my face was there. I kissed my way up her thigh before slipping my tongue between her legs.
She whimpered, her grip tightening on my hair. And I wasted no time, sliding my tongue across the bundle of nerves at her apex before delving past that, tasting her core.
She was already shaking even before my tongue was inside her. And her whimpers turned into breathless gasps, then soft moans as I licked and stroked and teased her.
It wasn’t going to take long. My arms gripped her thighs, holding her in place against the wall, pinning her right where I wanted her with my tongue. Every sound she made sent a fresh surge of blood to my cock, every wriggle of her hips brought me closer to losing all control.
There was nothing truer than this—nothing more honest, more intimate, than this pleasure of the flesh. The secrets of her body were laid bare before me, those deep, primal urges she’d kept buried for most of her life finally breaking free for me.
Because of me.
Come for me, butterfly. And once she did, once I’d tasted her deepest pleasure, I’d spin her around and bury myself deep enough to give her some of my secrets, too.
She was close. I could feel it in her grip on my hair, hear it in the catch of her breath. A few more strategic strokes of my tongue and—
Her body spasmed as release erupted through her.
And I was blown across the room.