5. Boundaries and Bargains #3
Allora turned to Malec, ready to watch him flush and sputter and claw back some pathetic shred of authority. Instead, he was smiling. Smiling. Like she'd just told the most delightful joke.
Her stomach dropped. Of course. Of course he is not provoked, he's still too high on the orgasm she allowed him to have last night. She started wondering if giving him the pleasure was hindering or helping her case.
He only sat there, handsome and infuriating, looking perfectly content.
She narrowed her eyes to slits, her pulse thudding. "Right, Malec?" she prompted, her voice a touch shrill. "Tell them. Tell them you agreed."
He folded his hands calmly on the table, as if they were discussing the weather, and tilted his head. "I did agree," he said, almost thoughtfully. "I said you could stay in the Capitol."
He let the pause drag out, enjoying every second of it.
"But," he added at last, voice dropping into that smooth, velvety register that made her want to punch him square in the jaw, "I never specified for how long."
She gaped at him. "What?"
"And," he continued, utterly unruffled, "you never asked about the conditions."
"Conditions?" she repeated, her voice going embarrassingly high. Of course there were conditions. There was always a catch with him.
His lips curved into a slow, knowing smile.
"Naturally. There must be stipulations, little dove.
You are spirited." His gaze swept her body with infuriating familiarity, as though recalling every detail he'd touched the night before.
"If you want freedoms, I'm more than willing to grant them to you. "
He leaned in, his breath warm against her cheek as his hand slid around the back of her chair. "But you will need boundaries."
The flush crept up her neck, fury and mortification twining together. She could feel the heat rolling off her skin, and she knew he could feel it too. He was basking in it.
She tried to keep her voice level. "And what," she hissed through gritted teeth, "are these rules then, Lord Frosty McDickhead?"
Surian choked on a piece of melon, sputtering into her napkin.
Erolyn, never one to let an opportunity slip, propped his chin on his palm and sighed dreamily. "I vote that becomes your official title. Malec Talandros, Commander of the Northern Armies and Lord Frosty McDickhead."
Malec didn't even look at him. He was too busy watching Allora with that insufferable, lazy smile that made her want to upend the entire table. And somewhere beneath her seething, she knew he was enjoying this every bit as much as she was hating it.
Allora felt her composure crack clean down the middle.
The air around her seemed to heat with each smug word pouring out of Malec's mouth.
He reclined back in his chair like some self-satisfied monarch, elegant fingers drumming against the table as if her outrage was nothing more than an afternoon diversion.
"You are out of your damn mind," she seethed, her voice trembling with the effort not to launch herself across the table and throttle him.
"Conditions? You think you get to set terms just because I...
" She cut herself off, heat prickling up her neck as she realized what she was about to confess in front of Surian and Erolyn.
Malec tilted his head, that infuriating dimple appearing as he lifted a brow. "Just because you what, little dove?"
Her jaw clenched so hard it hurt. "Just because I allowed you to..." She gestured vaguely, at a loss for words vile enough to encompass the indignity of her position. "You know exactly what you did."
"Do I?" he drawled, sounding far too pleased.
"I recall you being very enthusiastic, in fact.
So enthusiastic you forgot to negotiate any finer details.
I'm simply clarifying them now." He spread his hands, as if he were a benevolent benefactor offering alms to a beggar.
"You want to stay in Caelistra? Then you will allow me the rights of a soulbound.
Your affection and, of course, your presence in my bed whenever I wish.
A reasonable exchange, considering I am risking everything to protect you. "
"Protect me?" Her voice jumped an octave, nearly shattering. "You're protecting your own pride, you arrogant bastard!"
Surian sighed, pressing her fingers to the bridge of her nose as if she were enduring a particularly dreadful play.
Allora's hands flew up, then down, then up again, fingers splaying, as if words had completely abandoned her.
But only for a moment. Her body stiffened.
Slowly, she turned to face him, eyes wide, mouth parted, and Malec caught it: the twitch.
That tiny flick of her brow that meant detonation was imminent.
Malec's smile was pure indulgence. "Then consider it a mutual understanding. Your presence in the Capitol, my rights as your soulbound, remain safe under my protection. And I..."
She didn't wait for him to finish. With a strangled noise of outrage, she stood and walked off stalking across the lawn, her skirts billowing behind her.
Malec rose calmly, unhurried, and followed her at a leisurely pace, as if he were out for a pleasant stroll instead of pursuing a woman who looked ready to set him on fire.
"Don't you dare follow me!" she shouted over her shoulder, grabbing a small pathway rock from the ground and hurling it at his head.
He ducked, laughter rumbling in his chest. "Little dove," he called lightly, "that's no way to convince me you're civilized enough to stay in the city."
Another rock flew past his ear, bouncing off the garden wall. "Go to hell!"
"I've already been," he replied, grinning as he kept pace with her furious strides. "It's called living without you in my bed."
"You're a horny dog! A walking, talking erection is all you are!"
His laughter only grew louder, which poured oil on the bonfire. She whirled on her heel, and he jogged after her, still laughing. "Allora, come on. I was complimenting you! You are brilliant in bed!"
"I hate you!" she shrieked, bending down to scoop up another handful of decorative pebbles.
"I know," he called back, dodging the volley with infuriating ease. "That wicked tongue is one of the things I love most about you."
Her response was a snatched rock from the path, larger than the last one. She whirled and hurled it with all her strength. Malec yelped, ducking, the stone whizzing past his head. "Sanctum above, you're trying to kill me! Gods, I've missed this!"
"Shut up and go die in a pit, you frost donkey!" Another rock, smaller this time, bounced harmlessly off his shoulder. "Horny frost-bitten asshole! Thinking you can bribe me with freedom like I'm some brothel commodity you can buy off with a few orgasms!"
He was doubled over, laughing so hard he could barely catch his breath, hands raised in surrender as he stumbled sideways, dodging her wrath.
"White-haired pervert! Go buy yourself a concubine if you're that desperate!" A flower pot—where in creation did she even find that?—sailed past him and exploded on the cobbles.
"Allora, please, my ribs! I'm dying!"
But she didn't stop. Her fury was radiant, her aim terrifying, and he was utterly, blissfully enthralled. It was the closest he'd ever felt to being alive, standing in the full force of her storm. He'd spend a thousand years provoking it if it meant witnessing this blazing fury aimed right at him.
She stomped up the townhouse steps, throwing a final string of curses over her shoulder before slamming the door so hard the frame rattled.
Malec, chest heaving, pressed a palm to the door, his smile softening. "I love you too, little storm," he murmured under his breath.
Back at the gazebo, Surian sat blinking slowly, one brow raised as she sipped her tea.
Erolyn leaned forward, elbows on the table. "You know," he said conversationally, "sometimes I think we're just bystanders in whatever warped romance novel those two are acting out."
Surian sighed, her gaze lingering on the closed door. "And yet," she murmured, "for all that chaos, I've never seen my brother look happier."
Surian walked through the townhouse with quiet purpose, her silk robe whispering over polished floors as she peered into doorways, searching.
She had a mission: shopping. And she'd be damned if she let Malec's overprotective moods ruin it.
The Capitol's best tailor didn't wait for anyone, not even a brooding warlord with control issues.
She hadn't had many friends, let alone female ones.
Allora wasn't her first, but she was different.
Sharp-tongued, unyielding, electric in a way Surian had never known.
There was something about the Canariae's defiance that drew her in, made her feel like she had finally found someone who didn't quake under the Talandros name.
Someone who would look Malec in the eye and call him a horny bastard with no remorse.
Surian admired that. Envied it, even.
Because she knew better than anyone what it was to grow up in the gravity of Malec's shadow.
Her mother, Malec's twin, had been calculating and cold, a brilliant tyrant who never smiled, unless she was torturing someone.
Surian had spent her childhood learning how to survive between them, how to soften her voice and hide her opinions so she wouldn't be crushed by their towering expectations.
At the stairs, she caught sight of Malec himself, descending with an ease she'd rarely seen in him, coming down with the unhurried grace of someone who'd finally gotten what he'd been chasing for months. A strange smile played at his mouth, strange because it looked almost peaceful. Content.
"Where is Allora?" she asked, stopping halfway up the staircase, studying him with open curiosity.