Chapter 20 #2
She leans back, pressing herself into him, a sound of pleasure leaving her lips. Her gaze catches mine and holds there, as if inviting me to watch. As if to say, would you like to see what you’re missing?
All around, the other fae follow suit. Some climb into each other’s laps, others onto the table. Mouths find mouths. Hands slip between silk and skin.
Calen and Ravenna get more entangled, yet my gaze inevitably finds Amriel’s. Again.
What’s happening here should shock me. Scandalize me. It should register as sin.
Yet something wakens in my depths as Calen tugs his mate to her feet and spins her to face the table, pushes her down. As he tugs her dress up around her hips and leans down to lay a kiss against her shoulder. As his hand slips between her legs from behind.
Amriel’s tongue runs along his bottom lip. My eyes follow the movement, drink it in as greedily as I swallowed that water, but I don’t stop there. My attention slips over his mouth, his neck, the hollow of his throat, the vee of bare skin that leads downward and disappears beneath the table.
Beside me, Ravenna shifts into her goblin form, violet patterns blooming across indigo skin. She moans Calen’s name, her lips parted around gleaming fangs.
He shifts forms, too, and my breath catches at seeing them together this way. Because something exists between them, something I missed the first time. Something that crackles in the air every time they touch.
Not sin, but…reverence. Worship. Calen’s clawed fingers trace Ravenna’s body as if paying homage to something priceless, and I can’t help but envy the depth of ecstasy that awaits them as their mate bond blazes bright.
I can almost feel the ghost of Amriel’s hands against my own skin, the way he touched me that night in the solarium. Is this what would have happened, if I hadn’t run?
My thighs tighten, grinding together, slick heat gathering at their apex. Last time I sat here, I had no idea what I was seeing, what dessert actually meant.
But since then, I’ve nearly fallen into a bottomless abyss. I’ve been cut open, lashed to a wheel and threatened, almost killed. I almost died just minutes ago, dissolved in a pool of acid.
And, when viewed from this side of that divide, the goings-on at this table don’t seem so sordid. No, this is a celebration. Not only of having eluded death for this long, but of having been born in the first place.
I feel it. Its significance echoes in my core.
Calen undoes his trousers, pulls them down. My hands clamp around the arms of my chair as I watch him line himself up, watch his body disappear into his mate’s. A growl of satisfaction rolls from his throat while incoherent noises burst from Ravenna’s lips.
My focus slides to Amriel again, who watches me from beneath heavy lashes. Bodies gyrate between us, cries of pleasure heating the air, which only stokes my inner fire. Pure want pours through me, laying claim to every breath, every heartbeat, every brush of leather against my skin.
Goddess, this is overwhelming, and untamed, and somehow absolutely glorious. It’s so many things I’ve never realized. So many things I’ve never given myself room to consider.
Ravenna’s hips lift with every stroke. Calen takes her hard, his thrusts shaking the table, while the other fae find pleasure with their neighbors. Another bonded couple at the far end uses their goblin forms, too, their sounds of ecstasy tangling with snarls.
Amriel’s chest rises and falls as he watches me watch everyone else. Watch him. I feel his attention like a caress, slipping over my mouth, my neck, my breasts. When he licks his lips, I swallow a gasp, need flushing hot through my veins.
Ishanna help me, but I’m still hungry. Hungrier than I’ve ever been.
Ravenna’s cries reach a pinnacle, her claws digging furrows into the wood. I push back my chair and rise, not sure what I intend to do, only that I can’t sit still a moment longer.
And if I don’t leave, I’m going to do something stupid. Like climb across the table and offer Amriel his first taste of dessert in a century.
Even as I think it, my foot edges forward, takes that first step.
I resist. I wrench myself backward using every ounce of strength I have.
I need to go, away from here. I need to take a bath. I need to soak until this thirst ebbs from my blood. I need, I need, I need…
Goddess, I just need. So intensely I can’t stay here another moment.
I back away. Amriel’s eyes follow my retreat, his gaze carving a sizzling path across the room. I escape it by ducking into the stairwell and pressing my back against the stone, my breath heaving. But the touch of his eyes still lingers, tingling along my lips, my neck.
Leaving it behind is torture. But I know what will happen if I don’t.
I gather a deep breath and race upstairs to my room, where I shuck off my leather clothes. My skin feels too tight, my movements frenzied as I pick apart my braids and sink into the welcoming heat of the bath.
Which doesn’t help as much as I want it to. No matter how many times I wash my hair, no matter how briskly I scrub at myself, I can’t scour away the heat Amriel has somehow branded across my skin.
Eventually, my willpower buckles. I lean back in the tub, my head settling against the rim, my lashes finding my cheeks. My hand skims down my body, following the valley between my breasts to my navel, then further.
I pretend. I imagine this is Amriel’s hand, feathering over my belly, forging a path between my legs, finding the pleasure spot between.
Oh, goddess. My spine arches, water lapping at my shoulders as I trace tightening circles. I’ve done this before, at home, in the dark, when the urges of my body have overwhelmed me. But this isn’t like that. This time, golden eyes sear into me, somehow imprinted on the backs of my eyelids.
My muscles ravel tight. My pulse shortens, rises, cresting in my throat as—
A knock on my door shatters the moment. My eyes fly open, my thoughts bursting apart, my hand retreating from between my legs.
The door handle squeaks, begins to turn.
Oh. Oh, no. Did I lock it? I don’t think so, as desperate as I was.
I scramble out of the tub, glowing water sloshing across the floor as I find my velvet dressing gown and yank it around my sopping shoulders. And only just in time, because the door swings open, Amriel’s silhouette filling the frame.
I stand frozen, my heart taking a flying leap into the back of my mouth.
The fae king steps into my room, his wineglass dangling from his hand. He closes us in without asking, flipping the lock behind him.
“Hello, Princess. I’ve been waiting for you.” A pause. Then a chuckle, stitched together from gravel and smoke and arrogance. “I think maybe you’ve been waiting for me, too.”