Chapter Seventeen #3
My stomach drops straight to the floor as I stare at him.
Stare and stare and stare, unable to shift my eyes even as the rational part of my brain screams at me to look away.
Look anywhere else. Anywhere but at him.
But my body is not complying with my mind’s demands.
My heart is rampaging inside my chest, my core throbbing with a violent surge of pure desire.
It doesn’t matter that it was manufactured by Melité. It is there all the same, shimmering through my bloodstream. Surely Soren can see it written on my face as plainly as I see it on his. Mortification rises up, tangling with the coursing need within me.
Skies, make it stop.
Soren’s nostrils flare. A muscle jumps in his cheek as his jaw flexes. His throat works on a thick swallow as he speaks again. “I mean it, Melité. Quell it. Now.”
At his harsh order, the lust-drenched haze clears from the air. Melité is tamping down whatever power she exudes to inspire such animalistic attraction. All around, people are blinking at one another, looking dazed and disoriented as sanity returns. Pairs of lips part, hands cease their wanderings.
I jerk my eyes from Soren and direct them to my feet. My pulse is thready. My lungs scream for air. Squeezing my thighs together against the unabated throb, I take my first true breath in several moments. It does precious little to soothe the raw feelings within me.
The half-siren heaves a dramatic sigh. “Ever the spoilsport, brother.”
Her voice is just as melodic and enticing as one would expect.
There is a breathy quality to it that steals over my skin with impossibly corporeal weight.
Beside me, Yara shivers and stares hard at her boots.
Her breathing is as uneven as mine. Bretiax is gripping the stone rail so hard, her knuckles are white.
“If you care to spark an orgy, stick to the thermal baths and pleasure clubs,” Soren says, sounding like his fury is in jeopardy of escaping. “Do not use your siren song on the unwilling. Not unless you want me to ban you from public spaces.”
Melité comes to a stop a few feet from Soren’s barstool, skirts swishing around her shapely legs. “The unwilling? How absurd. I do not cause any harm, nor inflict any pain. I merely lower inhibitions. I liberate the chaste from their tedious shackles of convention.”
“Not all inhibitions are meant to be indulged.”
“That’s not the refrain you sing when you visit the pleasure clubs. Not according to my sources. I’ve heard you’ve quite the appetite…” She is practically purring. “You like to sample a wide variety of flavors. Isn’t that right, O mighty king?”
“Who I fuck is really none of your business, sister,” Soren snarls softly. “If you’ve a point to make, either make it or get out of my sight.”
An enticing laugh tinkles from her throat. “You were much more fun fifty years ago. When did you become so repressed?”
“What I am is tired, Melité. We have had this conversation too many times already.” His voice hardens to stone.
“I will not repeat myself again. Next time I witness you influencing my citizens into acts they do not have the cognizance to consent to, you will find yourself without a villa in the royal grounds. And not even Tethys will stand by you if you’re forced to return to that seaweed-covered cave your mother pushed you out in. ”
Fury flashes over her face. Her eyes turn completely black, the whites around her irises swallowed by ink. But her voice reveals not an iota of her rage as she says, “Fine. I’ll behave…for tonight.”
Leaving those rather threatening words in the air, she makes her way to the opposite end of the veranda. I quickly lose sight of her in the crowd.
Yara blows out a breath. “Fuck, I need another drink. You want one?”
She doesn’t wait for me to answer, merely starts walking toward the bar with Bretiax.
I follow in their wake, cutting through the thick crowd, winding around the mismatched hodgepodge of tables and chairs strewn about.
The atmosphere slowly comes back to life, conversation restarting in lurches and lulls as the moment of Melité’s influence passes.
By the time we reach the bar, it is as though nothing happened.
“Titan gin, and make it a double,” Yara instructs the barkeep, squeezing in between two other Paexyrian who are nursing frothy pints of Daggerpoint lager.
I know their names are Harpina and Thisobei, though we have not yet been introduced.
Harpina has pale freckled skin and honey-hued locks that hang to her chin; Thisobei’s hair is so close-cropped she is nearly bald, and she sports a perpetually impish grin.
Yara glances over her shoulder at me, brows arched. “Another round?”
“She’s had enough,” Soren cuts in before I can say a word.
I spin around as he comes to a stop before me. He is standing close—it is quite crowded by the bar—and does not move away, even when I tip my head back to glare at him.
“Have I?”
He leans forward into my space, not stopping until his mouth is at my ear.
His hushed words are for me alone. “If you want another drink, that’s your prerogative.
But Titan gin is three times the strength of that mulled wine you’ve been nursing for the past two hours.
The Paexyrian may guzzle it like water, but if you plan to make the climb back down the ladder to the canals, I suggest you quit while you’re ahead.
” He pulls back a few inches—just enough to align our faces, so his eyes stare directly into mine.
“Unless you’d like me to carry you back to my villa. ”
My teeth grit. “That will not be necessary.”
His smirk is there and gone, disappearing in the time it takes him to straighten back to full height. I look at Yara and shake my head. She rolls her eyes knowingly, then turns to chat with Bretiax, Harpina, and Thisobei.
Soren hasn’t moved. His arms are crossed over his chest as he stares down at me. A lock of dark, lush hair is falling across his forehead. I have the strangest urge to push it back for him.
“You look like you’re about to fall over,” he informs me, voice blunt.
The urge fades instantly.
My reply is acerbic. “Such flattery! I may swoon.”
“I just meant…” He pinches the bridge of his nose, an uncharacteristic display of unease. “Look, if you want to drown your sorrows, that’s fine. All I ask is that you wait until you’re back on solid ground.”
“Who says I’m drowning my sorrows?”
The awareness in his gaze sets my teeth on edge. “What happened earlier, with the cannon…”
I flinch at the soft compassion in his tone.
His flippancy is easier to withstand. “I don’t want to talk about it.
I don’t even want to think about it,” I whisper quickly, before he can say anything else.
My words pour out faster as the feelings I’ve spent the past few hours suppressing bubble to the surface.
“Right now I just…I want to forget. I need to forget, Soren. Because if I think about it for too long I might—I might start to—”
“Rhya.”
My heart stumbles. “Y-yes?”
“I have been around for two centuries. I am an expert at forgetting. But…” His eyes striate like stars. “There are better ways of distracting your mind than dulling it with drink. More…pleasurable…options for untangling that knot of tension inside you.”
What sort of ways?
One part of me wants to ask; the other part is wise enough to keep silent. No verbal response feels entirely safe at this moment. My emotions are frazzled from Melité’s thrall, my body not fully back in my control. My whole frame is strung tight.
His tone turns to gravel. “Would you like me to show you?”
My lips part, but no sound escapes.
Soren does not seem to be breathing. He is perilously still, awaiting my answer. Only his gaze shifts—dropping down to watch my throat as I swallow against the thick lump lodged inside it. My skin tingles under the weight of his heated stare. He’s never looked at me that way before.
The cursed siren song!
Clearly, its effects have not yet waned.
“Oi! Rhya!”
When Yara calls my name, I whirl toward her so fast I nearly snap my own neck. I could not be more grateful to see her flaming red hair and sly grin in the shadows.
I force a light tone. “You bellowed?”
“Bre and I are going down to the Kettle after this round.” She gestures toward the other Paexyrian. “It’s low tide. A perfect night for it. You should come with us.”
I’ve never been to the Kettle. I’m not entirely sure I even know what the Kettle is. But right now I am willing to overlook that fact if it means a change of scenery from the strange air in this bar.
“Sure,” I tell her thickly. “Count me in.”
“Arwen?” Yara leans forward to meet her flight leader’s eyes three stools down. “What about you?”
Arwen does not even break eye contact with Alaric. Their mouths are so close, they share each breath as she murmurs a suggestive, “We have other plans.”
“I’ll bet you do,” Yara snorts. Then, she raises her Titan gin into the air, a silent toast to the couple who are now sharing more than mere air, their lips fused together in a kiss so passionate it makes me avert my eyes and breathe deeply.
Looking away does nothing to soothe me. My bloodstream is still churning with untapped lust. Pulses of pure desire spike straight through my center, demanding release now, this instant.
I have to get out of here.
Soren is a silent shadow at my back. I steady both my shoulders and my voice before I glance up at him. In the fading twilight, his face is carefully blank, but his eyes are active as they scan back and forth across my features. I hope like hell he is not reading my emotions in this moment.
“What?” I ask under my breath. “Do you have some objection to me going?”
“Not at all. I just want to make sure you’re prepared for an evening at the Kettle.”
“Whatever it is, I’m sure I can handle myself.”
One brow arches. “I’m sure you can, skylark.”
I do not care for the mocking note in his voice. My spine stiffens. “No one said you had to come. I do not require constant supervision.”
“And miss seeing your reaction to one of Hylios’s chief attractions?” He leans in a shade, stare never leaving mine. “Not a chance.”