Chapter Thirteen
Tovi
Rivets of red twisted down the drain as Tovi scrubbed the paint from her hands. Inside the shower, steam smelling of wildflowers and her thunderous thoughts engulfed her.
With no other choice, Tovi’d retired to Lār as a respected guest.
She lay her hands on the stoned wall, allowing the water to rain over her hair and back. The waterfall drowned out the noise. Her nerves, too. But the scorching temperature was nothing compared to the anger heating her blood.
The closer she came to grasping the title she needed to save her people, the more the freedom she’d fought for slipped from her grasp. Nothing—no move, no decision—was made out of want but instead, necessity.
Saving Sven and his family.
Retreating from Drystan.
Allying with the werewolves.
And now, more recently, staying inside Lār.
Of course, Tovi didn’t deny the safety of the fortress.
She was no use to her people dead because werewolves who hated vampyrs killed her in the village.
No—it was the risk within the fortress’s walls.
The temptation. Her heart ached, an invisible thread yanking her across the fortress as if her body felt Eldrick’s nearness.
It was as if fate leered in the corner, laughing.
Tovi sighed. Her choices lay weaved into a rug, and at any moment, fate threatened to pull it out from under her.
Because not only were her choices not of her own, but it also didn’t matter which way she leaned. Pain found her at every front.
With an agitated hiss, Tovi twisted the shower off, tiptoed into the bathroom hall and grasped a warm towel the servants had laid out.
Once wrapped, she pattered out into the main room, inhaling the scent of the roaring fireplace.
Logs groaned and split, and the dancing flame had her chest aching for Evelyn.
What she’d give to open a bottle of wine and discuss the day’s events with her best friend.
Luckily, there was wine already poured waiting on the nearest side table.
The suite stretched twenty yards. From the sleeping area with a bed covered in a dozen fur blankets, to the lounge with reading chairs and a desk under the largest window.
Snow fell in sheets, thousands of flurries shielding the village.
Tovi sipped her wine, water dripping from her soaked being, and molded the notes of violet and stone fruit on her tongue.
Tovi considered the suite cozy, a reprieve after a long day cleaning Lucy’s tavern, but her skin crawled with the familiarity of her home castle.
Dark stone had walled the darkest versions of herself, and after the curse infected Drystan, she’d ventured out to meet her people, those truly affected by the Blood Goddess’s wrath.
Outside the castle, she’d discovered herself and those she truly served.
Her stomach roiled. Was this what it meant to be a queen, locked away while enjoying finer things?
All for precedent and safety.
Because no matter what corner of the continent Tovi walked, there was an enemy. Vampyrs who served Riven, lords who detested the fact she was a woman, and werewolves who hated vampyrs.
Tovi rubbed her aching chest, kneading the various threads of worry tangled together.
If she turned north, they disputed her claim as queen because of what lay between her legs, and here, they snarled at what ran through her blood.
A curse. She’d helped set Evelyn free of her brother Riven, discovered the entire prophecy from her sister-in-law Opal, and promised to be an ally of the werewolves.
A question nagged in the back of her mind—did her efforts matter?
Because it seemed the rest of Sorin cared for her for simply what she was and not who.
A knock broke Tovi from her brooding. “Come in.”
She ran a brush through her hair, staring into the dancing flames. Boots tapped against the stone and scuffed to a halt.
“Moons,” a male voice she knew all too well hissed.
Tovi whirled, finding Eldrick standing steps away. Tension creased the lines of his gem eyes, and his jaw ticked. Goddess, she’d stepped into Lār an hour ago, and here they were, already ten feet from one another, alone for the first time since Eldrick had asked her to stay in the Drengr Village.
Shadows wavered on the walls, and fate cackled in the corner.
Eldrick exhaled, nostrils flaring as he moved farther into the space.
Tovi’s hackles rose, a foreign feeling swirling in her gut.
With her fangs and hidden talons, Tovi was the beast amongst others, but in the presence of Eldrick and the heat brimming between them, she stood the prey and he the predator.
Breathtaking, sharp, and with a stare screaming that he was ravenous.
Yet, he strode by her gaze. He deposited something onto the table near the wine and retreated to the fire.
The scent of sweet iron weaved with the burning wood, and the warmth of Tovi’s earlier shower dissipated from each of her limbs. She inhaled. Exhaled. Tried to still her racing heart.
“Is that…”
“Blood, yes.” Eldrick didn’t meet her stare as he barely peered over his shoulder, as if his back was a shield between them both. “I don’t know how it works. Didn’t know how much you’d need. But I recalled…” He swallowed, finally meeting her stare. “I know you like to lace your wine with blood.”
Tovi’s insides stretched and tightened. She opened and closed her mouth. There weren’t enough words or the right ones but—
“Thank you.”
Eldrick’s smile was almost a frown, etched with sadness. “How are things in Drystan?”
“Tense,” she said. “But we were able to get Sven and his family out of the castle.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Eldrick said.
Tovi managed a smile. “What of things here?”
Eldrick ran a hand through his hair. “Tense with news of the decree.”
Tovi reached for another glass, readying to pour a glass for Eldrick. “Will you stay?”
Eldrick stiffened, and Tovi winced at her word choice. Bloody hel. She didn’t bat an eye facing a demon. Didn’t balk from the word bloodsucker painted in bloodred. Faced her brother with blade in hand. But it was this male, showing her kindness, that threw her off.
“For a drink, I mean, to discuss . . .”
Eldrick turned, muscles of his shoulders, back, and arms cording with his controlled movements. His gaze locked onto her, pinning her in place.
“If I stay, it’ll be more than a drink, Tovi.”
“I know.”
Winds howled against the window, snowflakes clinking against the glass.
They were specs in their homeland, yet an infinite thread connected them.
Too expensive to outrun or ignore. And exhaustion gripped her bones.
Tovi’d tried to outrun this for weeks, but wanting him wasn’t the choice.
Her body and fate had decided that for her. As for the decision plaguing her heart?
She’d leave it for another day.
Eldrick’s emerald eyes dropped to her lips, and Tovi’s breath whooshed out of her. Images of her sucking, tasting, kissing him flashed through her mind. Days, weeks. That’s how long she’d gone without sedating her maddening want for him.
Sometimes, the minutes had ticked by. The hours had dragged. Restless nights where no matter the times she’d found released with her own fingers, she’d lay there panting, wishing Eldrick lay beside her.
His boots boomed against the stone floor as he reached her. Silence echoed like the thousands of words neither of them whispered. He brushed his hand over her whitened knuckles, still clutching her towel. Tovi didn’t break their stare as he eased each one of her fingers loose.
The towel dropped.
Tovi stood bare before Eldrick, and his darkened gaze drank her in with the same power as a lover’s caress.
“You’re so gods damn beautiful,” he breathed, running his fingers across her bare shoulders and down her arms. She gasped, and that invisible thread Tovi had ignored didn’t pull.
It snapped.
Eldrick’s lips crashed to hers, answering her plea in an instant.
Her cursed being ignited, sustenance finally quelling weeks’ worth of starvation.
Tovi moaned as Eldrick’s lips molded to hers.
She couldn’t get enough of him. Not his touch, taste, feel of him.
His hand grasped her neck, and as he tightened his grip, Eldrick spun her around, dragging her body flush against his.
Tovi’s chest rose and fell, the movement catching her attention.
Ahead, a full-length mirror leaned against the wall near the armoire, reflecting both of their breathless faces back at them.
With breasts peaked, her need pooling between her legs, Tovi leaned back into Eldrick’s mercy, and the slight smile tugging at the edge of his lips threatened the strength in her knees.
Eldrick nipped her ear, one hand still bracing her throat as the other dipped between her breasts, traveling down her taut abs, and stopping just above her wet sex.
He trailed kisses down her neck, whispering after each one. “Tell me you don’t want this.”
A kiss to her collarbone next. She hissed. Pink bloomed across her cheeks, and her lips parted, eyes wide as Eldrick’s stare didn’t break from hers in the mirror.
“Tell me you’re not soaking wet from me.”
Just as he said it, he glided two fingers through her folds. Tovi’s head fell back, but Eldrick tightened his grip, keeping her steady. There was no escaping the sight of them together, witnessing what they were doing—he was making her watch as she unraveled in his arms.
Yet, she couldn’t deny how right they looked. Together. Her grasping his arm, naked, whilst he was in control.
“Tell me you haven’t dreamed of my fingers here.”
Eldrick trailed his digits through her sex again, finding that bundle of nerves like he’d written the roadmap to her pleasure. A whimper broke from her as he drew circles over her clit. Slow, attentive. With little to no pressure at all. Perfect.
His gaze darkened even more, a growl rumbling through his chest and vibrating through her. Eldrick’s stiffening length pressed against her. And fuck.