Chapter Thirty-Four #2
There was barely time to brace herself for the scene that unfolded, as decadent as it was depraved. Everywhere she looked bodies moved together, the air thick with pants and cries that made her skin prickle and something low in her belly pitch.
A lustborn’s half-lidded eyes lifted to Aurelie. She smiled, slow and dreamy. “Stick around,” the demon purred, “and we’ll take care of you next.”
Aurelie nearly choked.
A demon in a black silk gown drifted toward her with a tray of drinks. The liquid inside shimmered with a soft blush glow, its color like a captured sunset. Aurelie accepted one with stiff fingers, unsettled by the widening of the demon’s grin.
“It’s an aphrodisiac,” Severin clarified as he guided her away, his voice brushing across her ear like silk.
She grimaced, looking for somewhere to set it down when Severin stopped her with a squeeze of his hand. “You should drink it. Right now, you’re acting like prey. You’re never going to blend in if you look scandalized every time I touch you.”
Her fingers curled around the glass, squeezing so hard it was a wonder the drink didn’t shatter.
“We’re bonded,” he said, lowering his head so only she could hear. “Whatever happens, you and I are in this together. I promise I’ll take care of you.”
That was, at least in part, what she was afraid of.
The glass felt heavier than it should. Aurelie swirled it once, her fingers drawing in around the delicate stem.
This was a mistake. She knew it was. And yet …
Even as she tried to keep her guard up, something in her yearned for the drink. The den was indulgence given shape, and for all her discipline—for all her careful training—Aurelie felt desire tug at her. Felt the way her pulse thrummed just a beat too fast in anticipation.
“Very well.” She lifted the glass. “Just don’t let me do anything I’ll regret.”
“By whose standards? Mine or yours?”
She glared at him, but tipped her head back and drained the flute dry before she could change her mind.
At first, she couldn’t be certain it had any effect. There was no dizzying rush or a blaze of heat surging through her limbs. She felt only a coolness in her stomach, hollow and strange.
“I don’t think it did anything,” Aurelie said, though she regretted the words a second later when Severin spoke.
“Don’t worry.” The huskiness of his laugh struck her body like lightning. “I’m sure it’s working.”
Her skin prickled as he led her upstairs, through silk-draped halls that shimmered like a half-remembered dream. Doorways parted like petals as they passed, revealing glimpses of tangled limbs, skin gilded by candlelight, bodies moving in slow, honeyed rhythms.
Through a veil of sheer fabric, two lustborn women lay intertwined, sighing pleasure into each other’s mouths. A man stood watching them, tunic askew, his eyes glazed with hunger. His hand moved between his legs, pumping himself as he drew out his pleasure in time with theirs.
Aurelie knew she should look away. She wanted to. And yet she lingered, her breath shallow, ensnared by the sway of bodies and the sounds of pleasure that spilled through the air.
Severin pressed her into the shadowed alcove of the hallway’s farthest corner, positioning her so that they had a full view of the main floor. Her back hit the wall with a thrum, his body caging hers.
“Keep an eye out,” he said, and Light, was it a struggle to stay focused.
Had his scent always been so intoxicating? And what about his shoulders? She had a sudden urge to reach around him and discover whether they were as strong as they looked.
Aurelie whimpered, her eyes nearly rolling back at the feeling of Severin’s breath against her ear. She wet her lips, trying to fight the desire, but a question slipped free before she could catch it. “Is demon anatomy always the same as human?”
Another one of Severin’s laughs rasped across her skin, this time making her toes curl. His lips ghosted across the hollow of her collarbone. She’d never felt anything as incredible. “Mostly. But in all the ways that matter, demons are far more satisfying.”
He pressed into her, and Aurelie thought he might feel her heartbeat pounding beneath the thin slip of fabric between them.
Light help her, she felt like she was drowning in her clothing, barely aware of any reason why she shouldn’t peel it off then and there to see where along her skin his lips felt best.
“You’re welcome to see for yourself, if you’d like,” he teased, smirking when she pressed her hands against his chest and stroked curiously down the planes of his body.
Every muscle flexed beneath her touch, and she had a strange thought that something powerful lay coiled beneath his skin, waiting to be released.
Her hands ventured lower, to his abs, the line of his hips. When they ventured toward his waistband, Severin stilled her.
“My offer still stands,” he whispered. “But not here, Badger. I don’t take partners who have no control over themselves, and I certainly don’t share.”
She shivered, though whether it was from frustration or relief, Aurelie couldn’t tell. His lips teased her skin, unhurried as his hands dragged down her arms, then over her chest. He was indulging in this moment, savoring her like fine wine. And Aurelie was letting him.
Oh, was she letting him.
Heat coiled through her, winding around every nerve. Every brush of his fingers left her burning, aching, and still he kept just enough distance to drive her wild.
He lowered himself to his knees, and Aurelie barely bit back a cry as his lips brushed across the sensitive skin of her thigh. Her breath stuttered, heart slamming against her ribs.
She wanted him to touch her. Needed him to.
Or at least she thought she did. Could that really be the drink talking?
“Do you see anything?” he asked, but all she could focus on was the press of his breath against her leg and the way his fingers traced higher up her thigh.
Aurelie’s head lolled back against the wall, a frustrated whimper slipping free. “N-not yet.”
He chuckled, the vibration of it sinking deep into her bones.
“Does it unsettle you, to have a demon be the first to touch you here?” His fingers skimmed higher, tracing patterns along her skin.
“I could scent your desire the moment we walked through the door. The drink just gave you permission to act on it.”
She despised how right he was, though she couldn’t refute it. Severin watched as if learning her, memorizing the way she unraveled beneath him, each beat of hesitation, every sharp inhale, every tremor where his touch lingered.
She turned her head sharply, trying to ground herself in something beyond the fire licking through her veins. Her gaze lowered to the den, past the writhing bodies, catching on something that sent a cold shock through her system.
A birdcage.