Chapter Forty-One #2
“I felt you.” The demon spoke quietly, though with each silky word his intensity rose.
“The night I lay with Melisandre, I felt your desire. The curiosity you’ve long had to keep buried.
And again in the pleasure den, you wanted a taste of it all.
” He had the fingers of a musician, slender and delicate as they curled beneath her chin and snatched her breath.
His eyes roved lazily over her figure before peeling back to her face, and Aurelie’s skin burned beneath their heat.
“Touch him,” the vespers urged, their words like a pulse to her blood. “You want to, so do it. Touch him.”
“The angels have kept you repressed,” Severin said.
“They’ve lied to you all, claiming it’s a sin to act on the things that you crave.
On the impulses, the desires. But why? Why is it wrong?
They want so badly to control you, to mold you.
But who are you hurting? Who am I hurting, just by existing? ”
His breath was hot on her lips as he leaned in. “Tell me you don’t want to see what it’s like to ignore them.”
You want it, a voice said. You know you do.
Were those her thoughts, or was that the vespers talking? Either way, a deep and aching want stirred in her lower belly.
The demon spoke true.
She did want to know what it felt like to be touched. To be craved.
Was that really so wrong? Was the sheer act of having those desires so horrible that, after all the good she’d done, the Divine would turn their backs on her?
She should have pulled away when Severin closed the space between them. Should have turned and shoved him off as his lips captured hers.
Instead, Aurelie drank him in.
The kiss burned through her like the heat of a forge, melting her body against his. She felt the wild hunger set aflame within him. Felt his satisfaction when she didn’t turn away, but instead surrendered.
Severin’s hands bracketed her waist as though daring her to stop him. He kissed her with the certainty of a man who knew he would not be denied, and Aurelie despised that he was right. Despised how much she liked it.
For years she had kept herself in line, smothering every errant thought, every flicker of desire before it could take root. But Severin had a way of carving straight through her defenses and unearthing the hunger she’d never allowed herself to name.
His teeth grazed her lower lip, and a shudder ran through her. Every inch of her skin ached with desire as his hand slipped beneath her dress, trailing along the length of her thigh as he hiked it up. He took his time, savoring the moment.
Savoring her.
The Nyxaris still swarmed above them, squealing their delight as they bathed the two in scarlet light.
Aurelie no longer paid attention to their words.
Her breath hitched as Severin deepened the kiss, his tongue sweeping against hers in a slow, devastating stroke.
A soft moan escaped her, and his grip tightened.
He liked that. She could feel it not only through the bond, but in the way his hands traced the shape of her. In the deep, satisfied rumble that vibrated against her lips.
Severin’s body was suddenly over hers, his knee between her legs as one hand braced himself up, the other caressing her face. He was entirely unhurried as his fingers brushed down her cheek to tangle into her hair, pleasure rippling through him every time he drew soft sounds from her lips.
And though Aurelie knew with everything in her that she should end this, she was too far lost in his touch, her body on fire beneath his. She pressed herself against him as she felt his hardness against her thigh.
She wanted to feel him. Wanted to know every inch.
Severin reached for the hem of her dress, easing it up.
He wasn’t fast enough. Aurelie wanted out of the clothing. Wanted to trace every line of his body, and feel him as he—
“Get off her.”
It took too long for Aurelie to realize that the voice didn’t belong to Severin.
Rage burned through her bond, and she broke the kiss with a sudden gasp, snapping to her senses as Yuri stood over them.
Vex, too, hovered just beside him. The vesper covered her mouth with both hands, looking thoroughly scandalized.
Severin didn’t move.
“Or else what?” The demon’s voice was as much of a purr then as it’d been before he’d kissed her, and shivers coursed up her spine. “Are you planning to fight me for her honor? Let the adults play, Pigeon. This has nothing to do with you.”
The words had barely left his mouth before Yuri grabbed Severin by his horns and hauled the demon off her.
Aurelie scurried upright, heat flaring in her chest and turning her skin pink.
“Yuri, please—” she started, but the angel wasn’t listening.
He was still clutching Severin by the horns, reeling the demon’s head back.
Severin snarled, but a second later those horns vanished so he could slip from the angel’s grasp.
Severin was tense with rage, and she knew it was taking everything in him not to charge at the angel. If not for the fact that every strike would hurt her, she was certain that the men would already be throwing punches.
As it was, the two stood there, locked in a silent battle of wills. Yuri’s chest rose and fell with measured breaths, his fists tight at his sides, knuckles white. Severin, on the other hand, was relaxed in the way only a demon could be, his smirk unfazed, eyes dancing with mirth.
“You don’t get to touch her like that,” Yuri said at last, trying to keep any bite from his voice. To remain in control.
“I don’t?” Severin cocked his head. “Whose rule is that? Surely it’s not Aurelie’s.” Severin was baiting him, and Yuri knew it. The angel’s wings flared in warning, but the fact that he couldn’t just ram a sword through Severin’s heart was eating at the angel.
“He didn’t force me to do anything, Yuri,” she admitted, despising how the truth had her stomach twisting on itself. How she felt as though she should be ashamed.
Yuri’s jaw flexed. “You’re playing a dangerous game, demon. Watch yourself.”
“Oh, you poor thing. Are you jealous?” Severin laughed, though there was no humor in it. Again Aurelie felt that same darkness surging within him. The same wrath that had made her so curious to begin with. “You’re everything I believed you’d be.”
The words slipped down Aurelie’s spine like ice. Never had she heard a voice so cold.
Yuri straightened, looking only briefly at Aurelie before his jaw ticked and he cast his gaze skyward.
She couldn’t decipher the mess of emotions roiling within him. There was frustration, rage, perhaps even pain …
“Yuri,” she started, but he turned from her.
“The sun will rise soon.” His voice was clipped, leaving no room for discussion. “Gather your things. I’m finding us a wagon, and we’re getting out of here.”