“And if you don’t watch your step, you’ll be as cursed as the witch.” The ominous darkness that clings to Avian’s low-spoken warning crawls over my skin.
“The Night Witch is cursed?” It doesn’t occur to me that I’m still having this conversation while Roman snuggles me from behind like I’m the slut puppy’s favorite chew toy.
“She’s…exiled from hell.” Avian looks from Roman to me and then back again, and I can tell there’s so much more they can’t say. “That’s not the point. The point is, Roman’s going to stop playing hero before he gets his throat slit.”
“He wouldn’t kill me. He enjoys watching me suffer. But he’d gladly have you kill me just to watch you suffer. You gonna do that for your Prince? You gonna take my life?” Roman snaps back with cruelty cutting into his every word.
A scent of rage stings the air, and in a flash of dark magic, Avian’s chest collides with mine. His hand reaches high, and he grips the other man’s neck so fast I don’t realize what’s happened until Roman and myself are both pinned against the wall.
“Don’t talk to me like you talk to them. Don’t parade around your littleI don’t give a fuckattitude like you do for the rest of this kingdom.” Avian seethes the words out with his face just inches from mine, his anger breathing down Roman’s throat.
While I stand between the two men and try not to make a sound.
But I can’t help it.
I can’t fucking help the gasp that slides from my lips.
Because during the heat of their threats, both of the cocks grow hard against me. Roman’s presses along the curve of my ass while Avian’s thickness grinds into my stomach.
And yet neither of them acknowledges the lust I feel washing through all three of us with me at the center of it all like a boat caught within the reckless waves of a riptide. Drown me in these waters. Let me die here in the rushing current of these beautiful emotions.
Avian senses it first. I don’t know how. I’ll never understand his intuition.
His lips part, and then his head dips down, and he’s focused on me. His hand that’s not around Roman’s neck drops to my hip. A line forms between his dark brows as he seems to consider the way my skin feels beneath the back and forth drifting of his thumb.
Is he testing himself? Testing me? Or is he…trying to make some kind of decision?
Whatever it is, his mind seems to decide sooner rather than later.
Ever so slowly, he leans closer. His nose skims along mine as the warmth of his breath sears over my lips, and I breathe him in like all I want is a single taste. Our gazes lock. Our lips nearly brush. Our hearts pound as one.
And then he pauses.
He’s going to back away.
He’s going to run out of this room and away from me like they do time and time again.
Then he closes his eyes. And he presses his lips to mine with the sweetness he instills with every word he ever speaks. It’s a gentle caress of his mouth along mine. A fleeting soft kiss with more emotion than I’ve felt in all my life pressed into a span of less than a single minute.
He pulls away from me, but the space he allows between us is very little. His gaze lingers along my lips even though he cannot see them. And it’s then that his palm lifts, his fingertips skim the edge of my jaw, and he touches my features for the very first time.
I close my eyes just as I had when he kissed me. Somehow this feels wildly more intimate. It’s the lightest touch along my neck, my jaw, my lower lip and the bow just above. As if I’m a fragile, delicate flower, he brushes over the lines of my face. My lashes flutter as he takes me in little by little with a caress that makes me weak in the knees.
When he reaches my hair and his fingers slide in, he stops there.
He doesn’t look back up at me. He blinks over and over again as he looks down at the small space between us.
“The most beautifully pained woman in all the realms,” he whispers like an echo.
My heart pounds for more. I don’t know why.
I know I’m pretty.
But I need his response to that beauty. Did it live up? Were my looks something that was talked too highly of, and now after all this time, does it live up to the name of most beautiful woman in all the realms?
I cling to his silence.
His head lifts slowly. His lips hover over mine. And then he finally speaks. “The Goddess did bless you. With a beautiful, resilient soul that shines through without even looking at you, Cersia.”
