Her eyes narrowed, but she nodded, and I let myself down hand over hand, into the darkness. I waved at the flame, beckoning it closer.
It didn’t move. I heard a short giggle from above. “It likes me.”
“That’s great,” I lied. “Can you come closer?” The boards she stood on creaked, and I yelled, “Bad idea, step back!”Cursing, I lowered myself to my hands and knees and felt around in the darkness. The ground was a foul mixture of clay, mud, and something stickier that I hoped was mud and not sewage. After a few minutes, I complained, “I can’t see.”
“I guess I’ll hold the light,” Ratter said as she lowered herself down, the flame dancing around her hair. Her feet touched theground, and she let go of the rope, stepping toward me. “There it is!” She pointed over my shoulder and went to move past me, but her shoe slid in a small pile of mud.“Shit!”
“It may well be,” I agreed as she fell on her backside in front of me. “I’m not sure there is a tub big enough for the bath we’ll need after this.”
“Queen Vali has a tub that fits two, maybe more,” Ratter replied absently, then bit her lip. “Rigol had to make it long enough for an Alpha and…”
I shifted, my cock liking the idea of filling that tub with Ratter, and being the one to clean her very, very thoroughly. First with soap and water, then soft cloths, then with my tongue. Unconsciously, I leaned toward her, and she reclined on her elbows, her eyes wide as I stared down into her beautiful face.
The cellar filled with my scent, fire and copper, but when I took a breath, all I could smell was mint and rain. “That’s big. I’ve never seen a tub that large,” I heard myself saying, like an idiot. “It really fits two? An Alpha… and an Omega?”
“I would think so,” she whispered. The flame had risen to the top of the hole, and the light played over our faces as we breathed in the increasingly strong scents—not from the cellar, but from ourselves. Our natures.
“We should… We should go,” she said, breathlessly. “Solstice is almost over. I have to leave.”
“I want to kiss you,” I replied quietly, my need to touch her almost overwhelming. “I want it more than anything. But I never should have tried to coerce you to give me one.”
“It would be my first,” she mumbled. “First kisses oughta be gifts, right?”
Her first? I felt a rumbling growl start up deep inside, as the need to be her first—not just kiss, but her firsteverything—washed over me. But I knew I didn’t deserve any of her firsts. When the sun rose, I was going to leave Rimholt. I wouldtravel back to Pict, and face my masters. They would most likely torture me, as the flame I’d called would have shared everything it witnessed with the order who served at the Alldyns Vug. They would cast me into the maw, if I was lucky, feed me to my god before I could betray every secret about this fierce, dangerous young Omega.
I would do everything I could to protect her. I inhaled another deep breath of her scent. It made me feel alive in a way I had never been before. It smelled like spring and hope… and I had no business sullying her with the dark ash that coated my soul.
I had to let her go. I was about to move away when her tongue darted out, swiping over her lips, and she rose up, closing the distance between us.
“Happy Solstice,” she murmured as her lips met mine.
RATTER
As first kisses went, I had a feeling this one was pretty spectacular. It was memorable, anyway.
The location wasn’t great, but Serak’s scent and mine had mixed together to make it feel like we were in some magical cave, scented with exotic perfumes. The actual magical flame that had been dancing overhead for the past few minutes, like it was excited to see what came next, gave an odd, almost eerie red glow to Serak’s features as I pressed my lips to his.
He hummed slightly as I explored the softness of his mouth with mine, until I dared to taste him. Then, he leaned in, opening his mouth, and returned the kiss.
Except it became something more than a kiss then. His hands found my arms and slid up to the tops of my shoulders, his head tilted to one side so he could get closer, and his tongue…Oh, my.It felt a little like sparks were moving from my mouth to his as he deepened the kiss. The sparks traveled inside me, moving from my mouth into all the other parts that began to wake up and… pulse. Sharp tingles began at my breasts, moving down my spine to my center, where the heat pooled. It felt like some creature inside me, a sleeping dragon or something, was opening her eyelids, and unfurling her wings.
Shivers and waves of heat assaulted me at once, all of it stemming from Serak’s mouth on mine.
Holy shit.So this was what the big deal about kissing was. “Wow,” I mumbled into his mouth.
He chuckled, but the sound was slightly pained. “Was it a good first kiss?”
I’d had more than one boy—and sometimes men—attempt to steal kisses over the past few years. All of those idiots had ended up wondering a few things.
Like where all the blood was coming from, or why their guts were outside their bodies, or who had snuffed out the candles.
“Not sure. What if that was just a mediocre one? What if they get better? Better check.” I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and went in for a second time.It was every bit as good, but this time, my own hands mapped his shoulders and arms. I pushed his shirt down, exposing the bandaged spot on his shoulder. “I’m sorry I stabbed you.”
“I’m not. I’d rather be stabbed by you than held, or kissed, by anyone else. “
He hadn’t said anything about this being his first kiss, and from his expertise, it wasn’t anywhere close to it. The thought of his lips on someone else enraged me, though. “Stop talking,” I snarled, nipping at his full lower lip. “At least stop talking about kissing other women.”
“What other women?”
