Suddenly, Vale pulled back, breathing hard. “You have no pollen in you. It would have bloomed in your blood again. It must have left you while you were healing.”
“Oh,” Ivy said, oddly disappointed. “I still want you. Is that… okay?”
Vale laughed and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “It will be good to mate you without the threat of your potential death. Will you still beg for me so sweetly?”
Ivy flushed. He licked her red cheek, then slipped his tongue into her mouth. Lightly at first, then deeper and deeper. Ivy opened obediently for him, heat pooling between her legs as he fucked his tongue further inside her mouth.
Finally, his tongue bumped the back of her throat. Ivy braced herself to gag. But her throat didn’t reject him. If anything, it opened up—welcoming him in.
Ivy made a shocked noise, pushing at his chest.
Vale pulled his tongue out of her throat with a slickpop. He furled it back into his mouth, and Ivy shivered with want as she realized that it was slick with her own saliva.
“It must have worked,” Vale said.
“What?” Ivy asked. Then another memory hit her, and she gasped. “The spell! You went to your brother?”
“I did.”
“How does it work? Will I just…?” Ivy touched her throat. She had never managed to fit any man down her throat before, but her few attempts had left her drinking hot lemon water afterward. Her throat felt like it had nothing in it at all, let alone a Skullstalker’s giant tongue less than a minute ago.
“I do not know,” Vale admitted, his gaze trained hungrily on her. “Let us find out.”
Thirteen
Ivy lay down in the nest, shivering with delight as Vale ran his hands over her dress.
It was actually very enjoyable to do this without the pollen. Before, she had been crazed with desire. Which was fun, but there was something wonderful about being able to luxuriate in his touch. His big, gentle hands stroking over her gauzy dress… His claws retracting as they slowly pushed the fabric up over her legs… His scarred fingers stroking her thighs…
Ivy frowned. Scarred fingers?
She sat up. Vale’s hands were covered in healing burns.
“What happened to your hands?” Ivy asked, bewildered. Then she gasped, remembering the arrow he’d caught in midair. “The malblossom! Does the soothepine not work on burns?”
“It works on any wound,” Vale said.
Ivy touched the back of his scarred palm. “Then why didn’t you heal them?”
“I was busy,” Vale said simply.
Ivy welled up again. She wiped her puffy cheeks, determined not to cry again. Then Vale ran his thumbs over her nipples, and Ivy let herself get lost in her growing arousal.
Vale nuzzled her thigh, where he’d pushed her dress up almost enough to expose her.
“Your scent drives me to distraction,” he growled. “Every time the pollen began and your desire hung thick in the air, I was hardly able to keep working. Butyoukept working. You would squirm and pant and sweat. It would be all I could do not to pin you against the dirt and rut you until you screamed. You wanted to prove yourself to me. That you were worth keeping. Even when you thought I would be hauled out in a month.”
Ivy averted her eyes. He grabbed her chin, forcing her to look down at him again.
“You did well,” he said. “You are a good assistant.”
Ivy smiled, stupidly proud. “You still want me as an assistant?”
Vale hesitated. His tail flicked behind him, then lowered to curl around her exposed ankle.
“You are more than that,” he said. He didn’t sound entirely happy about it.
Before Ivy could think why, Vale sat up, looming over her.
