24
Iblinked.
Cheek mashed against slick, damp wood, breath ragged and shallow. Ears ringing with the howling of my blood as it surged through my veins. Running thick enough with insidious magic that I could hear the echos of the endless war raging between both sides of the coin.
A battle almost won.
One I couldn’t endure again, not without a weapon to give me an edge against the most powerful man on this side of the veil.
But there was a moment of calm. An instant of peace where I was left stained and forgotten. No more consequential than the spoils of war. Defeated, already tasted… but not quite devoured.
And so I watched, trembling beneath him as the searing crackle of his energy turned in once more.
Any notion of rebuilding the wall between us long abandoned, I felt it when a more worthy opponent surfaced. That the man strained to reclaim his iron-fisted control over the beast. That even now—as he panted against my ear, still locked as deep inside me as he could get—he fought the urge to begin anew. To rut at my back until the possessive flames finally guttered out, or he died trying to crack through the golden cast guarding my womb, so his child might—
A tiny, hiccuping sob spilled over my lips.
And in a rush, I understood his purpose in a way not obvious in the heat of the moment, for my head was a wasteland of chaotic, jumbled thoughts not my own. All except one.
Escape.
Fingers curled into claws, I moved to seize that narrow window while his attention was turned in,away. Dragging myself out from under him, I claimed one step.
Mindlessly possessive, he snarled and drove back inside. Hips bucking against my ass, teeth fluttering at my shoulder.
Frozen, breath caught, I waited for the next fragile moment. A splintered instant that offered me the chance to slide off his cock. Uncoupled in a gush of cream that flooded my thighs in a lewd river of liquid shame, I fought not to moan at every second of friction. Hyper sensitive, swollen to bursting with the berserker’s magic, slicked by a torrent of his sperm, I nearly pushed back. Nearly impaled myself once more, before I caught that impulse between my molars and crushed it with a whine of cracking enamel.
A rattling breath ghosted against the cheek of my ass, snagging on the fabric of my rumpled silks as I left him to his inner war. The stubble of his beard rasping at skin made tender by desperate, clutching fingers as I stole another step. Inching away.
Sucking my bottom lip between pointed canines, I bit down until I tasted the coppery tang of blood. Latching onto the nip of pain, trying to find my center, I claimed another step.
And then another.
And twelve more after that.
Forging ahead on hands and knees, I climbed. Each millimeter I could put between us was precious. Each moment of dragging silks, bruised knees, stinging palms, and ragged breath not fogged by his influence was another all to myself.
Sweating freely, I claimed the landing with a little flutter of victory as I pulled myself up. Swaying as I stood, I glanced back. Down…
… and nearly feel into icy chips of glittering obsidian.
He was watching.
Theywere watching.
Frozen in place as he fought to master himself, right hand planted in the middle of one step. The other clinging to the railing spindles, he was hunched as if still covering my back, his brow damp and glistening. Lips parted, cheeks flushed, his formal blacks were rumpled and disheveled.
My throat flexed, and as if unable to stop myself, my eyes ticked down. To where his shirt was untucked. Down to the spot where his pants sagged around an open fly. Where he hung heavy. Angry and unspent.Exposed. A rope of pearly glaze strung between his swollen tip and the step he’d fucked me into.
I staggered back from the edge.
But my wrists and throat did not burn with the searing lash of forced obedience that would put an end to my flight before it had even begun.
He didn’t so much as levy a single tingling, golden threat in my direction.
He smiled.
Because hewantedme to fight. To run, just so he might chase. So he could conquer what should have been impossible to invade, and continue to feast on the spoils of war. Drunk on the fumes of uncontested victory.
