Vok, I wanted to taste her lips.
And I can, I reminded myself, my blood pulsing and hot at the thought.I will.
Threading my fingers into her hair at the nape of her neck, I pulled her closer and dropped my head.
Her surprised exhale whispered across my lips, small and hot. I stopped before our lips touched.
“You are the one who owes me the kiss,kalles,” I purred, feeling my bottom lip brush her top one, and I felt that contact all the way down to my cock.
Her solemn, wide eyes were dark. I felt her heartbeat thrumming between us. Underneath my thumb, I felt a vein in her neck throb wildly.
I saw when her mind was made up. She leaned forward and pressed a chaste, short kiss to my lips before trying to pull away.
A dark grin curled my lips but I kept her in place, dragging her forward when she tried to retreat.
“Nice try, Nelle.”
Her eyes widened when I took what I wanted from her,howI wanted from her.
I kissed her. Hard yet gentle, slow, and consuming. My hand tightened in her hair, my amusement dying quickly as realization and lust took its place. Just like last night, holding her in my arms,thisfelt right. Fated. A deep growl rose in my throat.
Her lips were as soft and sweet as they looked and I felt her shuddering sigh between us as a shiver racked her body. I groaned, pressing closer, pressinghercloser. I could never be close enough. Her heart raced under my fingertips but I was certain the pace of my own matched hers.
She pulled away after another moment. Too soon, but I let her retreat. Placing a palm on my chest, she used me to steady herself. Her eyes were half-lidded and wild, her lips red.
Her expression was slightly frightened, as if she wasnowjust realizing that she wasn’t nearly as immune to me as she first believed.
But we’d made a deal. She’d held up her end of the negotiation. I would hold up mine.
“Seerin,” I murmured softly to her. Under a dark sky and in the quietness of that cold night, I told her my name, which I had not spoken in a long time.
Her eyes were capturing my soul even then, the little demon that she was. How much of it had she taken already?
I rasped, my voice dark and low, “My name is Seerin of Rath Tuviri.”
Chapter Seventeen
Throughout the quiet night, I slept restlessly beside the demon king. My dreams were filled of strange things, of warped memories, and when I woke, I was sweating and a throbbing, dull pain was radiating from below my abdomen.
The demon king was still in bed when I came awake.
Seerin, I corrected myself quietly. Seerin of Rath Tuviri, whose kiss made the whole night sky spin.
I let out a small breath when I cramped and breathed through it. I hadn’t missedthiswhen I’d stopped bleeding, but now I remembered the pain well.
“What is it,thissie?” came his husky, sleep-roughened voice.
“Nothing,” I replied, not daring to meet his eyes. Something had changed last night. A line had been crossed that I couldn’t come back from.
I wantedmore. I wanted to run. Whatever happened last night, I had the strange sense that it was only a matter of time…
Before what though?
I didn’t know. Yet time ticked by in my head regardless.
I sensed him shifting in the bed, moving furs. When his hand tilted my face up, his eyes narrowed on me, his features sharpening.
“You are in pain?” he asked, his voice losing its drowsy edge. “Where? I will call the healer.”
