“I would still do it again, you know,” I told him, meeting his eyes as I felt pleasure prick and press into me. “I would still help free you from the Dead Mountain. Even knowing what would happen next. I wouldn’t change anything.”
His fingers stilled between my legs.
Horror. I felthorrorat the thought of the witches sacrificing this male. Of tying him down, of drawing his blood to keep him weak. Of taking a blade and…
I couldn’t avoid his kiss this time and I made a sound in surprise when he rose from the dais, his lips still attached to mine.
The drums didn’t falter. The dancers didn’t stop. The celebration continued even as he broke the kiss and descended the stairs, his steps heavy. He still carried me in his arms as he wove through the crowd. Hands of his horde pressed against us, Dakkari words I didn’t understand being lifted into the air.
Suddenly, hispyrokiwas there, led to us by the older male who’d took him earlier that night. Wrune placed me easily on his beast and swung up behind me. He didn’t spare the celebration another look as he urged hispyrokiinto a gallop.
My heart was in my throat. We were riding fast and hard. Wind slapped at my cheeks and blew back my hair and I’d never felt anything like it before. For a moment, it felt like I wasflying. Like I wasfree.
Then we were approaching a largevolikiat the back of the encampment. One I knew washis.
Wrune had me off hispyrokibefore we even stopped and then he was striding towards thevoliki. Smoke was drifting from the venting hole at the top.
Once inside, I was hit by the warmth and the dim, golden light. A small fire was flickering in the basin but that was all I saw, all I registered, before my back met soft furs.
I was on a bed. An actual bed, made high with supports underneath and furs as cushioning.
It smelled like him. Suddenly, he was everywhere, all around me. That wonderful masculine scent that reminded me ofhome.
Swallowing, I looked up at him from my position on his bed. He loomed at the foot of it and was shedding the strap of his sword, which was always positioned down his back. He leaned his sword against the bed, never taking his eyes off me.
The heavy plate of the gold necklace heaved with my breaths.
I wasn’t prepared when he reached down and unclasped it from around my neck, tossing it onto the floor like it was expendable. Next went my skirt. His claw ran through the waistband of it, cutting through the material with ease.
I didn’t make a sound when I suddenly found myself lying naked before him. Like a sacrifice on an altar.
Save for the golden collar around my neck, a collar I guessed helikedseeing, I was completely exposed to him.
And it wasn’t fear I felt.
I wasn’t afraid of this. Ofhim.
I felt determination. Like I needed to prove to myself that I could master him too. As easily as he mastered me. This was just another battle between us. One of many that would come.
Those red eyes flashed as they roved over my body. His nostrils flared. His knee hit the bed.
“Frightened,rei sarkia?” he rasped.
Since when hadsarkiastarted to sound like a purr instead of a curse on his lips?
“Not of you,” I told him.
His lips quirked, a dark little smile that sent my heart racing.
“You always surprise me,” he murmured. “Just when I think I have you figured out, you change everything.”
My lips parted and then I gasped when his head lowered. He crawled over me, planting his hands on either side of my waist. His lips pressed to my belly, dragging upwards. Goosebumps broke out over my flesh and I barely suppressed my violent shiver. He pressed kisses across my abdomen before moving to my breasts.
“And these,” he growled, one hand reaching forward to cup the weight of my left breast. “Vok, how my mouth has watered for these. Since I first saw you.”
A ragged cry burst from my lips when his head ducked again. That hot mouth found my breast, sucking and rolling my hardened nipple with a strong, seeking tongue. Licking at the gold I’d painted onto them earlier that evening. Wrune gently thrummed my other with his fingers, being mindful of his claws, and my back arched off the furs, pressing further into his mouth and touch.
I wanted to hold him there forever. I wanted his kiss there, hot and demanding, forever.
