“I think maybe you don’t want to face what happened,” came Alaryk’s words. His fingers came beneath my chin, lifting my face up so I was forced to meet his eyes. “Afraid of what might happen tonight?”
A flash in my mind—Alaryk’s silver hair dipping, a warm tongue, seeking and soft, on my clit.
I sucked in a breath. “I’m recovered. So let’s go.”
Alaryk said nothing, only regarded me carefully.
When the silence stretched and he didn’t make to move, I narrowed my eyes. “This is what you want, isn’t it? This is what I’m here for. I’m offering to work with Samryn tonight. I’m giving you what you want. So why are you hesitating?”
Whatever was going on behind those eyes, I couldn’t be certain. But I had a feeling that Alaryk knewexactlywhat I was doing. Masking. Again. Bandaging something so tight, hoping I wouldn’t bleed out.
Hiding.
“Very well,” he said, eyes sharp. “I’ll summon Samryn.”
Out on the landing field, it was so dark and quiet, the slivering moon barely enough light to navigate the stone road weaving through the village. But Samryn was waiting for us, and for once, he didn’t huff at the mere sight of me.
“We can do it here,” I told Alaryk quietly. “There’s no reason to hide it anymore.”
“Amaia,” he said, grabbing my arm when I stepped past him, right over where Nevin had. I couldn’t hide my surprised wince, and he looked down, confused at first. At least until he spied the bruise, then his expression went eerily cold. “What happened? Did someone do this to you?”
His voice had taken on a quiet tone, and I looked at him in surprise. He was…furious? At the mere thought that someone might’ve harmed me?
“No, it happened at the hatchery,” I quickly said, tugging my arm back, placing my hand over the budding bruise. “Kyr is getting bigger. It’s harder to keep him contained.”
How easily the lie fell from my lips shamed me. But what else could I do? What else could I say?
Alaryk’s jaw was clenched, making his scar flash, and he was glaring at me. But I didn’t know if it was actually directed at me or not.
“You’re a terrible liar, Amaia,” he murmured. “And if there is someone who’s threatening you, who’s hurting you because of what happened…I’ll find them. They’ll answer to me for it. That’s why I have a guard with you. So something like this?—”
“I told you—it was Kyr,” I repeated. “How would anything else have happened? Myzalla was out front of the hatchery all day.”
“Moak?” Alaryk rasped. “Ulin?”
“Please,” I scoffed. And at least that was convincing. “You think Tarkosh wouldn’t have sniffed them out if one of them had done this?”
His lips pressed. I turned my attention back to Samryn, stepping up to the bloodred Elthika. I reached out a hand to touch him, my fingertips meeting the cool resistance of his hardened scales, smooth like glass but unyielding like Dakkari steel.
“Are you ready?” I asked, wanting to end this conversation, wanting the distraction of Samryn’s curse. Thepunishmentof it.
“So eager for pain,” Alaryk rasped knowingly, still pissed…because he knew I was lying? “Fine,mariss. But if you think I’ll let this go, you’ll find out how wrong you are soon enough.”
Then he surprised me. He stepped up to me, dragging me toward him.
When his lips met mine, I gasped into his kiss. He tookadvantage, sweeping into my mouth with his tongue, a tangle of dominance and heat between us…before he won the battle. Before I was forced to melt into him, momentarily forgetting everything but his kiss, a brief reprieve. I closed my eyes, simply letting go.
I wanted it to last forever. To prolong the inevitable.
Alaryk cursed softly—a Hartan one, I was certain—before he pulled away, though he kept his palm firmly around the back of my neck, where it had drifted during our kiss.
“Why’d you do that?” I breathed, my gaze unfocused, staring up at his lips. “Because you were angry?”
He glared. “Because I wanted to.”
“Oh,” I murmured, uncertain how to reply to that. All I knew was that I liked it. I tilted my head up, meeting his eyes, asking for something unspoken.
His lips met mine again. Softer this time. Deeper. The back of my throat tingled with its sweetness.
