He skims his warm palms over my naked skin, admiring my marks, my curves, every dip and hollow. My body responds, tender parts tightening, aching, throbbing, so keenly aware of his eyes on me, his hands learning what takes my breath.
He’s breathing so hard, his lips slightly swollen, his hair mussed. It’s a lovely sight that I tell myself only makes me swoon because I don’t want to die out here without knowing pleasure once more before the end. Pleasure only he can give. This has nothing to do with anything more than that. Nothing to do with my heart. Nothing at all.
“Gods, Raina.” He closes his hand over my breast in a possessive grasp. “I want you so much it hurts.”
I don’t intend to make him wait. It’s been a long time since I’ve been with a man—been with Finn—but instinct becomes my guiding light.
I lean down, pressing my naked body against Alexus’s bare chest, and trail my tongue along the column of his throat. In response, he whispers my name, a choked, desperate sound, like he can’t take much more when we’ve only just begun.
I love the way my name sounds falling from his lips. I want to make him say it a hundred times more. I want him to beg me to kiss him, beg me to take him inside me, beg me to never stop.
He grazes his rough palms over my shoulders, curves those long fingers around my ribs, and I arch against him, my skin tingling when his touch slides down my back and over my hips. Digging his fingers into my backside, he presses all that hardness between my legs, making me shiver, making me want.
Thisis desperation. Desire so enthralling that I roll my hips over and over, demanding and greedy, like I might die if he’s not inside me soon.
He slips his hand between us, tugging at the ties of my trousers. Breaking our kiss, I lift my hips for him, and he slips his hand inside the leathers. I close my eyes on a gasp, letting him touch me where I wantmore of him. He’s deft with that hand, and in seconds, I’m climbing toward the point of no return.
I press my forehead against his, panting with longing. This shouldn’t be happening. It shouldn’t be the Witch Collector drawing such damp heat from my body, making my mind numb to anything but the ache he’s stoking like a fire.
That thought evaporates as he presses his teeth into my shoulder, returning my soft bite from earlier, and dips his hungry mouth to my breast. I move against his touch, rolling my hips, chasing the promise that lives in the feverish swirl of his tongue, the rough tip of his finger. He drags his teeth from my breast and kisses a scorching path to my ear.
“Don’t stop. Take what you need.” His lips move hot at my throat, and then close over my mouth, swallowing my sighs as he whispers, “Come for me,” against my lips.
Those words send me to the very edge of euphoria, my eyes closed and Alexus’s mouth consuming. But his handsome face, imprinted on the backs of my eyelids, vanishes before I reach the pinnacle. In its place floats the smug, damaged countenance of the Prince of the East.
I jerk away from Alexus, the coiled pleasure inside me unwinding like the threads of a dying life, and the fire within me turns to ice. I keep my eyes closed, holding that connection, determined to do something about it this time, though I don’t know what.
“My, my,” the prince says. “You grow more interesting by the minute. What do all these lovely marks mean?” He shakes his head. “Never mind. I’ll have time to learn them later. For now, I thought I’d let you know that I figured out what kept pulling me back to your mind. It was something I didn’t know existed until I sensed it all over you, but it’s something I terribly need back where it belongs, and I intend to make that happen.” A laugh bellows out of him, a smoky, obscene sound. “This is goodbye, Keeper, for now. I hate to leave you in this terrible construct, but you’ll be safely trapped until I’m ready for you. And you obviously know how to keep yourself entertained. It’s been lovely. My sincerest thanks for the show.” He leans in and raises an evil brow. “But more importantly, thanks for the God Knife.”
One moment, Raina is in my arms on the cusp of bliss. The next, she’s clambering off me, scrambling half naked across the ground toward a crow perched on a tuft of moss. The bird takes off, wings flapping wildly, but Raina lunges, hand darting out like a strike of lightning, and grabs the creature by the wing. She flings the crow to the ground, its screeching caw enough to wake the Ancient Ones, and before I can do anything more than sit up, she’s driving a knife through its thick chest.
“Gods’ balls, what in the bloody blazes?” I get up and go to her. My cock is still raging hard, and I’m lingering in a haze of lust, even though the woman I want has crow blood splattered across her bare chest.
Breathing heavy and fast, she jerks her hand back, bringing the knife with it. The sound of the blade leaving the bird is a disgusting squelch in the night.
I haven’t seen a blade in Raina’s possession since our moments on the village green, save for the Littledenn dagger I gifted her—the one I slipped from her thigh minutes ago. But the blade she held to my throat wasn’t on her person when I collected her from the village. Or at least Idon’t think it was. In truth, I checked her for weapons and only found an empty belt strapped to her thigh.
Hel had a knife, though.
Raina looks up at me, her beautifully marked torso painted in blood. Her glassy eyes are wide and hard, a crimson-slicked knife in one hand, a dead crow pressed beneath the other.
Gods. Virago, indeed.
And yet, I’m still stupidly aroused. Maybe more so.
Shaking it off, I kick the dead bird away and, after a few moments, crouch before Raina. She’s already lowered the blade, shielding it behind her back like she’s trying to hide it from me. She takes a deep inhale and sits on her heels, then blows out a long breath.
“Want to talk about it?” I ask with a half-smile, an effort to dismantle some of the crackling energy and tension in the air. “I’m not sure what this was all about,” I gesture to the slaughtered crow, “or where you got that knife, but I’m all ears if you’d like to tell me a story.”
She glances down at her bloody breasts and back at me.
“Ah, that won’t do.” I procure a couple of cloths from the pack along with the bowl of melted snow from beside the fire—the bowl that she said belonged to her mother. “Join me?” I ask and motion to the log.
With the knife still clenched in her hand, she sits with me. She’s shaking, though not from fear. Rage rolls off her, and I figure she’ll tell me what’s wrong when she’s ready.
I slide a warm, wet cloth across her skin, following the pattern of her witch’s marks, which sparkle delicately in the firelight. I still want her so much, even though there’s a blade in her grasp and fury shadowing her eyes. Her violence does things to me that it probably shouldn’t.
It’s strange, washing her like this—her face, hands,body—but she lets me, almost like she needs me to. Outside of the bizarre crow murder, she’s still the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
