“They knew the risks.”
“You’re disgusting.”
“You don’t have to kill them if you don’t want to. The nobility will protest, but since you are not an Elf... what can they do? Secretly, they will be relieved. Most of the women I’ve slept with were nobles.”
His hands were wandering over her hips again, raking over the small of her back, closing the space between them once more.
Push him away!A voice in her head screamed.Kill him!
His lips found her neck, his tongue tracing over her skin. His teeth grazed her just before his mouth sealed against her throat. That screaming voice drowned under the wave of him. Once again, the overwhelming intensity of his desire fluxed into her through his hands, his mouth, his body pressing against hers, breaking over the flimsy barriers of her good sense.
Through the empathic channels, she became aware not only of the outflow of his passion, but also the friction. He strained to hold back from her, just as she did from him. She didn’t know if it was possible to trick her empathic senses or not, but if it was, then he had accomplished it. Though it was too complex to define with terms like lust and love, what he felt most simply could be called want. Whatever other lies he might tell her, whatever else may or may not have been true, he wanted her. And she wanted him.
So when his tongue slid between her lips, hers responded. When he worked his hand under her waistband, slipping down into the wet heat that he had created simply by appearing to her. She leaned into his touch. When his fingers dipped into her, the sudden surge of fervor stopped both of them at the peak, breaths held, eye to eye.
And then an emotion she could not name pulsed off of him—blinding and cleaving and unyielding, like a blade plunging into the earth. At that same moment, he moved into her and she forgot about the pulse because with one sure stroke he sent her over the edge. She knotted around him, hands digging into his shoulders, gasping, drinking in his breath, shivering and shuddering as the ache in her was finally, momentarily, assuaged. With just one touch.
He tensed, wincing, as if her pleasure caused him pain.
He grasped her waist firmly as her knees weakened during the aftershocks. All the time his black eyes watched her, studied her, as if burning every flutter of her eyelids into his memory. And yet, she could already feel him retreating from her, drawing back his desire, closing off. Soon, his hands followed, trailing from her. He kissed her in a gentle way that left a sense of sadness floating around her chest, bumping against her heart, bruising it.
He lifted his hand up to his lips. The tip of his tongue ran over the edge of his forefinger. A familiar heady scent, her scent, wafted off his skin. His eyelids fell to half-mast, the black gleam misted, and a fresh wave of want broke off him, plying against her. And if he’d tried to take her then, she would’ve let him.
But he didn’t.
He moved back from her, widening the space between them so they were no longer touching. Lingering tremors of her climax cascaded under her skin, making it hard for her to hang onto any reasonable thought for long. But who was she kidding? She had given up reasonable thoughts the moment she’d let him kiss her.
The muscles along his jaw flexed as though he were in some kind of pain.
“Lavana’s warriors are less than a day behind you, and they ride.”
She swallowed hard. “This changes nothing.”
“Wrong, Magpie. Everything has changed.” But he didn’t look happy about it. “Try to stay clean this time.”
His wrist twitched. A gust of wind blurred her vision as her clothes were cleaned once more.
A hollow pang in her chest told her that he was gone even before her vision had cleared to find nothing but darkness before her. And his absence hurt.
“Well, that was interesting.”
She tensed, cursing inwardly. From the corner of her eyes, she saw Damion emerge from the darkness of the trees.
“My own blood and sworn mistress, a traitor.”
“DAMN IT, DAMION,” she said, raking her hands back into her hair. “How long were you there?”
“Long enough,” he said, eyes blazing, stalking towards her, his swords in his hands. “What are you thinking? What are you doing?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Honestly. I couldn’t help it. He’s a Prince—”
“He’s an Elf!”
She held up her hand and glanced over to where Kaelan and Honey slept. Kaelan rolled onto his back. Firelight ran over his scar. The white curl glowed like a tendril of fog in the moonlight.
When it seemed they were still asleep, she turned back to Damion, keeping her voice low. “Elves and Pixies are descended from the same people. We are the same, Damion—”
He growled, drawing back.
