She’s still talking when his lips crash into hers, stealing the last of her words. Her body reacts immediately, soft pressing into hard, molding against him as his fingers tangle in her hair. His full lips are tentative against her mouth, and a low, desperate moan, eager and hungry, pours from him when she finally kisses him back. Goddess, he tastes divine, and she wonders if anything or anyone has ever tasted as good as Zryan.
His lips are more insistent now, coaxing hers open, and his tongue sweeps into her mouth, teasing as it strokes hers. A whimper flowsfrom the back of her throat, unbidden, and he growls at the sound, his pleasure rumbling through her, then he’s lifting her and pushing her up against a tree, kissing her harder. Deeper. She wraps her legs around his waist and locks her ankles to keep him there, exactly where she wants him.
She runs her hands along his arms, his chest, finds the catch on the armor and loosens it. His wings fall to the ground. Those ridiculous wings. She grips his shoulders, pulling him closer, and his hands tighten on her thighs where he holds her up. His skin is as smooth as she’d fantasized, and she wants to put her mouth on him, taste and lick every part, write her name on his body with her tongue. Any good sense she possessed has evaded her, replaced by the caress of his lips, his panting breaths, his clever hands.
He pulls back and her body protests the absence of his heat. She clasps the back of his neck and attempts to kiss him again, but he resists. Instead, he rests his forehead against hers, and she brings her palms up against his heaving chest, watching him as he attempts to control his breathing, control himself. The prince is unraveling beneath her and she’s never seen anything as intoxicating as Zryan at her mercy.
“Do you know how much I’ve been wanting to do this?” he says, pressing a kiss to the corner of her mouth, another just below her ear. “Ever since I saw you tear a man’s throat out with your bare teeth.” He licks her fluttering pulse and she wants him to bite her, to draw blood, to claim her as his. Goddess, she cannot take this, the yearning that has overwhelmed her, the churning low in her stomach. “Do you know what a vision you were, in your white top and those diabolically tiny shorts, drenched in his blood?” He sucks gently at the base of her neck. She might just be losing her mind. “And when you Teleported with me, I felt your magic merge with mine, I feltyou, and it was like shade on a warm day, the soft flicker of starlight in the dark, and Vaar, I’ve never felt anything like it. I was… bewitched.” He takes hold of her chin, forcing her to meet his eyes. “You have bewitched me.”
She is trapped in his storm-filled gaze, spinning out of control, and she’s trying to grip something to ground her, but it’s too late. She’s lost to him. She tries to say how much she’s wanted this, too, how it’s felt so wrong to want him, how it’s eaten away at her; but all she can thinkis how solid he is beneath her, how nothing has ever felt so steady, so right as him in this moment.
“Zryan,” she says hoarsely, barely able to speak.
“Yes, Dimples?”
The nickname is growing on her, she decides. She pulls on his olive-black hair, runs the soft strands between her fingers. “Kiss me. Now.”
His laugh is deep, dangerous, the sound traveling right to her center, and then his mouth is on hers again. This kiss is reckless, wild, just like him, just like the oceans and winds that cling to him and the dragon he rides. He shifts beneath her, pulling her skirts apart at the slit so her bare legs are around his naked torso. He presses against her, so close she can feel every edge and line of him, so hard she can feel the ridges of the tree biting into her back. She relishes it. Relishes the physicality of him. But he breaks the kiss once more, looking down to see where her skin meets his.
“Are you keeping your potions in a garter?” he asks, voice guttural.
“I might be.”
He strokes a hand along the flesh of her bare thigh. “Fuck, that’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen,” he murmurs, eyes roving over her legs. “No, scratch that. Your thighs wrapped around me is the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.”
He leans in and kisses her again, slower this time, angling her head to deepen the kiss, his tongue devouring her. Destroying her.
There’s a bark, and the frigid air smashes into Astrid as Zryan releases her, pushing her behind him so fast she dizzies. He draws his wicked blade, ready to kill whatever or whoever disturbed them.
RELEASE HER,PRINCE, ORI’LL FEAST ON THE MARROW OF YOUR BONES.
Astrid sags in relief, only the tickle of embarrassment knowing it’s Quincy who has caught them.
“Now how did you find us, Fox? And where is your witch?”
Zryan addresses Quincy as if he’s a threat to Astrid, and she pushes next to the prince, taking his hand as she does so.
“Quincy’s Gift is tracking. Even your Illusionists wouldn’t be able to pull the veil over his eyes.”
Zryan squeezes her hand and raises a brow at her, and she shrugs. Why not hold his hand? Quincy just saw them in a much more compromising position, after all.
Quincy eyes their interlocked fingers and glares at Zryan. FIONN CAME TO FIND US AS SOON AS THIS VILLAIN SNATCHED YOU.Astrid rolls her eyes at him. Why are familiars so melodramatic? PRINCE, IF YOU VALUE YOUR LIFE,I SUGGEST STEERING CLEAR OFJESSA FOR THE REST OF THE EVENING.
Zryan’s lips twitch but he reins himself in, glancing down at Astrid. He’s checking to see what she wants to do, and she could kiss him again for that.
“I better go find them,” she says, wanting nothing more than to stay here with him.
“Want me to Teleport you back? It’s a bit of a walk.”
“Absolutely not. I don’t know how anyone else can stand it.”
He brushes a thumb over her bottom lip, grinning. “I don’t know, either, but then I’ve only ever been able to Teleport with you.”
Astrid’s mouth falls open. She blinks at him for a few seconds, then snaps it shut. That can’t be a good look.
“I wasn’t sure if you knew,” he says, eyebrows dipping. “I thought it was to do with your Gift, but then you’ve been so confused in the past about it.”
“That’s why you couldn’t Teleport me out of the cells when I was unconscious,” she says more to herself. “Why you were so surprised when I ended up outside my bedroom with you.”
