Every.
Single.
Inch.
“Doesthisfeel small, Sienna?”
Oh, gods.
“N-no,” I stammer, biting my bottom lip. Why are my knees shaking? It’s the alcohol, right? It has to be the alcohol.
Because there’s no way in this hellish realm that I’m turned on right now.
His lips curve into a twisted smirk. “That’s what I thought.” Pinning my arm beside my head, he pants into the curve of my neck. He stiffens for a split second before his free hand slices through the makeshift bandage Callum made from his shirt, the bloodied fabric pulling at my skin as Alistair tears it away. With a growl, he tilts my head to the side.
“Hold fucking still,” he rumbles, his entire body trembling.
And then his lips are on my neck, kissing the aching flesh that Revyn tore into last night. Heat ignites beneath my skin, and a moan spills past my lips. Alistair licks and kisses my skin so gently that if he weren’t pressed so tightly to my body, I’d think I was dreaming. His scent—unlike anything I’ve ever known—fills my lungs until I choke, the sound catching in my throat as he presses one final, open-mouthed kiss to my neck.
Then he backs off, letting my knees buckle. I hit the ground so suddenly that I cry out and flinch from the echo.
His eyes burn brighter than the sun as he stares at me, the wounds on his chest closing without leaving a single scar. “Go to your room,” he murmurs, his voice thick with emotion. “Anddo not open the door for anyone. Not Revyn, not Gemma, notanyone.Do you understand me?”
The sudden cold from his absence makes me shiver. “No,” I answer honestly, forcing myself to my feet. “I do not fucking understand.”
A flash of regret crosses his face—so sharp that it takes my breath away—as he backs away. Stepping into the shadows, he hides from me.
But nothing will take away the razor-sharp, insistent tug inside my chest—around my heart—that I suddenly realize is because of him.
Like we’re somehow tied to each other.
“Who are you?” I whisper, knowing that he can hear me. Sensing his presence like my own fluttering heartbeat. Tasting his scent on my tongue.
When he doesn’t answer me, I pick myself up off the floor, wipe the blood from my arm on my shirt, and pick up Callum’s bandage like I can erase what just happened from the sands of time.
My heart aches twice as much as it did an hour ago...and I don’t fucking understand what Alistair Dire has to do with it.
Any of it.
My fallout with Revyn.
The bone-deephurtin my lungs.
Or the wildfire desire burning through my body.
Chapter 15
Alistair
Fuck.
Touching Sienna was a mistake. Following thatstupidpull inside my chest was bad enough, but kissing her neck and feeling her body against mine?—
A groan settles in the back of my throat.
Fucking fated mates.
To my utter disappointment, she does not return to her bedroom where I could monitor her from the comfort of my own. Instead, she pads the halls until she slips inside that little redheaded witch’s room, the door magically sealing behind her. Not only can I not hear anything through the wood, but I can barely sense Sienna. Without a completed bond, our connection is tenuous at best. With layers of magic in the way, it’s like trying to sense her through a snowstorm. Not impossible, but taxing.
