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My fingers sifted through the dirt at my sides, readying to throw it into his eyes if need be and then shove him off me, when the sword fell beside me, and he rose. Only slightly, though. His hair sprinkled down over his forehead. His large arms caged me to the ground.
I’d never felt small. I’d never worried over such things.
Until now.
Until I felt an energy, primal and bloodthirsty, leaking from his enormous frame in a way that both shortened my breath and sent embarrassment spiraling toward my face.
When I failed to say anything at all, knowing he could likely feel the heat rising from my flaming cheeks, he then asked in a softer voice, “Did he kiss you?”
It took a moment for me to remember the prince, and even though I didn’t deign to give Fang an answer—it was none of his business—he got one, his eyes probing mine, then every inch of my face. “Where?”
Swallowing, I rasped, “Get off.”
Another infuriating smirk. “You don’t want me to. You’re just saying that to save face.”
My teeth gritted, anger forcing me to admit, “He kissed my cheek.”
His head lowered without warning, the tip of his nose trailing each cheek until he’d scented what he was looking for even though I’d bathed numerous times since, and he inhaled deep. Then with my hands darting to the back of his head, fingers curling into his shockingly soft hair to pull him away, he licked me.
“Did you just—?”
“Quiet,” he said, a curt, gruff bark, and the arms beside my head lowering as he did so once more.
My toes curled. Something feathered its way from my chest to my stomach, tickling profusely. And then, as soft as rose petals warmed by the sun, his lips dragged in a caressing brush over the skin, over every inch of my cheek, a rumbling noise climbing his throat that made my fingers curl gently into his thick hair.
More. I needed more.
As though he could sense that, his mouth ghosted down toward my lips with torturous slowness.
Our eyes met and held for moments that stole the beat of my heart. His had grown dark. The pupil expanded, black spreading into a now deeper, oceanic blue. A shiver assaulted me, and then his lashes lowered, and so did his mouth.
That feathered sensation melted into liquid fire.
Tentative at first, his lips pressed gently into mine, finding where they’d fit—finding that they fit perfectly. Another low rumble left him with my shaken breath, my mouth parting slightly, enough for his lips to slide over mine, my fingers clenched in his hair. “I’ve never done this,” he rasped, then scowled down at me as though his admission was somehow my fault—that him laying over me and kissing me was also somehow my fault.
That scowl, the a
Everything in me stilled. That this young, ruthless god hadn’t been kissed by a thousand females, or stars, even males, robbed me of speech.
His lips rolled between his teeth as he watched me. Then he shifted, and my hands decided to keep his head held within their desperate grip. “Me either,” I finally whispered.
His nostrils flared with his eyes, delight birthing a smile I hadn’t yet seen on him before. A smile that spoke of unbridled joy or perhaps even relief. “Thank the fucking stars,” he said, his voice so rough, and then he stole my breath once again.
Any trace of uncertainty was gone. He kissed me as though he’d been tasked with the most important job in the universe, his lips holding mine in a firm promise for heart-thrashing moments before parting them for his velvet tongue to skim inside my mouth.
I moaned, uncaring of the strange sound as his hardness met my soft. One of his hands slid slowly down my side, tracing and marking every curve, to hook my leg behind his back.
A low growl coated my tongue, and I swallowed it greedily as well as his following curse. He ground his length into my body through our clothing as our tongues stroked, teeth nipping at one another’s lips.
Copper filled my mouth, but I didn’t care. I was lost inside this dark, magnetic space where nothing but this rainbow of sensation existed. The heat of him, his breath—always even and now breaking across my lips with every digging thrust of his hips.
My eyes opened to find his were too, and I felt myself falling upon rapid winds while lying upon the hard earthen floor as he sucked my lip into his mouth, teeth scraping. The slight tang of blood returned, and he shot up to his knees as though I’d taken the sword that laid beside me and struck him with it.
My heart raced, too fast for me to control my thoughts, let alone words, as Fang stared at me. Lips parted and tinged red, his chest heaved while he glared as if I’d grown another head.
Then without a word, he stumbled to his forgotten swords and dragged them with him to the opening of the cave. To the tree that would take him back across the gully.
“Wait,” I managed to breathe out, pushing up to my elbows. “Fang.”
His steps faltered, but he said nothing, did nothing save for disappearing into the night.
The silence in his absence screamed and eradicated the precious air remaining in my lungs.
On unsteady feet, I rose from the ground, shaking dirt from my hair and willing the wet away from my eyes.
I’d kissed him. He’d kissed me.
It wasn’t just forbidden. Unless it could be proven that relations already existed before the second war, it was now treason to consort with the crimson.
That wasn’t what terrified me, though. No, what terrified me the most was this residual feeling of emptiness, as though he’d taken something from me that I couldn’t describe, couldn’t make sense of, and I wasn’t sure it was smart to attempt to.
Something I feared I could not get back.
At the entrance to the cave, I knelt and crawled out of the low-lying hole and stilled when I spied something in the grass to the right. Walking over, I kicked at it with my slipper.
Peppered nuts spilled from the pouch, and I didn’t need to bring them closer to my nose to recognize the foreign scent lingering on the canvas. Such a snack wasn’t permitted here.
Because it was eaten there.
The world shrank and tilted, the haze Fang had left me in clearing rapidly.
Stars. He’d…
Gazing back at the cave, I inhaled deep, then followed the trail, the strange scents, the signs I’d missed earlier while solely focused on trying to gather and control myself—and then all over again in a brand new way courtesy of Fang.
A howl came from deep in the woods, and then I was ru
And so with a flash, my heart twisting, then pausing inside my chest, I did.
My blood roared and vibrated, my vision darkening and my senses illuminating in a rush that used to make me vomit for hours when I’d change back. Clumsy from panic and the disuse of this form, I almost flew headfirst into a tree before my wings spread and tilted, and I swerved around and through its branches.
Higher, higher, and higher, I climbed, cresting the treetops of the woods, leaving them behind within precious minutes. The moon rose behind the castle in the distance to my left, but I continued south and followed the dense line of trees and foliage that skirted the ravine.