Page 66 of Heart of the Raven Prince

“Caden, please,” I whimper. I’m going to die if he doesn’t put his hands on me, I know it.

“Do not ask me for a single thing right now.” His voice is clipped, edged with fraying restraint.

“Why not?” I pant, my vision doubling, the colors of the world rapidly changing. Blue. Red. Gold. Green. Purple. They shift every time I blink, the sensation making me dizzier. Vaguely, in the back of my mind, some part of me realizes something is wrong. But that voice is drowned out by the one screaming at me to do whatever it takes to get his hands on me again. “Don’t you want me?”

More than I would care to admit.

Wait. Did he say that, or did I just hear it in my mind?

“Because you don’t really want this.” He pulls in a shuddering breath before he growls, "And I don’t trust myself to be strong enough to deny should you ask.”

I sit up straight, dropping the shirt I held around me. He’s wrong. I do want this. I want him. His eyes go wide as I sit up, topless before him, my voice dripping with seduction as I say, “I am asking. I want you to touch me.”

“Oisín,” he begs, and I can’t help but look at the bulge forming in his pants, and I smirk.

I start to trail my hands over my waist, dragging them slowly up my body, gripping my breasts and massaging them, before pinching my nipples and saying in a breathy whisper, “Caden, I want you to—”

Fuck me.

I feel like a feral animal has burrowed into my stomach and is trying to claw its way out. The twisting pain and sudden need to vomit hit me like a stone and my eyes snap open. Scrambling up, I shove the weighted form holding me down off me. I crawl to the edge of the cave moments before I begin to throw up a messy pile of half-digested berries.

A headache pounds in my head as I sit up straight, wiping my forearm over my mouth. Normally when my stomach is this upset, I am wildly sensitive to smells, but for some reason now I’m soothed by the wild, musky, clove-tinged scent of—

Wait.

With my forearm still swiping across my mouth, I freeze and look down. A crumpled white shirt dangles over me, one that is far too big for my frame. One that smells like Caden. Pulling my arm from my face, I slowly turn to find a shirtless Caden, asleep on his side, his arm flopped over awkwardly from where I shoved it off me.

Memories of last night dance across my mind. Dear gods. I snap my head back to the berries and glare resolutely at them. These were clearly not the berries I grew up with on Gaelynn. They may look and taste exactly the same, but the ones on Gaelynn do not make me act like a fool.

Did they? Or did they just give me the courage to ask for what I really want?

I don’t like that thought, so I quickly shove it off a cliff and hope it can never return to haunt me. But I can’t stop the deluge of blurry memories, all told in a kaleidoscope of color as I begged Caden to fuck me, and he stoically refused. My memories become murkier, but I remember being laid down, a shirt pulled over my head, and my boots tugged off me. The last thing I remember is Caden trying to move away from me, and me gripping his hand to stop him.

Please, don’t go. I just want to be held.

Taking slow, measured steps toward him I watch as his chest gently rises and falls. Even in sleep he seems troubled, his lips tilted in a frown, his brows creased in worry. But that’s not what I’m focusing on. I cannot pull my eyes away from the decaying black scar on his chest. The old wound is massive, and I shiver imagining what could have caused it. Inky black tendrils creep from the root of it, scaling over nearly the entirety of his chest. He flinches, pain flashing over his features as I step closer. He’s twitching and jerking in his sleep. A pained guttural noise gets caught in his throat.

Until I reach forward and touch him.

The moment my fingers land on his deathly cold hand, he sucks in a sharp breath that nearly has me yanking back from him. But then a sigh of relief parts his lips, and the tension seeps from his body.

Maybe it’s because no one is here to see. Maybe it’s because I’m cold and for some reason his touch warms me. Or maybe it’s because the sight of relief on his features, even in sleep, fills me with a peace that I don’t quite understand. And all I want is for that peace to continue. So, I lift his arm, drape it over my middle, and curl my back against his chest. Shutting my eyes, I drift into a dreamless sleep.

Pain slices across my legs like wildfire and I wake with a scream. Caden sits up in surprise, releasing his arm from around my waist. The moment he does, the talons around my leg tighten, and I am yanked away.

The night sky whips by me as I am pulled at a breakneck speed through the forest. Rocks and debris dig into my back, scraping down it as the too-big shirt bunches up around my shoulders, pulled nearly clean off. I’m kicking wildly at the grip on my leg, but it’s useless. The thing holding me doesn’t actually have a form to attack. It is just a shadow. I may not be able to touch it, but it can certainly touch me. They tighten their hold, digging those searing claws deeper into my leg. My shriek pierces the quiet as I’m pulled through the midnight woods.

I think I hear a roar of anger from deep in the woods, and it sounds like Caden.

Eventually the creature stops dragging me, and I don’t waste a second before I’m sitting up. I meant to scramble back, to get as far from this creature as I can. But the moment I catch sight of it I am paralyzed in fear. A shadow rises over me, an inky tentacle of it wrapped around my leg, dozens of spindly fissures breaking off and boring into me. The shade coalesces, gathering and taking shape and coming into sharp focus.

Towering over me is a monster.

The beast is the size of a horse, easily caging me in with its massive frame. Jagged, pointed limbs line its body. They twitch and scramble over me erratically, as though every appendage has a mind of its own. A horrified gasp catches in my throat when I see that instead of a head it has a gaping tunnel of razor-sharp teeth. The beast lets out an ominous noise, a deep clicking that reverberates through its body as it crawls slowly up me. Blind panic breaks through my haze and I try to move, but one of its many limbs is still wrapped around my leg like a barbed vine of thorns.

It strikes with the speed of a viper as it crawls over me, shoving me back in the dirt. The air punches from my lungs on impact. Two of its barbed hands hold my arms down, two more pinning my shoulders, and another pair begin to slowly caress my face. Their thorny touch cuts sharp trails over my neck, my cheeks, and my brow as the wide tunnel of teeth stares me directly in the face. The ticking intensifies as it stabs sharp fingers into my cheeks and begins to pull me towards those endless rows of fangs. I don’t scream. I don’t even struggle. Not because I am accepting the death that has chased me since the night my home fell.

But because I can feel its mind.