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“Kai.” A command this time.
“This bed’s too small for me to fuck you the way I want to,” he told her, his voice guttural in her ear.
“Then don’t fuck me on the bed,” Isla growled and pushed.
They went crashing to the floor.
Their coughs and laughs filled the room as Isla fell atop him and braced her hands on either side of his head.
“Maybe a warning next time,” Kai suggested, his touch ghosting over her waist.
“Sorry,” Isla said, leaning down until she was pressed against him again. “Now, how did you want to take me?”
Kai smirked, and his hands held her hips as he leaned up to kiss her. He wrapped his arm around her as he lifted her up, and she’d been so distracted by his lips, by his touch, that she hadn’t realized how much he twisted them until craning her neck was the only way to maintain their contact.
When they broke their kiss, Isla, on her knees now, faced forward, finding nothing but the hearth before her. She felt Kai running his touch over her back and lumerosi, mapping her etching of the moon. She gasped as his hardness pressed against her, and he flattened his hand, guiding her forward.
But before she bent too far, his breath was hot against her skin as he whispered, “Hands and knees, beautiful.”
CHAPTER5
ISLA
“You’re going to make yourself dizzy.”
Within the antechamber of the Western Ballroom, Isla wrenched her pacing. She twisted to where Kai—handsome as ever in his traditional dark suit—sat in a plush armchair, a glass of whiskey swaying between his fingers as he observed her with amused yet wary eyes.
Isla folded her hands, twisting her mating ring over on her finger, setting the glimmer of the gemstones over the surfaces in the room. “If I don’t move, I’ll lose my mind.”
It wouldn’t be long before Marin came to usher them to the double doors leading to the ballroom. And though this wasn’t the first time Isla had stood at Kai’s side and addressed a crowd, the stakes now felt substantially higher.
Maybe it was because the moment they’d returned from Abalys, Marin had been waiting in the foyer of the House, impatient and aggravated, foot tapping on the floor.
Isla’s “tardiness” had put them an hour behind schedule, which cut in her time to review the party’s guestlist and ensure she knew everyone’s names and personal histories. Ensure she knew how to navigate every conversation and each dangerous detour they could take. One wrong word, one accidental insult, and she could make an enemy of a gamma’s wife, a wealthy merchant pivotal to their economy, or an influential reporter who helped with pack morale and their support of her and Kai’s rule.
She’d handled court before, putting on the facade of a proper lady with precision as deft as a blade, but never to this scale. Never as thecenterof attention.
Everyone at this gala wanted to speak withher,to impressher. Wanted to judgeherand to know who was about to represent them to the rest of the world.
A foolish girl with a brash attitude in way over her head, given all this power by an entity almost beyond their understanding, beyond their control? Or the queen they deserved. She’d claw tooth and nail to prove the latter.
Kai leaned back, stretching out his long legs and patting his thigh—an invitation always hard to refuse.
With a sigh, Isla crossed the room, her low heels clicking over the marble floors that reflected the warm light of the sconces on the art-splattered walls. Settling on his lap, her eyes dragged down to the alcohol in his hand. Kai lifted it, an offer that may have been more of ajoke, but Isla took the brown liquor and threw her head back to drain it. Features curling, she shook her head, feeling like her throat was ablaze.
“Goddess, I hate whiskey.”
Kai laughed, taking the empty glass from her hand and placing it on the silver-plated table at his side. He lifted his hand from where it wrapped around her waist to the skin of her arm left exposed by her gown, his touch its own flame. “You might need it. You’re freezing.” He rubbed along her skin as if to warm her up. “Are you feeling okay? Do you want my jacket?”
Isla had become so accustomed to the chill in her bones that she barely dallied with the discomfort most of the time. And though this was another bout of him being afussy bastard, she didn’t mind it at all as she leaned into him. “I’m fine. It’ll go away. I think it has something to do with losing my wolf, missing that energy.”
She heeded to keep her voice quiet. Other than Marin and their close friends, no one knew she could no longer shift, and if anyone became privy to that, they’d use it against her, against them. Physically.Politically.Even if she was coming to terms with the fact that she didn’t need her wolf to be powerful, it wouldn’t change others from seeing her as weak.
Kai hummed, pressing his lips to her shoulder. “Maybe I can help.”
Next came a kiss on her collarbone, then another at the crook of her neck. Then his teeth nipped at her skin. Up and up, higher and higher…
Isla’s blood heated, and a fluttering began in her lower belly as he licked and bit just soft enough that he wouldn’t mar but enough to make her heart thunder. Enough to make her recall last night so vividly, her nipples pebbled and her back arched. Her eyes slid closed, and she wrapped her arms around him, tugging herself closer.
