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Oh gods. Everything they’d said was true.
But it wasn’t bizarre. It was the most magnificent, incredible thing. His tongue, everywhere. Swirling and licking. He found a spot that made Elina bite her lips against another scream and then he teased and teased and teased. His hands gripped her ass, tilting her up for a deeper taste when she almost squirmed away, not wanted to stop but it was so much, too much, as if she were dying—oh she was, she was—but this was surely the best way to go.
Then his tongue slicked just right. The ecstasy burst from within to without, through her curling toes and arching back and all centered at his mouth. She screamed, and then it was done, she was dead.
Though still in bed. With Warrick tasting his way back up her quivering flesh, then rising onto his knees between her widespread thighs. Head lolled to the side, she watched enraptured as his fist wrapped around his engorged shaft. He stroked, hard, fast, his dark gaze locked upon her face. It seemed only seconds passed before he grunted, his every muscle clenching. Seed spurted onto her belly in hot jets.
Chest heaving, he smeared his fingers through his spend, as if writing a rune onto her skin. He spoke, his voice low and so deep. So resolute.
A vow. Or a promise. It could not be a spell.
In the dark, the rune etched over his hip gave off a steady golden glow that lit his surrounding skin. Languidly she reached for it, intending to feel its warmth. Warrick caught her hand and brought it to his mouth, kissing her fingertips.
That would do just as well. Elina did not care what she touched as long as she touched him.
Releasing her hand, he retrieved her discarded nightgown, using it to clean the seed from her belly. Then he slid into the bed, drawing up the sheet and pulling her close, her back to his chest. Somewhat like beasts, though they were on their sides, and nothing of this position felt unnatural. Instead she felt comforted. Protected, with the thrum of his heart against her back and his hand cupping her breast.
She clasped him even closer, the jewels on her fingers gleaming against his forearm. No one had ever held her in this way before. But then, when was the last time anyone had held her at all?
Lady Faraine had been the last, she realized after casting back through her memories. The night they’d fled Aleron.
Once, it had been a memory that comforted her. Now it was one she didn’t care to revisit.
“I pray that I am not a fool for trusting you,” Elina whispered. “Nearly everyone I’ve trusted has betrayed me.”
Warrick turned her toward him, sliding her upward on the pillow until they were face to face. His eyes searched hers in the dark, as if trying to read her mood, her meaning. Elina was not sorry he couldn’t understand her. That just made it easier to say. Easier to expose the greatest scars upon her heart. She could share them…but remain safe.
“When I was young, I had few playmates. But my uncle Soren was there. Every day. Talking with me, playing with me. My father and mother were always busy with political concerns. And I had tutors aplenty. But he taught me to have fun—and Nanny Char would give us such looks as we laughed and explored and got into so much trouble—yet the best, most harmless sort of trouble. For we were always in the mud, or using sticks as swords, or sneaking where we ought not to have snuck. I had the best of childhoods because of him.” Her whisper hoarsened as her throat tightened. “So many times since, I’ve wondered—was he merely toying with me, befriending a child he always meant to kill? Was he hoping that when I became queen he would be a powerful advisor, but then decided that role wouldn’t be enough? So he killed my mother and sent assassins after me. Then sent this curse, this slow and painful death. If he’d ever had any feelings for me at all, it would have been quick.”
A tear slid over the bridge of her nose. Warrick made a noise low in his throat, his hand cupping her face, his thumb brushing the moisture away.
“Then my father. His marriage to my mother was only to strengthen ties between two kingdoms—Aleron and Tagdon. He was third in line, so not expected to inherit Tagdon’s throne. Yet he did inherit it after the blue fever came, and though they were still married, they ruled from their separate kingdoms. When my mother was killed, he was in Tagdon. So it was there we fled first. Of course he would protect me and protect Aleron’s throne—after all, his own daughter would hold it, and I was his heir in Tagdon, as well.
