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Malyr stared at me for another three weaving motions. At the fourth tug on a strand, his stare wavered, only for his eyes to flutter shut on a moan as his hands slipped off my wrists and returned to the water. Did he enjoy this? Me touching him?
“My mother braided my father’s hair every morning,” he said, his voice suddenly deeper as though weighed down by pleasure. “I remember… stumbling along the corridor, the sun coming through the tinted glass of the windows, casting blue flickers on the stone floor, and into my parents’ bedchamber. And there she sat in tranquil silence, every morning, grooming his hair.”
Perhaps it was the intimacy of that memory that had made him jerk back at first. “Your parents loved each other?”
“Very much so.” A moment’s silence as his eyes opened and locked with mine. “My father was a… a harsh man, and my mother his soft counterpart. Fate always makes it so, creating the perfect bond that runs deeper than death.”
My fingertips tingled each time I ran them over Malyr’s scalp to gather up more hair, his strands so straight and strong, there was something almost spellbinding in manipulating them. “Tell me of Valtaris. I’ve never even seen drawings of it.”
“Imagine sways of hills, perfectly situated to offer plenty of sun to the crops that grow there.” Beneath the water, his palms settled on my hips, running a path to my buttocks, up to my waist, and back again. “Grapes as well, making the sweetest red in all the lands. Their flattened peaks abut the base of the mountain on which stands Valtaris, a sprawling city that stretches over the entire range. It takes a day and a half to walk the tarred road from one end to the other. Beside it, buildings rise as many as three-stories high, built of white travertine and topped with shingles ofaerymel.”
“I’ve never seen such a thing as black shingles.”
“It is stunning, how they sparkle. The sun heats the shingles, which keeps the city pleasantly warm even in winter, when we lift the wind walls. In summer, we lower them, letting the breeze dance through the city and take away the heat.” Reverence returned to his tone. The same one when he’d spoke about Naya, so full of love and longing. Until he swallowed it down with a visible bob of his throat, letting his voice return, somber and austere. “It is all lost to the shadows now.”
“Can you tell me where they came from? The shadows?”
He took a slow, deep inhale, letting one hand run up to cup my breast. “I can tell you that no deathweaver is strong enough to command them, no void alive empty enough to take them in. Valtaris is forever lost.” He sighed. “And so, I must take Ammarett in its stead.”
I lifted the braid, grabbed the leather tie from the edge of the tub, and wrapped it around the end. “And crown yourself king.”
“And crown myself king.” His eyes held mine captive as he stroked his hand over my waist, tugging me toward him. His lips parted as if he marveled me, yet there was the slightest shake on his head. “You should turn around.”
My skin pebbled down my upper arms at the sudden grating in his voice. His fingers dug into my waist, contradicting his words, as if animosity and affection warred between his head and hands. His gaze dropped to the crown of his cock that poked out from the water’s surface, plump and swollen for me, the way one corner of his mouth twitched reminding me of what he’d said earlier.I should redden your hide for making me desire you the way I do.
“And what if I want you to look at me?” What if I sat myself on his cock and pressed my thighs tightly against him, leaving him no choice, lest he would drown me in this tub? “To forget who I am and start seeing what we could be, if only you allowed it?”
Something flickered in his eyes, or perhaps it was the reflection of the flames from the hearth, but they darkened at the next moment as his hand lifted from the water, undoubtedly to bodily turn me around. “You would not survive the kind of pain I would need to inflict on you to indemnify such a betrayal to my—”
I hooked my hand around his neck, rose onto my knees, and worked myself onto his lap with such speed, water splashed in all directions and flooded over the edge. It wasn’t a planned move, how I grabbed his cock with my other hand, positioned it at my entrance, and slid down his hard shaft with a wanton boldness that shocked me.
Shocked him more.
Eyes wide, Malyr released an almost agonized groan when I humped my hips against him, guided by sheer instinct. His hands gripped my waist, trembling there for one rolling motion, two, three. At the fourth, they pressed me down on his cock just as his pelvis thrust upward, lifting me slightly out of the water, only to lower and let me drown in pleasure.
“Damn you, Galantia,” he snapped, gliding one warm hand up to my throat, giving a single squeeze in warning. “Don’t make me hurt you even more tonight.”
I forced down a swallow, bracing for impending pain before I leaned forward with the next roll of my pelvis, letting my throat sink deeper into the ache of his knuckles. “Then hurt me. Hurt me… butlookat me.”
His fingers curled around my trachea, released, tightened again, only to slip to the back of my neck. Malyr gave a yank, pulling my face to his. Our lips collided in a kiss that made my stomach cave, only to fill with wicked pleasure at each shared rhythmic roll of our hips. We came together at each thrust, letting our breath become one in the moans we shared, but our eyes remained open, vigilant.
Hate. Bitterness. Loathing.
It all ceased to exist in the space where his gaze connected to mine, transforming into something vulnerable and painfully raw, a shimmering tide of unspoken words and hidden sentiments, a tumultuous dance of shadows and light, flickering and blazing within those icy depths.
And it continued to flicker as he kissed a path from my chin to my scar, his eyes locked on mine. His arm tightened around my back. His tongue trailed a wet path along the raised outlines. His lips placed kisses into the unmarred areas of the skull and wings.I hate that I hurt you.
Until he set his teeth to it.
I love hurting you.
There was a moment of inaction, not so much hesitation as it was Malyr allowing me to prepare for what was to come. Allowing me to see it in those two-colored eyes that held me captive, an icy rim around a flicker of warmth. He bit down on my scar with such force, pain stabbed straight into my core, driving up my pulse until it throbbed between my legs.
The pleasure that washed over me was so exquisite, I cried out when I came. “Malyr…”
Malyr followed, hips jerking so uncontrollably beneath me, the rivulet of blood that ran down my chest trembled toward the left before it flowed down over my nipple. Yet he kept his eyes on me, as if he wanted me to see what he could not say.
There was no hate.
