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Arran’s hand dropped. “I was within my rights.”
“And taking that man’s life was within mine.” It was one tiny blip of revenge.
He took another step toward me, close enough that if he dared to reach out again, we might touch. “You would regret it, Veyka, your soul—”
“That is your mistake, Arran. You assume that your soul is the only one that is ruined. But listen when I tell you… this thing within me, if it is a soul, is blacker than the starless night above the Split Sea. And no one can save me—not even you. Because I do not wish to be saved.”
I could not read his face. He’d gotten so much better at hiding his feelings in the time he’d been here, but not now. Now, there were so many conflicting feelings playing over the handsome planes of his face I doubted either of us could untangle them. My own chest felt like it was being cleaved apart.
This is why I drink the tea and fuck Parys and hide in my rooms, I thought forlornly.
Except that I must have said it aloud, because Arran reached for me again.
“Do not take another step,” I warned, hands up. “Go. Leave me.”
“Make me, Veyka.”
I raised my hand to strike, but he caught my wrist, holding it tight enough between his fingers that I felt the thrumming of my own blood.
With wretched slowness, he twisted it up above my head and slowly guided me backward until I was pinned against the wall. Then he crushed his mouth down upon mine.
He tasted exactly how he smelled—like fresh earth and spices foreign but heady upon my tongue. But the power of him when he took what he wanted, what both of us wanted so badly, that I was not ready for.
My insides were on fire once again. Had they stopped burning since I awoke?
They’d been aflame since he arrived, since that meeting in the forest before either of us knew who the other was. Because some part of me knew him, called for him—even when I hated him with every fiber of my being.
I hated him, but the feeling of his tongue sliding across my lips was perfection.
His hands curled around my hips, those dangerously long fingers playing across the soft flesh as if I were an instrument. I’d been told from a young age that there was too much of me—my belly too soft, my hips too wide, my breasts too large. But the way that Arran’s hands skimmed reverently over every curve made my knees weak with desire.
“You are fucking perfect,” he said against my mouth, as if he could hear the echoes of self-consciousness and was determined to beat them back.
“What is perfect? Tell me,” I demanded as his sharp canines nipped at my chin, his tongue dragging along the sharp angle of my jaw until it reached my ear.
Arran circled each amorite-studded earring with his tongue, making love to the tender bits of flesh on my earlobe hiding behind the armor of silver and gold jewelry.
“This ass,” he breathed into my ear, sliding his hands down over my hips and taking me in his wide palms. “I want to fill my hands with it, to spank you for every damnable stupid thing you’ve done.” He held on so hard, his nails dug into my flesh through the layers of my silk skirt. The pinpricks of pain sent my hips forward, searching for the hard length of his cock. “I want you bent over in front of me, this round ass wobbling while I pound inside of your cunt.”
He pushed my bottom upward and that was all the encouragement I needed to wrap my legs around his waist. He held me easily, as he’d done a few times before. Every bit of him was corded strength. I clung to his shoulders, marveling in the shifting of his muscles beneath my fingers.
Sometime since the throne room he’d removed his woolen tunic, leaving behind only the black linen undershirt. I gathered a fistful of it and then yanked, groaning in satisfaction as the fabric gave and his muscular shoulders and chest were exposed to me.
“These legs,” he stroked up and down them, pushing me harder into the wall. “They were made to be wrapped around me.”
My skirt was riding high, keeping me from thrusting fully against him. One quick flick of his hand, and that was gone. I was bare to him, my legs wrapped around his waist, my pussy wet and quivering. No matter how thick those trousers he wore were, I knew he would be able to feel the dripping heat of my cunt before long.
This was Arran Earthborn, some small part of my mind recalled. This was the Brutal Prince—the male who represented everything I hated about my life and my position, everything that had been taken away from me.
I hated him, but I wanted him inside of me.
Arran was done with my ear, now scratching his teeth and lips across my throat. The stubble of his chin burned against my pale, sensitive skin. I’d have marks come morning. Morning? Night? What hour, what day? I did not know, I did not care. All I wanted was him, this.
This escape.
My hands climbed his shoulders, the column of his neck, tangling in his dark silky hair. But I couldn’t stop and enjoy the feeling of those locks wrapped around my fingers. My core was pulsing with need. I grabbed his chin, my thumbs pulling at his bottom lip while my fingers splayed across his stubbled cheeks.
“Now,” I said, looking straight into those dark, fathomless eyes.
