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“Your lips are as red as the flowers you admired earlier,” I say.
“Really?”
“Yes. I can also compare it to the blood that you spill sometimes.”
She tries to look away, but I hold her jaw firmly. “If you so badly wish to harm your own body, I’ll be the one to do it. I’ll make sure you desire such a thing out of pleasure, not turmoil.”
“Lasta… I–”
“Am I clear?
She’s quiet for a moment. “Yes.”
This time, she initiates the kiss. We both melt into it as my hands travel around her body, then under her dress. I graze her skin with my claws, wanting to leave a mark of some sort on her. But those are my feral instincts taking over, and I can’t let it go so far – just yet.
For now, I just want to enjoy her all to myself. I want to have her entirely focused on me. And I want to bask in the fire brewing inside me.
15
KRISTA
Fourteen.
It has been fourteen days since I started working in the smithy.
I have never had a word for letting go. For relinquishing control. For giving myself up. For loosening my grip on myself and the life around me.
Until I met Lasta.
I can still hear him say it.
“Submit. Let go. Just let go.”
The hair on the back of my neck rises at the memory of his voice in my ear, his lips brushing against my neck, his hands holding firmly onto my arms.
Letting go and allowing Lasta to take over has opened something in me. Something that was previously in a tight, hot knot in the center of my chest. Something that could only be relaxed through pain that would take up residence in my core instead and push it out.
I cannot believe that I’ve been living like this my entire life,I thought as my eyes fluttered closed underneath Lasta’s touch.How was I able to breathe?
I look up then, my vision hazy, my blood pounding in my ears, as I remember all my moments with Lasta thus far.
My cheeks heat up as I realize that I am standing at my table in the smithy. The sun is setting, and I am covered in grime, sweat, and grease from polishing the latest consignment of swords.
I look down at the table, and my hands are gripping the edge of the surface. I am alone in the smithy, aside from Irian, who has barred me from doing any of my usual tasks because I burned myself on the edge of the furnace again this morning.
My hands are covered in scars and bruises, and the burned bruise on my left arm is still throbbing.
I close my eyes and exhale as Irian finishes up the last of the swords. He grunts at me and I jump as I realize that he is instructing me to leave.
Tonight, I actually want to leave early because I am meeting Lasta for dinner and I need time to prepare.
“I think I’m actually excited,” I say to myself as I hurry up the pathway back to the palace.
I inhale and exhale deeply several times as I enter my room and come to a hard stop.
Because there on my bed is a large package.
A note is attached.Wear this tonight,it reads. I shiver at the simple command and then wonder what Lasta is doing to me.
