his cock. The heat in her gaze threatened to burn him, and the scent of her arousal wrapped itself around him and dug its claws in deep.
“Take off your pants,” he growled.
Nesta’s smile only grew, pure feline amusement.
He’d fuck her on this table. Right now. He didn’t care about anything else, about the common space they were in or Eris or Briallyn or Koschei or the Dread Trove. He needed to be inside her, to feel that hot tightness around him and claim her as she had claimed him.
Nesta’s fingers slid to the buttons and laces of her pants, and he shook as he watched them free the top button—
Steps scuffed down the hall. A warning. From someone who knew how to remain silent.
Cassian stiffened, then shoved his aching cock into his pants. Nesta heard the sound and moved a few feet away, refastening that top button. Cassian had just finished setting himself to rights when Azriel strode in.
“Good evening,” his brother said with a grating level of calm, striding toward the table.
“Az.” Cassian wasn’t able to keep the bite out of his tone. He met his brother’s too-aware stare and silently conveyed every bit of annoyance he felt at his timing. Azriel only shrugged, surveying the food the House had brought him. As if he knew exactly what he’d interrupted and took his chaperone duties very seriously.
Nesta was watching them, but as soon as Cassian turned to her, she launched into movement, pushing off the table and aiming for the door. “Good night.” She didn’t wait for him to respond before she was gone.
Cassian leveled a glare at Az. “Thanks for that.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Az said, even as he smiled down at his food.
“Asshole.”
Az chuckled. “Don’t show your hand all at once, Cass.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Az nodded toward the doorway. “Save something for later.”
“Busybody.”
Az took a bite. “You let her suck your cock in the middle of the dining room. At a table I’m currently using to eat my dinner. I’d say that entitles me to an opinion.”
Cassian laughed, his earlier gloom chased away. By her. All by her. “Fair enough.”
CHAPTER
27
Nesta hadn’t the faintest idea how she’d look Cassian in the face the next morning, but Gwyn provided a buffer she was all too eager to use. She met the priestess on the steps up to the training pit, and Gwyn offered her a bright smile. “Morning.”
“Morning,” Nesta said, falling into step with her. “Anything on the Trove?”
Gwyn shook her head. She still wore her robes, though she’d taken to tying back her hair in a tight braid. “I even asked Merrill last night. She broke through that glamour, but beyond a few mentions in old texts, she couldn’t find anything more than what you already know. Not a hint about when or where they were lost, or who lost them. We can’t even uncover who last possessed them, since it’s information that goes back at least ten thousand years.”
It was always a shock to remember just how old the Fae were. How old Amren must be, to have remembered the Dread Trove objects when they were still free in the world. But apparently even Amren had no memory of who’d last used them.
Nesta shoved away the thought of the female, and the accompanying cold slice of pain.
“It might prove an impossible task,” Gwyn said, mouth twisting to one side. “Is there no other way of finding it?”
There was. It involved bones and stones. Nesta’s body locked up. “No,” she lied. “There’s no other way.”
“You’re going up to Windhaven?” Nesta found herself asking Cassian as Gwyn bade them farewell at the end of their lesson. Gwyn had started on fighting stances that morning, and it had taken enough focus from all of them that Nesta hadn’t had a moment to really speak to him alone. There had been one slightly overlong glance when she’d appeared, and that had been it.
She had no regrets about what she’d done in the dining room. Even if it had been glaringly obvious that Azriel had known what he was interrupting.
But standing here alone with Cassian … The taste of him lingered in her mouth, as if he’d branded himself onto her tongue.
She’d lain awake in bed last night thinking of every stroke, every sound he’d made, still feeling the press of his fingers into her head as he’d thrust into her mouth. The memory alone had made her slide a hand between her legs, and she’d needed to