Oath of the Alpha - Eva Dresden Page 0,35
she stopped it.”
“Mercy of the Hat’or, it was you. That corpse was ancient. It was out there for seasons, not hours.”
“No! It was just before I ran. Something was chasing me, and then I came upon Rhyn and his men. Things went from bad to worse then.”
“You did that to the mages.”
It wasn’t a question, but Aida still nodded. Wrapping her arms tight around her middle, she hugged herself for what little comfort it could give. Flinching when Er’it raised his hand, she startled even more when he stroked her cheek with the backs of his fingers.
“There is something you can do,” he said, quiet and not at all pleased as his mouth turned down at the corners.
“Tell me. I’ll do anything.” Aida sat up on her knees, eyes wide as she shuffled closer.
“Give me your hand.” Eyes hard and cold, he met Aida’s starlit gaze with his hand held out for hers.
“What for?” Regretting her words, she realized just who she spoke with. A man who gained his power from blood and death, he was the same as Otaso, hurting her at every turn.
“You said you would do anything,” he said as he grabbed Aida’s wrist and dragged her hand toward him.
Whimpering as Er’it crushed the fine bones, Aida nodded and stretched her arm out farther. She scrunched her eyes tight against the sight she did not want to see. He had spilled her blood once, but she’d been so wrapped up in his power, in her need for him, she never noticed the pain of it. This would be as it was with Otaso. Pain, agony, the red rush of her life staining her skin would be gathered between his lips. She knew that from her former guardian, remembered his adoring groans and rough praise as he hurt her and feasted upon her small wounds. She shuddered at the memories of those times and how they drove her to be meeker, quieter—an unwilling participant to the great mage’s desires.
“Do not,” Er’it snarled, jerking Aida forward. Bringing her crashing against his chest where he violated her mouth with tongue and teeth, he forced her lips wide to accept his brutality. He feasted upon her shaky breath and tentative moan before hauling her back to look deep into her eyes. “Open. Soft. That is how I need you, kou’va. Just like this.”
Misty gaze caught within the glimmering bands of light in his eyes, Aida gave a low hum, gasping as his fingers worked their way under the tunic to splay over her back and pull her tighter. She fair purred as he kneaded the tense, abused muscles. Feathering chaste kisses against the corner of her lips that were no less torrid and intoxicating, he upended her thoughts, leaving her blissful in the confused array of sensations as she felt another touch. Delicate and light as a breeze, it caressed against her soul and brought with it the heady scent of cedar and crackling fires among starshine and snow.
Aida cried out in anything but pain as that touch became firmer. Her fingers threaded through Er’it’s braids, holding tight as his resonating groan tumbled through her. Feeling a heartbeat not her own thundering in her chest, she gripped him for fear of losing herself in the overwhelming sensations. Caught up in a tidal wave of fire and ice lashing through her limbs, she smelled and saw things she had no words for—flitting images of hazy horizons, breathtaking colors in hues she had never seen before, vast sands a gleaming onyx under an unforgiving sun.
“Slow, slow,” Er’it mumbled against her lips, though there was nothing serene about the way he ravished her. Calling to her with vicious satisfaction, he yanked her snug to grind her against his thigh.
Screams. Fire and smoke so thick it created an impenetrable wall. A woman with eyes of amber and lush ebony waves, lip curled as she wielded a sword too large for her. Protecting the fallen bodies of two boys. A wide-eyed, smaller version of Er’it, long before cruelty shaped his stern jaw, stood at her back with a bloody knife in his grip. The one Aida lost in the woods.
“No,” Er’it said through a low growl, the hand at Aida’s back digging into muscle and bone. The glare of his topaz eyes was hidden away as he clenched them shut and muttered something under his breath.
They were not the same as the words Aida found on her lips when the blue light made its appearance, but