Oath of the Alpha - Eva Dresden Page 0,82
made of ice and agony as time stretched on. Each jolting step Kal made threatened to shatter her into a thousand glittering pieces to vanish among the crusty swells of snow piling up around them. It reminded her so much of the shambles Er’it created that she screeched. His purr did little to console her now as the icy tide rose up inside her, closing off her tightening throat until she choked on the very air.
Blinded by the flying snow, she didn’t even realize they’d dismounted or that Er’it now carried her. So lost in the pain churning in her stomach, she scarce took notice when the wind and sleet stopped tearing at her face and hair. It was not until he dumped her on the rocky ground in a disarray of furs to tear at her clothing that she realized he touched her at all.
His brazen heat scoured her blue-tinged skin raw. Her screams and cries went unheeded as he chafed and scrubbed, shouting at his men in their own language as they created an impenetrable wall of muscle to keep the villagers away. Naked and writhing along the thawing pelts, she cursed him as best she could and sobbed. She blamed him, all of them, for the pain running in a mad dash through her. The prickling of her skin, the throbbing ache between her legs, even the soreness of her ears was all to be blamed upon him. If he’d left her in that cursed castle, never darkened Otaso’s door, none of this would have ever happened.
When his body aligned with hers, naked and boiling with the heat of a thousand suns, she screamed until her throat felt bloody. Shoving at his chest, clawing at his arms, she sought to be free of the scalding warmth bringing her body back to life. With it came the slippery glide of her thighs against one another as she squirmed, his scent thick on her tongue in the warming air.
Er’it’s topaz eyes rose in front of her, lashes wide around the dilating pupil as he took an experimental sniff. Whatever he saw on her face as she bucked in a final bid to be rid of his oppressive weight had him snatching her up. Winding her legs and arms around his torso, he snarled mangled commands at his men and ran.
His long legs carried them over shadowy crevices and huge boulders, traversing long shafts in a cave so dark Aida wondered they didn’t tumble and break their necks. As though he could see it all clear as day, wild leaps and scuttling declines were nothing to him.
Aida moaned as a lurch up a steep incline rubbed her breasts against him, the hardened points of her nipples chafing against his hot flesh. Somehow, her lips found his shoulder, tongue feeling the dainty impressions of her teeth so that she could suck and lick at the deep scar.
Roaring, he slammed her back into the rough wall, grinding his thick length against her.
Aida lost sense of anything at all except the musky taste of cedar on her tongue and the vicious sounds of the male who crushed his lips against her own.
Aida groaned as she came awake, uncertain which part of her body hurt more and what she should see to first. Every inch felt abraded, as if scoured with Immari’s pumice stone and the harsh lye the laundress used to keep Aida’s gowns a pure white. Her limbs ached, she felt bruised, and she was almost certain the scratchy tickle at her shoulder was the mark of old blood.
She chanced lifting herself to an elbow, peering around with bleary eyes at the strange scene she found herself in. Furs, blankets, and even a few scattered cushions were arranged all around her and not in the aggravating way Er’it did them. Every line and swell soothed her in a way she’d never felt before, something even Er’it’s purr could not compare to as she rolled to a hip and took in more of her surroundings.
Dim orbs of amber and flickering gold hovered along the smooth contours of the low ceiling. The pale gray stone reflected back the light to illuminate the cramped chamber along with its other occupant. Sound asleep, Er’it lay sprawled half on top of her, his arm curled tight about her waist. Raven hair fanning out in reckless abandon across the dark pelts, skin aglow from the rich light of the orbs, he appeared as if from another world. None