Ravage (Royal Fae Academy #1) - Lacey Carter Andersen Page 0,14

at the water, watching it turn black from the demon’s blood. The sticky substance seems to ooze off my chest and arms. My skin underneath is red and painful-looking, but not nearly as bad as it could’ve been.

If he hadn’t shown up to save me.

Why had he been out there? Why had he faced an iron demon for me? Any fae would’ve run. They wouldn’t have risked their potentially immortal life for their friend’s little sister. For a woman they hadn’t bothered to call, text, or even email in four years.

My mind goes back to the last texts I sent this man. I still had them. I still tortured myself with reading them, every once in a while, when the sun shone too bright and the world outside looked foreign and unwelcoming.

The visit was fun.

No response.

Is it nice to be back at the academy? Will you be home the next break?

No response.

Did I do something?

No response.

And I hadn’t contacted him again. Yes, I was lonely. Yes, they were my only fae friends in the world. But no, I was a Bloodmore, I wouldn’t grovel for their friendship. If it’d finally occurred to them that they could never be friends with a dark fae, then I’d let them go. I didn’t need anyone.

Lucian leans forward and uses his thumb to rub the specks of blood from my face, and I lean closer so that he can run his hands through my hair and wash everything out of the long strands. His touch is gentle as he moves his calloused palms over me, something I appreciate when my body feels so sensitive.

My eyes close again, and I remember so much in that moment. So much of the Lucian who used to play with my brother. He always made me laugh, always made me feel included in a way no one else could. It was never like I was the little sister. It was like I was his friend.

Now, here we are, years later, and his soft touch is running over me beneath the warm spray of the water. And for some reason, it makes sense that he’s doing this. Since the first time I slept with a man, sex had never been something gentle or loving. A man’s touch was hard and good, but so far from the way Lucian touches me that it almost seems impossible that a man is capable of doing both.

If it were anyone else at any other time, I’d feel too vulnerable to be seen like this, to be touched like this. But with Lucian, it’s almost…natural.

“Better?” he whispers.

I nod, too tired to open my eyes. “Bed.”

His hands freeze in my hair. “Esmeray, can you dress yourself? Can I get you to your—?”

“Your bed is fine,” I say, slipping so close to sleep that I’m startled when the water turns off.

A warm towel wraps around me, and then I’m picked up into strong arms.

With the towel still around me, I’m settled into his lap. A shirt goes over me. Then, after a quiet moment, he reaches for the back of my bra, unhooks it, and pulls it off out of one sleeve of the shirt. My underwear goes next, although I can feel the weight of the warm shirt and the towel concealing me from view.

At last, the towel drops away, and I’m tucked beneath soft sheets. When Lucian starts to pull away, my treacherous hand snags his shirt.

“Lay with me.”

I hear him moving around, then a little while later, the bed sags beside me. Instinctually, I roll toward him, curling against his side. My skin still feels strangely sensitive from the iron demon, and my body is drained.

But somehow, I feel safe.

For the first time since my brother’s death.

7

Lucian

My father once said that being around Rayne’s family had forever corrupted me. That being around dark fae was like catching a virus, that suddenly the darker emotions could take root and grow within us. I never told him the truth. I never said that it wasn’t being around Rayne and his family that had changed me forever, it was being connected to Esmeray.

Being her mate.

Were she a light fae, she would feel our connection the same way we do. Like a part of our souls we never knew existed suddenly flared to life. Like we changed in ways that not even we could understand.

But she isn’t a light fae. While she changes us, we don’t change her.

Emotions I never thought could live and breathe within me so