His tongue flicked against her skin.
She made a small noise that might have been a moan, or a word, or his name. He shuddered and pulled back, the cool air kissing her neck. Wildness—pure wildness sparked in those eyes.
Then he thoroughly, brazenly surveyed her body, his nostrils flaring delicately as he scented exactly what she wanted.
Her breathing turned ragged as he dragged his stare to hers—hungry, feral, unyielding.
“Not yet,” he said roughly, his own breathing uneven. “Not now.”
“Why?” It was an effort to remember speech with him looking at her like that. Like he might eat her alive. Heat pounded through her core.
“I want to take my time with you—to learn … every inch of you. And this apartment has very, very thin walls. I don’t want to have an audience,” he added as he leaned down again, brushing his mouth over the cut at the base of her throat, “when I make you moan, Aelin.”
Oh, by the Wyrd. She was in trouble. So much rutting trouble. And when he said her name like that …
“This changes things,” she said, hardly able to get the words out.
“Things have been changing for a while already. We’ll deal with it.” She wondered how long his resolve to wait would last if she lifted her face to claim his mouth with her own, if she ran her fingers down the groove of his spine. If she touched him lower than that. But—
Wyverns. Witches. Army. Erawan.
She loosed a heavy breath. “Sleep,” she mumbled. “We should sleep.”
He swallowed again, slowly peeling himself away from her and strode to the closet to dress. Honestly, it was an effort not to leap after him and rip that damn towel away.
Maybe she should make Aedion go stay somewhere else. Just for a night.
And then she would burn in hell for all eternity for being the most selfish, awful person to ever grace the earth.
She forced herself to put her back to the closet, not trusting herself to so much as look at Rowan without doing something infinitely stupid.
Oh, she was in so much gods-damned trouble.
53
Drink, the demon prince coaxed in a lover’s croon. Savor it.
The prisoner was sobbing on the floor of the dungeon cell, his fear and pain and memories leaking from him. The demon prince inhaled them as though they were opium.
Delicious.
It was.
He hated himself, cursed himself.
But the despair coming from the man as his worst memories ripped him to shreds … it was intoxicating. It was strength; it was life.
He had nothing and no one, anyway. If he got the chance, he would find a way to end it. For now, this was eternity, this was birth and death and rebirth.
So he drank the man’s pain, his fear, his sorrow.
And he learned to like it.
54
Manon stared at the letter that the trembling messenger had just delivered. Elide was trying her best to look as though she wasn’t observing every flick of Manon’s eyes across the page, but it was hard not to stare when the witch snarled with every word she read.
Elide lay on her pallet of hay, the fire already dying down to embers, and groaned as she sat up, her sore body aching. She’d found a water skein in the larder, and had even asked the cook if she could take it for the Wing Leader. He didn’t dare object. Or begrudge her the two little bags of nuts she had also nabbed “for the Wing Leader.” Better than nothing.
She’d stored it all under her pallet, and Manon hadn’t noticed. Any day now, the wagon would be arriving with supplies. When it left, Elide would be on it. And never have to deal with any of this darkness again.
Elide reached for the pile of logs and added two to the fire, sending sparks shooting up in a wave. She was about to lie down again when Manon said from the desk, “In three days, I’ll be heading out with my Thirteen.”
“To where?” Elide dared ask. From the violence with which the Wing Leader had read the letter, it couldn’t be anywhere pleasant.
“To a forest in the North. To—” Manon caught herself and moved across the floor, her steps light but powerful as she came to the hearth and chucked the letter in. “I’ll be gone for at least two days. If I were you, I’d suggest using that time to lie low.”
Elide’s stomach twisted at the thought of what, exactly, it might mean for the Wing Leader’s protection to be thousands of miles