The Warrior King (Inferno Rising #3) - Abigail Owen Page 0,30
wanted to harm me, you would already have done it.”
“I could be a spy. Getting you on your own, or getting you to reveal where you’ve been hiding, may have been my agenda all along. What if I have signaled others to come attack and now am waiting for them to arrive?”
Was that why he’d been watching out the window? She thought through his words and actions this entire day. No.
“You wouldn’t.” In truth, she’d been watching him closely for months. Watching everyone around her closely, as she always had done, even in childhood. Samael in particular, though. A morbid sort of fascination for a man whose emotions, if let loose, could flay her to the bone.
The leather of his gauntlets creaked, which told her he was making fists. A tell she had noticed a while ago. He didn’t like having her trust? Why?
“What if I killed Gorgon?” he threw at her next.
Given their interactions, the loyalty Samael showed his king, Meira couldn’t help the tiny laugh that punched from her at that. “You would never.”
“No?”
He wanted her to doubt him for some unknown reason. “Why would you?”
“Why—” The word cut off as he gave a small growl that had her body coming fully online, only with awareness rather than fear, blood rushing to fill her veins with a fizzing sort of heat. What a sound…
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he snapped.
Before she could answer, he moved on top of her, faster than a lightning strike. He had her by the wrists, pinning her with his weight, mouth hovering over hers.
In the semidark, the flames in his eyes ignited, silver-tipped black, casting a strangely gray sort of light over them. Frozen above her, Samael seemed to drink her in, gaze moving to her lips, then down farther to her breasts, which pressed against him with each sharp intake of breath. That gaze feathered over her like a physical caress, skating across her skin, pressing, lingering…
“Why would I kill my king?” he demanded in a voice full of fire and smoky need. “Maybe I want to press my luck and see if the fates might have finally been kind and granted me a mate. A phoenix, no less.”
A metaphorical devil—the ghosts of Skylars past, perhaps—prompted Meira to a bravery that usually escaped her, an act of sheer stupidity. “Why don’t you try to claim me?”
Samael stopped breathing above her, and time hung trapped in the stars outside her window for a heartbeat. “Dammit, Meira.”
In an instant, emotions reached for her, wrapped around her—anger and passion all mixed up and confusing. And compelling.
He lowered his head, and, with a burst of anticipation, she waited, breathless, for his kiss. Everything she’d imagined when she hadn’t been able to stop herself, his lips demanding and hot and perfect as he plundered her own. Curiosity gave way to temporary insanity as her body took over from her mind. Meira was a jumble of impressions—heat infusing her skin, blood pulsing through her body, and intensity, heady and strong. The hard demand of his lips and yet how soft they were against hers, the flavor of him, subtle and dark against her tongue, and how with each press, each sweep of his mouth against hers, she craved…more.
“Ambrosia,” he pulled back to whisper against her lips. “You taste like ambrosia.”
Then he was kissing her again, laying claim to everything she was with the mere touch of his lips—frantic, desperate, and demanding. Emotions, vivid and unrecognizable, rose up inside her—from her, from him—and Meira whimpered with the force of them.
At the sound, Samael jerked back to gaze down at her, harsh breathing mingling with her own.
They stared at each other in the light cast by the fire consuming his eyes and that coming from the fireplace. Then he flung himself off her to drop beside her on the bed. Once more, his anger and desire pelted her, except now a small, stupid part of her wanted it.
“See? I could have claimed you if I wanted, and you wouldn’t have stopped me,” he pointed out in that low growl of a voice, his dragon so near to the surface she expected Samael to shimmer with the transition any second.
A small part of her flinched inside. Was that how he saw her? Someone who didn’t fight back? Who just endured whatever hardships life hurled at her and waited to be rescued?
That image stuck inside her, like a rock in her shoe. She didn’t like it.