Chapter 47: Forty Seven
A growl of displeasure vibrates in my chest. "Keep saying shit like that and I will break your fucking neck, Ironfang."
It is comical. I could pick her up and throw her across the room like insect. I could crush her throat with half a thought. I could freeze the blood in her veins with one stare. I could think of a million ways I could kill the tiny woman for touching me, for putting me on my damned back. It is almost comical, just thinking of it.
Until it isn’t.
Because she catches my bottom lip and bites me. I go still. Her pink tongue darts out then, and licks me. "Do it, then." Another flick of her tongue. "You always did enjoy breaking things."
Something dark and terrible flares inside me, my cock twitching in my pants. Thirst, hunger for things I couldn’t name rakes through me.
My hands find the small of her back, bracketing her waist. I was furious at myself. Furious at her. Furious at the fact that she could disorient me with one touch. She could stir the monster inside with something so small. I reach up, seizing her hair in my fist and pull her down, so that our breaths mingle. "Do not test me."
I slam my lips into hers. To punish her for it. To make her understand just what she was toying around with. Something even I, Lucien Draemont, grandson of Tiber, was frightened to unleash.
But in the end, the one I punish is me.
Because she matches my pace with as much brutality as I give. Her thighs clamp tightly around me, her hands wandering places only one woman has ever touched. I pull her hair, she yanks on mine harder. My claws rip into her small waist, carved to perfection to fit my hands, and she bites me in response. I crush her closer and she retaliates, just as petty, scratching her claws against my chest as she feels for my skin desperately.
And soon, it shifts from anger to seismic hunger. The thing between us transforms into something abominable and truly frightening.
I move, slamming us both into the headboard and it cracks. My hips buck as she brings her treacherous mouth to my neck and sinks her teeth into it.
A snarl escapes me and I grip her back side, hurling her against my aching cock. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck
.Did I ever mention I had a thing for women who might actually kill me?
My vision hazes red, the air in the room fluctuating between freezing cold and scalding hot as my powers span out of control.
I hiss sharply as her hips roll against me, brushing against the heat at the apex of her thighs and it is nigh impossible to stop my claws from digging into her spine. Her spine arches, her head falling back as her mouth falls around a soft purr. Her nipples strain against the fabric of her tunic and as she grinds mindlessly against me, stoking the flames burning us both, I rip her tunic, baring her chest to me.
Beautiful, pink, puckered crests stare back at me. They were small, but my pulse pounded faster, my mouth drying as I war against the need to touch them, taste them, nip those hardened bonds, water her skin with all of me. I couldn’t. Shouldn’t. I... Fuck.
"Lucien," Valka moans, grabbing the nape of my neck and tugging my head down to her breasts in the same moment she cups the head of my cock and makes sound that shoots all the way to my toes.
In a second, I have her pinned beneath me, prying her hands off my cock. They reach down again, a breathy whine escaping her as I shake my head, trying to clear the urge to claim, to fuck, to own, to break. But she kisses me again, the conniving sorceress, and at the stroke of her tongue against mine, I forget why I hated her in the first place.
"Valka," I growl.
And something..., snaps. It is as though, saying her name does something to her.
I pull back when she stills, eyes searching hers. Like a fog clears from her gaze, she blinks. Once twice, her eyes... changing. The fire in them disappears, replaced by... confusion. She peers around us, brows knitting. She blinks again, strangely, as though waking from a dream.
"Valka," I say again. It is more a question than it is a statement.
As if only realizing I am right there, her eyes fly to where her hands are tangled in my hair, gripping tightly on the roots. Then drop to where her legs are wrapped around my hips. She recoils so fast, you would think she was stung.
I pull back, letting her flee and her back slams into the broken headboard, eyes wide with panic as she notes her shredded tunic and my ripped shirt. I see her eyes sift through different possibilities and because she’s fucking Valka, she holds her clothes together, hiding her chest from me. "What... What did you do to me?"
"You mean, what did you do to me?"
She runs her free hand through her hair and down her face. "Get out."
"Excuse me?"
She grabs the pillow beside her throws it into my face with a glorified screech. "Get out!"
Her chest begins heaving and though, I don’t understand shit that just happened, I reach across to steady her, lest she passes out from the air fogging her brain. But the second I lean forward, she reacts.
Valka Ironfang slaps me.
Hard.
The sound cracks like a whip across my cheek. For a moment I stare, bewildered. It wasn’t so much as the slap as it was everything. Like I’d fucking imagined the last few minutes. Like the woman who had been reaching into my pants to hold my cock was an entirely different person than the one falling apart in front of me right now.
But it is the slap as well. No one raises a hand to me and lives to tell the tale. And yet, I wasn’t even pissed at it. I was more ticked off by the fact that she’d had her hands on my dick and was throwing me out. Like I was something she could use and reject at will. I was fucking embarrassed. Confused. Did she want me? Did she not want me?
Why the fuck didn’t she want me? Everyone wants me.
"Leave!" she screams at me, and I step off the bed, grabbing my coat off the chair that I’d slept in last night, beside her, because I couldn’t fall asleep in my own bed.
"Fine."
So I do. My jacket clenched in my fist, my body burning like I’ve been set alight.
Outside, Evadne and the rest of my guard straighten sharply as I slam the door shut. They take in my shredded shirt, swollen lips, loosened belt, and the murder coiled in my eyes.
They look away, pretending to have seen and heard nothing.