She frowned, shaking her head as words failed. Tric ran a fingertip down her cheek, over the swell of her lips.
“I have my daemons too. And I like you, truly. I just wonder … is this wise?”
“What’s ‘this’ mean?”
“Well, this. Us.” He waved at the dark around them. “We’re not here long. Even assuming we’re initiated as Blades, we’ll be sent to different chapels. We’ll be assassins, Mia. The life we lead … it’s not one that ends in happy ever after.”
“Is that what you think I want? Happy ever after?”
“That’s the riddle, isn’t it?” Tric sighed. “I don’t know what you want.”
She rolled across the bed, leaned up on one elbow above him. Long black hair draped across his skin, staring down into those sweet hazel eyes. “You’re an idiot.”
“True,” he smiled.
She kissed him then, mouth open to his. Running one hand down his chest, over the hills and troughs of his abdomen, feeling the muscles harden in contrast to the softness of his lips. Eyes closed. Alone in the dark, and not alone at all.
Breaking the kiss, she studied his face. Those awful scrawls of hatred on his skin. The scars. Those beautiful, bottomless eyes beyond.
“Just keep the dreams away. That’s all I ask. Will you do that for me?”
He searched her eyes. Nodded slow. “I can do that.”
She took his hand, pulled it close. Pushed it against her breast, guiding it to the tautness of her belly, slipping it down into her britches. His fingers running through the thatch of her hair, searching lower still, her breath catching in her lungs.
She felt him part her lips, moaned as his fingers gently curled against her. She reached down, seeking his cock again, but he pushed her onto her back, the deft movements of his hand sending delightful shivers up her spine.
“My turn,” he whispered.
Mia leaned back, moaning as he kissed her neck, hissing encouragement as he bit her hard, harder. She wrapped her fingers in his hair as he tugged up her shirt, groaning as his tongue circled the hardening swell of her nipple. He took her into his mouth, suckling, his fingers still working some kind of magik between her legs. Warmth radiating out from her center, her thighs shivered, soaked with need. He snapped the ties on her britches, dragged them down around her ankles, caught up in her boots. She kicked them free, one leg still entangled, writhing on the bed as he continued stroking her, working firm hard circles on her softest place.
“O, Daughters,” she breathed. “O, yes.”
He knelt between her legs, one hand caressing her breast, the other still lighting fires between her legs. And placing one last kiss on her lips, he pushed himself down her trembling body. Leaving a trail of burning kisses across her breasts, down her belly. She knew where he was headed, suddenly frightened again, eyes fluttering wide. Her hand snagging in his hair, pulling him up with a wince.
He looked at her, a question burning in his eyes behind the blinding hunger.
“… You don’t have to,” she breathed.
“But I want to,” he said.
He lifted her leg, kissing the tender skin on the back of her knee and making her shiver. Running fingertips slowly down her tightening belly. Dragging his lips down the inside of her thigh, stubble tickling, his breath damp on her skin. Lust at last overcoming her fear, she wrapped her fingers in his locks, urging him down. With deliberate, agonizing slowness, he spiraled lower, closer, licking the fresh sweat and making her groan, breath coming ever quicker. Pausing as he reached her lips, breathing her in as if she were air and he a drowning man. She whimpered, silently pleading. And as he parted her folds with gentle fingers, she felt the first touch of his tongue.
“O, Goddess,” she moaned.
It flickered against her, gentle at first, trailing tiny circles around her swollen bud. Her back arched, legs rising into the air, toes pointed. He toyed with her, tongue flickering in and out, blowing cool breaths onto her between gentle assaults from his mouth. She was overcome with the sensation, exposed and completely at his mercy. But Daughters, she wanted it. Reveled in it. Grabbing fistfuls of his hair and pulling him in, willing him to press harder, to take her, taste her, set her on fire.
He lapped rhythmically, and Mia thrashed on the bed, eyes rolling back in her head. Heat building inside her, torturous and enveloping, wordless pleas filling the air. Just as she thought she could take no more, she felt another pressure, urgent and hot. And, parting her wet lips with his hand, he slowly eased a finger inside her.
Sparks in her mind. Blinding light in her eyes. Mia groaned as he went to work, curling and stroking, his rhythm inside matching the increasing pace of his tongue. She began to shake harder with each ragged gasp, writhing as a flood swelled inside her, pressing against some hidden dam, higher and hotter. Tric worked his fingers and his mouth, his tongue and his breath, stars colliding behind her eyes, curses slipping past her teeth “O, fuck, O, fuck, O, fuck” until the dam shattered, the flood spilled along with a wordless cry from her lips, spine arched, head thrown back as she silently screamed his name.
Tric slowed, withdrawing his hand, still drawing gentle circles on her soaking lips with his tongue. And then, he kissed her, tenderly, as if her sex were her mouth and he were saying goodbye for the very last time.
He lifted his head as Mia untangled her fingers from his hair. Shot her a crooked smile.
“Are you all right?”
“Where … the ’byss … did you learn to do that?”
Grinning, the boy pulled himself up the bed, collapsed beside her. “Same place I learned to dance. Shahiid Aalea offered a few pointers, should I ever find myself seducing some marrowborn daughter or somesuch.”
Mia sighed, heart still hammering in her breast. “I’ll thank her next time I see her.”
Tric smiled, leaned over and kissed her. She could taste herself on his lips, tongue entwined with his own. Reaching down, she found him still hard as stone, hot as iron. She wanted more. But a cool fear burned in the back of her mind, rising in volume even as she kicked off her remaining pants leg, swung herself up and straddled him. She tore off her shirt and he lunged at her breasts, kissing and gnawing. Leaning back, she grasped the burning spear of his cock, pressing it against her aching lips. Running him back and forth, tempted to simply sink, inch by inch, all the way down.
“I want you,” he breathed. “Mother of fucking Night, I want you.”
Her lips found his, her breath against his skin. “And I you. But …”
“But what?”
“I don’t know if it’s safe.”
He took hold of her hips, mouth on her breasts, pulling her down as she dragged him along her aching lips. The tip of him slipped inside her—O holy Daughters, it felt good0and she almost lost herself then. Wanting. Needing. More than she’d wanted or needed before in her life. But she tangled her fingers in his hair, pulled him away from her aching nipples. Leaning back, she let him have another inch of her, groaning from her depths. But then she stopped. Tightened her grip and rose up off him, leaving herself empty. He sighed, but she smiled, giving him a playful slap and pushing him back down on the bed, sliding onto the sweat-soaked fur beside him.
“Not tonight, Don Tric,” she whispered.
Tric lay back in the tangle of pillows and furs. Trying in vain to catch his breath.
“You’re a cold one, Pale Daughter,” he managed.
She took his hand, pressed it between her legs. “Say again?”
“Maw’s teeth, you’re just being sadistic now.”
She laughed, lying back in the pillows and staring at the ceiling. Narrowing her eyes and twisting the shadows, watching them writhe. The fear was gone. Swallowed utterly by the knowledge burning in her mind.
He’d do anything to have me at this moment. Anything I asked. Kill for me. Die for me. Bathe in the blood of hundreds just so he could breathe his last inside me.