He drags his teeth from my breast and kisses a scorching path to my ear.
“Don’t stop. Take what you need.” His lips move hot at my throat and then close over my mouth, swallowing my sighs.
I’m on the very edge of euphoria, eyes closed, mouth consuming, when Alexus’s handsome face, imprinted on the backs of my eyelids, vanishes. In its place floats the smug, damaged countenance of the Prince of the East.
I jerk away from Alexus, the coiled pleasure inside me unwinding like the threads of a dying life, and the fire within me turns to ice. I keep my eyes closed, holding that connection, determined to do something this time, though I don’t know what.
“My, my,” the prince says, “you grow more interesting by the minute. What do all these lovely marks mean?” He shakes his head. “Never mind. I’ll have time to learn them later. For now, I thought I’d let you know that I figured out what kept pulling me back to your mind. It was something I didn’t know existed until I sensed it all over you, but it’s something I terribly need back where it belongs, and I intend to make that happen.” A laugh bellows out of him, a smoky, obscene sound. “This is goodbye, Keeper, for now. I hate to leave you in this terrible construct, but you’ll be safely trapped for when I’m ready for you. And you obviously know how to keep yourself entertained. It’s been lovely. And I do mean lovely. My sincerest thanks for the show.” He leans in and raises an evil brow. “But more importantly, thanks for the God Knife.”
24
Alexus
One moment, Raina is in my arms on the cusp of bliss. The next, she’s clambering off me, scrambling across the ground half-naked toward a crow perched on a tuft of moss. The bird takes off, wings flapping wildly, but Raina lunges, hand darting out like a strike of lightning, and grabs the creature by the wing. She flings the crow to the ground, its screeching caw enough to wake the Ancient Ones, and before I can do anything more than sit up, she’s driving a knife through its thick chest.
“Gods’ balls, what in the bloody blazes?”
I get up and go to her. I’m still raging hard and lingering in a haze of lust, even though the woman I want has crow blood splattered on her bare chest.
Breathing heavy and fast, she jerks her hand back, bringing the knife with it. The sound of the blade leaving the bird is a disgusting squelch in the night.
I haven’t seen a blade in Raina’s possession since our moments on the village green, save for the Littledenn dagger I gifted her—the one I slipped from her thigh minutes ago. But the blade she held to my throat wasn’t on her person when I collected her from the village. Or at least I don’t think it was. In truth, I checked her for weapons and only found an empty belt strapped to her thigh.
Helena had a knife, though.
Raina looks up at me, her beautifully marked torso painted in blood. Her glassy eyes are wide and hard, a crimson-slicked knife in one hand, a dead crow pressed beneath the other.
Gods. Virago, indeed.
And yet, I’m still stupidly aroused. Maybe more so.
Shaking it off as best I can, I kick the dead bird away and, after a few moments, crouch before Raina. She’s already lowered the blade, shielding it behind her back like she’s trying to hide it from me. She takes a deep inhale and sits on her heels, then blows out a long breath.
“Want to talk about it?” I ask with a half-smile, an effort to dismantle some of the crackling energy and tension in the air. “I’m not sure what this was all about,” I gesture to the slaughtered crow, “or where you got that knife, but I’m all ears if you’d like to tell me a story.”
She glances down at her bloody breasts and back at me.
“Ah, that won’t do.” I procure a cloth from the pack along with the bowl of melted snow from beside the fire—the bowl she said belonged to her mother. “Join me?” I ask and motion to the log.
Knife still clenched in her hand, she sits with me. She’s shaking, though not from fear. Rage rolls off her, and I figure she’ll tell me what’s wrong when she’s ready.
It’s strange, washing her like this—her face, hands, body—but she lets me, almost like she needs me to.
Outside of the bizarre crow murder, she’s still the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I slide the warm, wet cloth across her tawny skin, still wanting her so much, even though there’s a blade in her grasp and fury shadowing her eyes.
I glance at her hand. How white her knuckles are, like she wouldn’t let go of that knife for anything. Setting the bowl aside, I retrieve her discarded bodice and undergarment. The heat of her attack is probably still boiling in her blood, but the cold will eventually set in.
Finally, she looks at the knife, then at me, and turns to clean her hand and the blade in the water, drying the weapon on moss. When I step close again, she accepts the bodice but keeps the knife at her side, out of my sight.
I extend a waiting hand. “I can hold the blade for you.”
She shakes her head, tucks the knife between her knees, and starts struggling into her clothes.
“At least let me help with the laces?”
She nods, and though it’s the last thing I want to do, I sit behind her, straddling the log, and help her dress. The moment we shared has passed, and that’s probably best. We’re in the middle of a terrible situation, one where emotions can easily twist into unrecognizable feelings. She held a knife to my throat only days ago, almost left me for dead, the only other person in the vale that she knew to be hanging on to a thread of life. This lust, this attraction, will lead Raina to a rude awakening once we’re safe at Winterhold. There’s so much she doesn’t know about me. My darkness and her darkness are two very different things. I’m nothing if not one big secret, far from the kind of man she needs in her life.
Knowing that still doesn’t make me want her less.
After the last ribbon is tied, she retrieves the thigh belt, straps it on, and swaps out the old dagger for this new blade.
She slips the dagger in her boot and returns to the log, surprising me when she tucks herself between my knees, clasps my face in her hands, and kisses me again. It’s a kiss that’s so hard and deep I’m left breathless and starving for more when she pulls away and presses her forehead to mine.
Gods, I ache for this woman in my bones.
“You can’t keep kissing me like that, or we might never leave this place,” I tell her. My heart races like I’m a boy again, darkness and secrets be damned. “Worse yet,” I add, “I might never learn why you hate crows so much.”
It’s a bad joke given what happened in the vale, but a moment of levity is needed.
At last, the tension lifts, and a smile tugs the corner of her mouth, though it doesn’t reach her eyes.
“The Prince of the East has been following us. Watching. His crows.”
It takes a moment for her words to sink in, but then…