Fall of Ruin and Wrath (Awakening, #1)

“Honored,” he murmured.

A nervous giggle left me. “I thought Hyhborn can’t lie.”

“We can’t. I spoke no lie.” Thorne tugged gently on my arm, coaxing me closer as he stepped into me. Suddenly, his hips brushed against my stomach, my chest against his. The fleeting contact was sudden, unexpected, and only then did I realize this wasn’t the kind of dancing I’d seen the aristo do at the less wild balls the Baron sometimes held, where there were at least several inches between their bodies and each step was a well-practiced, measured one. This was the kind of dancing the aristo took part in once the masks came out.

His hips swayed and the hand on mine urged me to follow. After a few moments, I realized that this kind of dancing was a lot like making love. Not that I knew what making love felt like. Fucking? Entirely different story, and this didn’t feel like that.

“Silence your thoughts.”

“W-What?” I glanced up, able to see only the lower half of his face.

“You’re stiff. Usually that means your head is not where your body is,” he said. “You’re thinking too much. One doesn’t need to think about their body to dance.”

“Then what do they do?” I asked, because it was hard not to think about how close we were— how tall and broad he was, and how that made me feel dainty, and there was nothing about me that could be described as such. Not even my hands. When he turned, I stumbled over my own feet and maybe his.

“You just close your eyes,” he told me. “Like you did last night, when your fingers were between your thighs and your mouth was on my cock. Just close your eyes and feel.”

I wasn’t sure how bringing up last night was going to help, because the sharp pulse of desire those words elicited was completely distracting, but I closed my eyes.

“Listen to the music. Follow it,” he coaxed, his voice deeper. Thicker. “Follow me, na’laa.”

Breath shallow, I did what it took to use my abilities. I silenced my mind, letting myself listen to the music— to the ebb and flow of violin and the sounds of the night settling around us, charging the air. There was a rhythm, one that tugged at my legs and hips. I followed it and I followed him, my body loosening with each passing minute and my steps becoming lighter. When he turned his body this time, I didn’t stumble. I followed. It was like floating, and I imagined that I was one of the sōls dancing above us— that we were.

And it was the strangest feeling, almost freeing as I danced with the Prince. I moved with the tempo, chasing the strings as they picked up. Sweat dampened my skin— dampened his. Strands of hair that had escaped the braid I’d twisted it into clung to my skin. The sweet-smelling wisteria vines tangled with us as we moved, as my breath came in quicker pants, each inhale causing the tips of my breasts to graze his chest. The gown was so thin that it always felt as if there were nothing between us. I wished it were the same for my hands, because I could feel his chest rise with shallow, longer breaths beneath mine.

His hand at my hip glided across my lower back, leaving a wake of shivers in its path as we spun beneath the wisteria. My pulse quickened, and I didn’t think it had much to do with the dancing. I let my neck loosen, my head tip back as I opened my eyes. Above us, the sōls danced, mostly a blur of soft light as we spun and spun, and somehow his thigh had ended up snug between mine. Each movement I made, each one he gave, created this . . . this delicate, decadent friction.

I followed the music— followed him as the tempo gradually slowed. The realm stopped spinning and we moved in each other’s embrace, the rhythm richer, thicker and throbbing, just like the blood was doing in my veins. Each breath I took felt like it was getting trapped in my throat as my hips moved with the churning music— moved against him. And I felt richer, thicker and throbbing, aching and swollen. The arm at my waist tightened, as did the hand that held mine. Low in my stomach, muscles twisted and tightened in desire, and I could feel him as I moved, a thick part of him harder than the rest against my stomach.

His chest rumbled against mine, and a throbbing dart of pleasure whipped through me. His breath teased the curve of my cheek and then the corner of my lips. He stopped there, but I didn’t. Our bodies still moved, but I wasn’t sure it could be considered dancing at this point. I was grinding against him, and the hand at my hip was encouraging it as a wild sense of abandonment swept over me. That primal urge to run. The feral want for him to chase. That savage need for him to capture.

He stilled completely against me, only his chest rising and falling rapidly. Slowly, I lifted my gaze to his. Bursts of starlight had appeared in the pupils. I didn’t know if it was the dancing or the melody in the air, if it was knowing he called no one else na’laa, or if it was that strange feeling of rightness— it could’ve been all of those things that emboldened me.

I slipped away from him, taking a trembling step back. His head tilted. Tension poured into the space between us and into the air around us.

And I did it.

I caved to that urge.

I turned and ran.





CHAPTER 30


With my hand balled in the skirt of my gown, I ran through the wisteria vines, heart racing and blood . . . blood heating. I ran as fast as I could, darting to the left and then the right. Hair slipped free in the mad dash, tossing across my face, and I didn’t slow.

Not until I felt him closing in on me.

Deep within the wisterias, I stopped. Panting, I scanned the sōl-lit canopy of vines as my grip on my skirt eased off. I didn’t see him, but I felt him in the thickening of the air, in the electric charge that danced along my skin. I knew he was close as my fingers went to the dainty lace of my bodice. Watching and waiting, he the predator and I the prey. Anticipation swelled. A throbbing ache pulsed between my thighs so acutely I swayed. I didn’t understand how I was so aroused or why, but it was like a different kind of instinct had taken over the moment I caved to the wild urge and it was in control now, guiding me farther back into the shadows of the wisteria. Every small sound— every snap of a twig or tousle of vines— heightened my senses, my desire. I almost felt as if I was losing my mind, because I ached as if I had been taunted and teased. I burned as if I had touched his come. Muscles low in my stomach curled. My eyes started to drift shut—

The Prince had made no sound. He came at me from behind, one arm folding around my waist, hauling me back against his chest. I could feel him breathing as hard as me. I could feel his arousal pressing against my back.

“Told you I would catch you,” he said, his breath warm against my cheek. His other arm came around me, the fingers curling over where mine still clutched the bodice. “Didn’t I?”

I let my head fall back against his chest. “Only because I let you.”

His laugh was all smoke and sin, teasing my skin. “I hope you thought about this before you ran. What would happen when I caught you.”

I shuddered.

“What I would do to you.” His lips grazed my throat and then closed on the skin at the slope of my neck and shoulder. He sucked hard, wringing a sharp cry from me. “Are you ready?”

Yes. No? I found it hard to breathe as I trembled, expecting him to take me then. To drive me to the ground. But he waited.

Pulse pounding, I stared at the glowing orbs above us. He was waiting. That silly swelling motion returned, and I ignored it. The emotion had no place here. “Yes,” I whispered. “I’m ready.”