Envy shouted in the memory, needing to be out. He didn’t care that she’d been with someone else, but seeing it… It drove him mad. And the bastard—whoever he was—hadn’t been gentle. He’d unleashed himself, uncaring of the woman’s comfort.
He didn’t realize she’d stopped provoking him—had somehow managed to tear them both free of the memory and backed him against a tree—until she pulled the dagger Envy had given her from her bodice and held it to his throat, her silver eyes flashing just as menacingly in the night.
They were both breathing hard, their eyes twin flames of envy.
Envy thought she would slit his throat right then and there. And he’d deserve it. Maybe he wanted her to—after that memory, he needed to be put out of his misery. The image of her on her knees, pleasuring someone else, was too much.
“Go on, pet. Hurt me.” His chest heaved with his heavy breath.
Instead, she tossed the blade to the ground and dragged his face to hers, their mouths crashing together.
Hunger overtook them. Or madness.
He knew it wasn’t madness but pure, unadulterated jealousy.
She didn’t ask about Vittoria, and he didn’t ask about the male in her memory.
They both needed to forget that other lovers had come into their lives, needed to imprint each other in their newest memories. Their game had taken a turn.
Camilla’s tongue was suddenly in his mouth and his fist was in her hair and the kiss was unlike any other he’d ever had. She drew back, raking her gaze over him, possessive and filled with raw need, then ripped his shirt open, kissing up the stubbled column of his neck.
She stopped again when she reached his jaw, long enough to run her hands along the front of his body, tracing his tattoos, the ridge of each muscle along his abdomen. The dark hunter-green ink placed just below his belt line was a Latin phrase he admired. But it was only one of his tattoos. Non ducor, duco. I am not led, I lead.
“Beautiful.” Her painter’s hands followed the lines as they dipped lower. “Powerful.”
The groan that escaped him was all demon.
“Camilla.”
He pulled her against him, roughly caressing her breasts as she nipped at his throat.
“Kiss me,” she whispered against his mouth, “like I’m the only thing you think about.”
She already fucking was.
Envy flipped her around, pressing her up against the same tree, yanking down her bodice to finally liberate those glorious breasts. They tumbled free, beautiful and golden in the shadows of the trees.
He deepened their kiss until she moaned, arching against him.
He was going to devour her right on the cursed path, make her forget that anyone else existed on this realm.
And Camilla was all too willing for him to do just that.
Envy fitted himself between her thighs and began a slow, rhythmic grinding of his body against hers, a promise of what was soon to come.
Camilla pressed back, giving as good as she was getting.
He cupped her breast as she bit his lip, rolling her nipple between his fingers until the nub hardened; then his fingers dipped lower, curling around the hem of her dress before he fisted the material, tempted to rip it to shreds.
Camilla made an impatient sound in the back of her throat as he slowly exposed her stockinged thighs, and then the bare flesh above them, where she hadn’t donned anything at all.
His knuckles skimmed the area he wished to be buried in, already damp with her arousal.
Envy wanted to take his time, to fulfill each of her fantasies and make her come until she couldn’t take another ounce of pleasure, but his cock ached.
He could no longer wait. It was sooner than he’d planned, but what they’d just done… they’d gone too far. Now he had to claim her.
Envy didn’t care what her secrets were, who he was or what his goal was, he wanted to shed civility and fuck like animals.
In one preternaturally fast motion, he had Camilla on the ground beneath him, her legs curling around his body, pulling him closer, locking him against her.
As if he’d leave now.
Envy didn’t think about the game or what she’d set into motion, his thoughts were only of her. Their mouths and tongues and teeth clashed, their hands gripping and tugging as if they were battling to be inside each other’s souls.
He began that slow, driving motion again, this time with his trousers against her bare flesh. One little piece of cloth separated him from being fully seated inside her.
“Tell me to stop, Camilla.”
If she didn’t, he would claim her. Right now. Ruin her for all other lovers.
Maybe she’d do the same to him.
His hips ground against her, harder, faster, finding a spot that made her claw him closer, her nails carving half-moon crescents into his skin, marking him, too.
Camilla’s eyes fluttered shut. He pressed that spot again, loving the way she gasped. Her fingers dug into his shoulders, holding him tightly to her.
“Don’t you dare.”
Camilla was unlacing his trousers when he heard it.
A beat later he was on his feet, dagger in hand, scanning the woods.
He’d moved so swiftly Camilla didn’t even call out.
Nothing was there, but he sensed another presence. They’d been reckless.
He’d been reckless. Envy never should have let passion and jealousy cloud his judgment. He knew how dangerous Bloodwood Forest could be. He knew what the Fear Collector had done, and still he’d let desire take over his reason.
Envy held out a hand, keeping his attention locked on the woods, waiting.
“Come along, love. We’ll finish this at House Envy.”
Camilla didn’t reach for him. Didn’t utter a word.
He glanced down.
She was gone.
“Fuck.”
The game had already made its next move.
Where she’d been sprawled and eager a moment before lay only a card, the Immortal Heart facing upward. It was the symbol of the vampire court.
Zarus had been listening and wanted Envy to know.
Well, he certainly knew.
Envy stared at the infamous symbol—an anatomical heart, struck through the center with a skull-headed dagger that dripped blood—his breathing turning slow and even as a killing calm overtook him.
The vampire prince might be undead, but there were still ways to change that.
THIRTY-NINE
EVERYTHING HAPPENED SO swiftly, Camilla didn’t sense she was in danger until it was too late.
One moment she’d been on the brink of being swept up in a sea of erotic, unending lust, begging silently to forever be linked to her dark prince.
The next she was tumbling through realms. Her body felt like it was being torn apart, needles pricking and biting like teeth along every inch of her flesh. Her abductor remained a mere shadow until the portal—or whatever magic transported them—violently spit them out.
A large, cold hand shoved her to her knees.
She spun around, furious.
Whatever grit she’d clutched onto died.
Every instinct in her screamed that she should run. It wasn’t the man’s appearance as much as it was whatever she sensed comprised the fibers of him.