Empire of Storms
Page 129

That hunger shifted into something icy and vicious: “You once asked me where I stand on the line between killing to protect and killing for pleasure.” His fingers grazed the seam of the scar across her abdomen. “I’ll stand on the other side of the line when I find your grandmother.”
A chill ran down her body, peaking her breasts. He watched them, then circled a finger around one. Dorian bent, his mouth following the path where that finger had been. Then his tongue. She bit her lip against the groan rising up her throat, her hands sliding into the silken locks of his hair.
His mouth was still around the tip of her breast as he again met her eyes, sapphire framed with ebony lashes, and said, “I want to taste every inch of you.”
Manon let go of all pretense of reason as the king lifted his head and claimed her mouth.
And for all his wanting to taste her, as she opened for him, Manon thought the king tasted like the sea, like a winter morning, something so foreign and yet familiar it at last dragged that moan from deep in her.
His fingers slid to her jaw, tipping her face to thoroughly take her mouth, every movement of his tongue a sensuous promise that had her arching into him. Had her meeting him stroke for stroke as he explored and teased until she could hardly think straight.
She had never contemplated what it would be like—to yield control. And not have it be weakness, but a freedom.
Dorian’s hands slid down her thighs, as if savoring the muscle there, then around—cupping her backside, grinding her into every hard inch of him. The small noise in her throat was cut off as he hoisted her from the wall in a smooth movement.
Manon wrapped her legs around his waist while he carried her to the bed, his mouth never leaving hers as he devoured and devoured her. As he spread her beneath him. As he freed her pants button by button, then slid them off.
But Dorian pulled back at last, leaving her panting as he surveyed her, utterly bare before him. He caressed a finger along the inside of her thigh. Higher. “I wanted you from the first moment I saw you in Oakwald,” he said, his voice low and rough.
Manon reached up to peel off his shirt, white fabric sliding away to reveal tan skin and sculpted muscle. “Yes,” was all she told him. She unbuckled his belt, hands shaking. “Yes,” she said again, as Dorian brushed a knuckle over her core. He let out an approving growl at what he found.
His clothes joined hers on the floor. Manon let him raise her arms over her head, his magic gently pinning her wrists to the mattress as he touched her, first with those wicked hands. Then with his wicked mouth. And when Manon had to bite his shoulder to muffle her moaning as he brought her over the edge, Dorian Havilliard buried himself deep inside her.
She did not care who she was, who she had been, and what she had once promised to be as he moved. She dragged her hands through his thick hair, over the muscles of his back as it flexed and rippled with each thrust that drove her toward that shimmering edge again. Here, she was nothing but flesh and fire and iron; here, there was only this selfish need of her body, his body.
More. She wanted more—wanted everything.
She might have whispered it, might have pleaded for it. Because Darkness save her, Dorian gave it to her. To them both.
He remained atop her when he at last stilled, his lips barely a hairsbreadth above hers—hovering after the brutal kiss he’d given her to contain his roar as release found him.
She was trembling with … whatever he’d done to her, her body. He brushed a strand of hair out of her face, his own fingers shaking.
She had not realized how silent the world was—how loud they might have been, especially with so many Fae ears nearby.
He was still atop her, in her. Those sapphire eyes flicked to her mouth, still panting slightly. “This was supposed to take the edge off.”
She kept her words low as his clothes slid over, hauled by phantom hands. “And did it?”
He traced her lower lip with his thumb and shuddered as she sucked it into her mouth, flicked it with her tongue. “No. Not even close.”
But that was the gray light of dawn creeping into the room, staining the walls silver. He seemed to notice it at the same moment she did. Groaning softly, he pulled himself off her. She tugged on her clothes with trained efficiency, and only when she was lacing up her shirt did Dorian say, “We’re not done, you and I.”
And it was the purely male promise that made her bare her teeth. “Unless you would like to learn precisely what parts of me are made of iron the next time you touch me, I decide those things.”
Dorian gave another purely male smile, brows flicking up, and sauntered out the door as silently as he’d arrived. He only seemed to pause on the threshold—as if some word had snagged his interest. But he continued out, the door closing with barely a click. Unruffled, utterly calm.
Manon gaped after him, cursing her blood for heating again, for … what she’d allowed him to do.
She wondered what Dorian would say if she told him she had never allowed a male atop her like that. Not once. Wondered what he’d say if she told him she’d wanted to sink her teeth into his neck and find out what he tasted like. Put her mouth on other parts and see what he tasted like there.
Manon dragged her hands through her hair and slumped onto the pillow.
Darkness embrace her.
She sent a silent prayer for Abraxos to return soon. Too much time—she had spent too much damn time among these humans and Fae males. She needed to leave. Elide was safe here—the Queen of Terrasen might be many things, but Manon knew she’d protect Elide.
But, with the Thirteen scattered and likely dead, regardless of what Dorian had claimed, Manon wasn’t entirely sure where to go once she left. The world had never seemed quite so vast before.
And so empty.
 
 
Even utterly exhausted, Elide barely slept during the long night she and Lorcan swayed in hammocks with the other sailors. The smells, the sounds, the rocking of the sea … All of it nagged, none of it left her settled. A finger seemed to keep prodding her awake, as if telling her to be alert, but … there was nothing.
Lorcan tossed and turned for hours. As if the same force begged him to wake.
As if he was waiting for something.
His strength had been flagging by the time they’d reached the ship, though he had showed no signs of strain beyond a slight tightening in his mouth. But Elide knew he was near what he’d described as a burnout. Knew, because for hours afterward, the small brace of magic around her ankle kept flickering in and out of place.
After Manon had informed her of the uncertain fates of the Thirteen, Elide had kept mostly out of her companions’ way, letting them talk with that red-haired young woman who found them on the beach. So had Lorcan. He’d listened to them debate and plan, his face taut, as if something coiled in him wound itself tighter with every passing moment.
Watching him sleep mere feet away, that harsh face smoothed to softness by slumber, a small part of Elide wondered if she’d somehow brought another danger to the queen. She wondered if the others had noted how often Lorcan’s gaze had been fixed on Aelin’s back. Aimed at her back.
As if sensing her attention, Lorcan opened his eyes. Met her stare without so much as blinking. For a heartbeat, she took in that depthless gaze mere feet away, made ethereal by the silver light before dawn.