Page 25 of Collected By the Crow

“I can’t keep a plant alive to save my life.”

“They can be fickle.” He switched the cans in his bottom arms and flicked a switch with his upper left, his upper right reaching for a long silver apparatus.

“How do you do that?” Cass blanched, in awe.

“Do what?”

“You’re so ambidextrous. You have four arms, but you’re handling, like, six tasks at once!”

All of those arms stilled, contemplation etched in his stoic mask. After a few tense moments, his features softened and he shrugged. He actually shrugged. That innocuous motion commanded her attention. By the time his double-deckered shoulder fell back into place, Cass knew she wouldn’t hesitate to ride his hand again.

“If you were versed in plants, you would know that this”—he gestured to the bountiful life around them—“is impossible.”

Cass considered their surroundings more intently. There wasn’t a single dying plant in sight. Outside, there were trees with brown leaves, some still hanging onto their red and yellow hues, and patches of frosted grass.

“Oh, duh. It’s too cold!”

“Good observation, Doctor.” Before she turned her rotten evil eye on him, a soft caress of fingertips brushed her lower back. She shivered at the unexpected touch and his hand retreated like she was a rabid animal. “Plenty of plants do live through winter in a greenhouse, given the right circumstances. I ensure they all thrive, including those with differing needs. The atmosphere is laced with controlled magic.”

“Wow. So it’s all rigged. This would be a game-changer for alternative medicine.”

“Some modern medicine still relies on herbs.” They reached a wider pathway. Qadaire stepped beside her and pointed as they walked. “Cinchona red, for instance, used in quinine for malaria. Papaver somniferum, the poppy, used in—”

“Morphine.”

“Quite.”

They paused at a bed of bright purple poppies with yellow centers. He reached between two of the plants and sifted through the stalks until two metal bars were revealed. Each had their own pressure gauge. He set the cans down and brought the sleek silver hose forward. As quick as she could blink, he unscrewed a notch and replaced it with the metal hose.

“What is that?”

He cast a mischievous grin over his shoulder. “Watch.”

The flowers grew brighter and brighter, their already vibrant colors becoming a luminescent neon. The violet veins on the plum petals pulsed, like a steady bloodstream. Qadaire gently took her wrist and raised her palm over them. She could feel it. An lightning thrum of energy that reminded her of those orbs found in the lava lamp section of every quirky gift shop.

When the effect waned, she turned her open-mouthed stare to Qadaire, who was watching her with smug satisfaction. His gaze flicked down to her mouth. Still cradling her wrist, he flipped her hand over and held it between them, the motion pulling her closer to his chest. Little star-like bursts of magic twinkled around and through her fingers, slowly extinguishing one by one.

Cassandra lifted her suddenly heavy lids to meet Qadaire’s gaze. All lingering thoughts of denying him fled out the windows. With her wrist still in his grasp, she pressed her hand onto his broad chest. His skin was cool to the touch, like a smooth pebble on the shore of a lake. His grip on her wrist tightened, then slackened, his thumb gently circling her tingling skin.

Oh, how she wanted to kiss him. She craved him so badly, it was like static in her blood. If she didn’t already know he couldn’t bewitch her, she would claim it was magic.

When his lower hands came to rest on her waist, she couldn’t help herself. She leaned in, pressed her navel flush against him, and rose onto her toes, never taking her eyes off his plump gray lips.

She placed the whisper of a kiss to the side of his mouth. She didn’t draw away, silently begging him. Take me. She swore she felt hesitation in the tightening of his muscles, his thumb stuttering in its lazy circles.

He dipped lower. She only had a moment to grieve as he claimed her neck, her jaw, her earlobe. Her breath shuddered to the rhythm of his frosty kisses. Then those adorable sounds mingled with the floral scents around them, his fangs nipping at her flesh, setting her senses aflame. Before she knew it, she was panting with need. She tilted her hips to relieve the ache with friction. The brush of his marble cock against her core made her wilt.

“Qadaire.”

She wanted to demand he kiss her, but before she could speak, he was all around her. He lifted her with absolute ease, as though she was light as a budding rose. He brought them to a cozy nook and laid her down on a long, velvety bench, with a built-in cylindrical armrest on one side, which he carefully draped her over.

His knee found its way between her thighs as his upper arms pulled at the hem of her shirt. She leaned forward to help him and instinctively tried to capture his lips, but they followed his course and landed on the taut bud of her nipple. She moaned, arching over the armrest. When one of his hands found her other bud and pinched, desire was no longer an ache in her stomach. It was a siren, a warning that raged in her veins, commanding attention.

“Cassandra,” he spoke with the desperation of a dying man, her name his final plea.

“Yes.”

His bottom hands eased her pants down, exposing her pussy to the humid air of the greenhouse. His fangs grazed the skin around her other breast, his head feathers tickling under her chin. With a touch so gentle, he caressed her sex, coaxing pleasure along the seam of her labia. A shudder sprouted in her core, the seed of an orgasm winding outward like the vines crawling up the windows over Qadaire’s shoulder. More, she needed more, more than that shadow of a touch.

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