Page 6 of Of Daggers and Deceit

Raya was mine, and I hers.

With a twist of the handle, I pushed the door open and spied her sitting on the floor, a pad of paper on the coffee table and a pencil in hand as she used her few handmade tools to measure and map.

“Oh good! You are just in time for some dinner,” Tia called, and I dumped my small pack down on the floor near the door. I made my way over to the kitchen, shooting Raya a warm smile as I passed. Her gaze drifted over me ever so briefly before flicking across to her mum, a slight pinch to her expression.

Great. Raya was still not happy about Tia trying to help the girls so openly this morning. It was a futile argument, given how stubborn the pair of them are.

Two bowls of steaming rice, some meat, and vegetables were handed to me, which I took gratefully, heading towards Raya to pass her a bowl. I slunk down next to her on the couch as I usually did, and she instinctively shifted further away. It was something she’d been doing since the boundary between us had been breached by that kiss.

My lip twitched in irritation.

I tried not to show her how she had affected me, how desperately I wanted her to stay close to me. So instead, I shoved some of the food into my mouth and chewed slowly, thinking of how I would lead this night where I wanted it to go.

The sounds of pots and pans clanged in the background as my stare fixated on her sketch. Tonight, I saw it as an answer, my lips now lifting into a smirk.

“I want to practice tonight, Ray,” I started, cautiously turning towards her as she paused, her spoon raised halfway to her mouth.

“I was going to paint one of my sketches tonight,” she replied casually before pushing the spoon past her soft lips. I watched as they wrapped around the utensil, rosy and pink. Heat immediately flooded my cheeks, and I quickly turned away before she noticed I’d been staring. Fucking hell, I was just as bad as the other leering, possessive Alphas of this ring.

I ran a hand over the back of my shaved head, the prickle of hair against my skin welcome.

“You can paint. I’ll work on either the back of your leg or back whilst you lie down and work on your art.” Triumph flared inside me as I watched her pause and look around the room in thought. We were friends, after all; good friends, in fact. A couple of months ago, I’d complicated things a little bit when I’d kissed her after I’d stolen some of the alcohol from the compound. When she’d said nothing after it and made no move to continue, I’d just lied and put it down to the fact that I was drunk, which I was. I just wasn’t drunk enough to not know what I was doing, and that had embarrassed me. She’d been trying to escape one-on-one interactions since. It told me it had affected her in some way; good or bad, I didn’t truly know, because I’d never done anything about it again. But I could have sworn that, every so often, I would catch her ogling me, her eyes ablaze with the same need that had consumed me ever since her lips touched mine. Those same damn lips I was now staring at again. Fucking hell.

“Okay,” she replied. “Down here?”

I shook my head, nerves making my stomach gurgle as I tried to process my food. God, why did I eat?

“In my room, if that’s okay. I have better lighting.”

She blinked at me. I was an absolute liar, but I’d fight for this moment she’d been avoiding.

“Sure, I’ll be up soon. I’ll put our plates away.”

I all but shoved my plate at her, taking the stairs swiftly to do a quick clean of my room—as in, shove whatever shit I could into the drawers to hide it and prepare the floor with my doona cover and some pillows for her hips whilst I worked. A smug smile lifted my lips.

Until I remembered I was still in my sweaty training gear and sniffed my armpit just to check, only to recoil immediately. I was now an idiot too.

Her footsteps against the wooden floor alerted me to her incoming presence before she stepped into the room and immediately set up her art pencils and sketch, one of the most intricate designs of our night sky I had seen her draw yet. Whilst she considered her art a hobby, her celestial mapping was good, really damn good, and her style, soft lines showing plenty of movement and depth, was as unique as her.

There was no time to be embarrassed.

I sat quietly beside her, regretting the fact that I did not shower first, but she didn’t comment and immediately got to work. I laid out my own markers, makeshift pens of her design from spare materials at her workplace. The fact that she could make paint and inks meant I could experience the joy of the art I liked, which was designs on the body—all lines, no shading or colour, completely opposite to the way that Raya drew things. I was grateful to her for giving me this. It was the little attentive things like this that spurred me into action and made me think I meant something more than just a friend. It wasn’t like she did things like that for any other Alpha.

I stared at the back of her long legs, noting the curve of her muscles as I envisioned my drawing. What I wanted to draw was the view I had when I could stretch my wings and shift, the view I was only Gifted when our shield thinned to defend the Haven against those who infiltrated us. It was one of the few times I truly felt free and wild. There was no other Alpha shifter in the Outer Ring who could fly and therefore witness that view like I did.

I placed my hand on her inner thigh, gripping her leg and holding it in place as I lowered the marker. A soft smile crept across my face as I watched her toes curl under to steady herself, pausing in her work with an audible exhale. That small smile never left my lips, and it only grew in size when I trailed my hand up her inner thigh, my fingers ever so lightly touching her skin, leaving a trail of goosebumps behind them.

With every stroke of my marker, I watched her between movements, my drawing becoming more detailed, more elaborate, a gift to her that no other had seen before. The grip of my hand turned to soft caresses as I dared to venture further, higher than before, up the soft golden skin of her thigh, her head lifting in response, only for me to stroke and pause, my thumb sweeping just against the crease of her ass cheek as my drawing expanded far beyond what I had intended.

I wanted to touch her everywhere and never stop. But I didn’t, not tonight.

With every sweep, something eased inside of me as my shoulders fell, relaxed, as if the Alpha in me had been soothed through the touch of her skin alone.

By the time I’d looked up again, satisfied with my work, her drawing had barely been touched, and hope flamed more fiercely inside me.

“I’m finished,” I announced, and she immediately moved to stand. “What do you think?”

She turned to the tiny, scratched-up mirror near my dresser and twisted to inspect the back of her leg, her lips slightly parting in what I hoped was a pleasant surprise.

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