Page 125 of Scourged

“You’re welcome, lassie.” The chef hesitated, toying with the strap of leather holding back his hair. “Are you … sure you’re alright? Do you want company?”

Mariah forced a smile. “I’m fine. I promise. Like I said, just tired.”

Mikael gave her one last lingering glance, before he turned to tidy the kitchen and excused himself from her suites.

Mariah ate in silence, forcing the delicious food down her throat, hoping—begging—that it would help settle some of the ache pulling at her gut.

She didn’t want to think about how it felt like the tug of a bond, one that wrapped around her like shadows and cooled her fire like ice.

None of her other Armature bonds felt like this. The others were strong but easily malleable, tangible things she couldgrab and turn on or off. This was too intense, too vexing, too infuriating.

Just like its source.

With a final pull of her whiskey, she set her now-empty glass on the island counter and stormed to bed, desperate to end this day and hoped these feelings ended with it.

Something yankedher from sleep no more than an hour or two later.

Not a thing. Thatfeelingagain. But this time, it was hotter, blazing and uncontrollable, and was sitting far lower in her core than before.

Frustratingly, dangerously low.

She couldn’t stop the groan that slipped past her lips as she pressed her thighs together, desperate—for friction, for pressure, foranything. Desire, heavy and suffocating, coursed through her, the type of want that in the past always led her to doing something wild and reckless and a little eyebrow-raising. Her hand skimmed down her bare thighs, the hem of her oversized tunic riding up as she twisted her legs together. She traced the source of that desire, down and into her soul … then following it out …

Her eyes snapped open.

Her mind sharpened onto a bridge of ice and shadows, the bond that connected her to the source of all this.

Several images flashed through her head.

The strike of a metal-tipped whip.

Him, furious and frustrated with her antics today.

The brush of his thumb acoss the skin of her abdomen.

Anniliese Hareth curled in his lap in a castle dining hall, ball gown hitched and lips pressed against his.

All that hot desire ignited into burning, intense rage.

She knew it hadn’t been him in those moments in Khento, not really. But her fury coursed through her like a volcano, untamed and uncontrolled, and everything she’d shoved to the deepest corners of her soul came roaring to the surface.

Fuckhim. Fuck him for hurting her, for scarring her, for breaking her.

With a low growl of rage, Mariah pushed from her bed, swiping her grandfather’s dagger off her nightstand as she headed for her door.

She stormed across the hall on instinct, bursting through the doors. When she was greeted by darkness and slightly stale air, she remembered.

He’d moved to a wing on the other side of the palace. Until she could decide what to do with him.

Well, she’d fucking decided.

Her grip tightened around the dagger as she padded off, slinking through the shadows of the palace, following the pull of the bond. That desire—hisdesire—still tugged low in her core, and each step was its own kind of agony. She’d neglected to slip into pants, only the silk of her underwear and thigh-length tunic guarding her against the cool spring air wafting through the palace.

Mariah didn’t see a soul as she stalked through the halls. She passed courtyards and stairways, gilded halls and archways wreathed in shadows. It wasn’t long before she stood in a hallway lined with doors to guest suites.

That bond kept pulling her forward, to the second door on the left.

Her insides were set ablaze, rage and heat and want racing uninhibitedly through her veins. She was panting, chest heaving,palms slickening her grip on the dagger as she placed a hand on the doorknob.

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