Page 54 of Wingless Crow: Part 1

The laughter rolled around us in swells. The king practically howled, doubling over and holding his sides.

“This is the best one yet, my human pet!” he shouted. “Well done, Lord Petuh.”

Lord Petuh?What didhehave to do with anything?

Voron adjusted me in his arms. “The fun is over, ladies and gentlemen.”

He carried me out of the room.

“I don’t want to leave!” I kicked my legs and shoved at his shoulders, but it was no use. The man was stronger than a bull, his arms holding me to his chest like a vise. “I want to fly!”

“Don’t we all,” he muttered under his breath, carrying me down the stairs, then into my room.

After kicking the door closed behind us, he deposited me onto my bed. With a flick of his fingers, the crystals in the walls shone brighter. Unlike Brebie, Voron didn’t even need to touch them to illuminate the entire room.

My head was spinning so much, I didn’t know whether I was flying or falling. I fell back into the pillows, but that only made the spinning sensation stronger.

“I’m going to be sick,” I groaned, tossing my feathery arm over my face.

Voron was talking to someone at the door.

“I’ve got salt.” He returned to the bed and sat on the mattress next to me. “Lick it.” He opened the jar in his hands.

I laughed. It was a crazy, maniacal sound that I could hardly believe came from me.

“Oh, I’lllick it, High General.” I sat up in bed. “I’ll lick every part of your hard, strong body, darling Voron. All that muscly gorgeousness that you keep hidden under all those layers.” I hooked my fingers between the silver buttons of his vest and yanked him to me.

He gave in, leaning closer. His eyes landed on mine and I held them, drinking in every drop of his attention, his surprise, and…his desire.

“What is it that you’re doing to me, Voron?” I murmured. “Why do I want so much to see what you’re hiding under your clothes? Why do I need to know what kind of heart beats in your chest? Why do I wonder what thoughts roam inside that handsome head of yours?”

I shifted closer, until my bent leg wedged between his thighs, my knee pressing down on the already familiar bulge in his pants.

He sucked in a sharp breath at the contact but didn’t move away.

I brought my face closer to his. “Do you know how much I want your dick to rip through your laces, so that I could finally take a look at it, too? That’d be only fair, wouldn’t it? You’ve seen me naked. When is my turn?” His lips were close enough to kiss. If only he let me… “Admit it, you want me to see you, Voron. All of you. To touch you. To lick you… And you want to taste me, too. Say it,” I challenged. “Kiss me. Make me moan like you threatened you would.”

He set the jar on the night table with force and snarled, “Do you really think I’d stop at kissing? If I kissed you, dear Sparrow, if I tasted you, I’d fuck you. And it’d be my ruin. Your ruin, too.”

His eyes flashed. He gripped the back of my head, fisting his hand in my hair. I felt his breath on my skin, but I wished for more of him on me. I needed him closer, inside me. And I didn’t care if it ruined us both.

This entire world could burst into flames, as long as Voron did something about the desperate need for him that burned in my chest and the heat that throbbed between my legs.

“I don’t care,” I begged in a hot whisper. “Damn it all. Just kiss me, Voron.”

He drew in his next breath with a groan. Lifting his finger between us, he dragged his tongue along it.

“Lick. The fucking. Salt. Sparrow.” He stabbed his finger into the jar, then shoved the salt-covered finger between my lips.

The moment I tasted the salt on my tongue, the curtain shrouding my brain drew back. The “feathers” disappeared from my arms. Clarity returned and with it, mortification filled me. I closed my eyes, like I could hide my shame this way.

“Thank you,” I whispered around his finger that he left lingering in my mouth. “And sorry.”

He chuckled. The sound came unexpectedly. I snapped my eyes open and searched his, trying to read him.

Was he laughing at me? Was he angry? If so, he had every right to be. I got carried away in my strife to please the king. I crossed the line by making fun of something Voron likely had no control over—his lack of wings.

Regret for my words reached deeper than even shame.

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