Page 40 of Blood On His Lips

I was pretty certain we weren’t talking about his mother. There was one bloodline we shared. One ancestress.

“Nora said your mother’s name,” I said. “Well, just once.”

He pursed his lips. “She has grown lax.”

“You spoke the other one’s name. The day of the ambush. I heard you.”

Silence settled between us. He’d been barely himself that day, but I’d heard his whisper in my mind. I’d heard whose child he had called me. I no longer believed I’d been imagining voices.

“There's little you can do at this juncture.” He brushed his thumb along my bottom lip, the only acknowledgment he would offer. “Train, Aerinne. Learn. Develop your strength. You're a babe, and this is a fight you must be protected from, rather than participate in.”

I hesitated, torn. Faronne didn't run from conflict. But I was also trying to grow into the kind of leader my people needed. Thinking more objectively, more strategically—utilizing the resources I had at hand.

Renaud was a pretty big resource. Ifhewas cautious in approaching this battle, then I didn't stand a chance.

“Do you think I’ll have the choice?” I asked.

His lack of response told me what I needed to know about the potential threat.

I nodded, grim acceptance of a future that was going to be more turbulent than I’d hoped settling into my bones. I elected not to question him further.

He rewarded my trust by running his hands up my bare back, the light caress of his fingertips eliciting a shiver.

I'd been ignoring the state of his body beneath me, partly out of courtesy becausehewas ignoring it, but when he slipped his fingers into my hair, tilted my head and captured my mouth, I understood the time for pretense was over.

The kiss savaged me, edged with rage and possession. He kissed me as if he wanted to devour me from the inside out. Renaud snapped straight on the bench, wrenching my head back until my spine bowed, the curve of my breasts an offering.

He took advantage, teeth biting down around a dark areole. I cried out. Nothing about his touch was gentle or even seductive.

He wanted, he claimed.

My hips undulated, his erection nestled in the juncture of my thighs. His snarl filled the steamy room, buffeting against the warm wooden walls.

He was a second from snapping. I felt it.

“Renaud, calm down.”

I wasn’t stupid enough to try and wriggle away from him, but I tugged at his hair to get him to stop gnawing at my breast, the scrape of his sharp teeth close to drawing blood. Blood would set him off.

“No one will have you but me.” There was death in his voice, a slow dance towards madness. “Your soul is mine. Your body is mine. If that mad bitch wants war, she’llhave it.”

My lips twitched.

Renaud reared back, eyes flaring a brilliant, electric blue. “Do I amuse you, Lady Aerinne?”

I stilled, then chose my words carefully. Or rather, stop suppressing the truth. “No, my Prince. You take my breath.”

He tilted his head slowly, unblinking, some of the cold, alien threat fading from his expression.

I wrapped my arms around his neck, setting aside all enmity for these few moments. Setting aside my objections, my writhing confusion. In here, I wanted to pretend we were just a male and a female. Maybe it was the quiet, the vulnerability of our nudity. We were stripped down until we were nothing but raw emotion and need.

He hadn’t hurt me, not once, since he’d woken—excluding the battle, of course. Had taken care of me in his own way, over and over again. Couldn’t I let that count forsomething? Maybe it was a betrayal of my House and our fallen—Danon was still in prison, along with the other warriors of Faronne. The treaty wasn’t yet signed, our demands not fulfilled. My mother unavenged.

I almost said,I don’t care.But I couldn’t. I couldn’t even allow the thought to settle, not with the Vow lying in wait around my neck. It was patient, it had centuries despite having giving me my first true warning so soon—the other day had been a restless twinge, not like the night in the palace. But it wouldn’t tolerate open intent to circumvent it.

“Am I a fool?” I closed my eyes as the ache filled me, spilled over.

There was something about this male that felt like home every time we allowed ourselves to be just Aerinne and Renaud. Something that made disbelief impossible. I kept twisting myself in knots trying to understand emotion that defied my understanding of logic.

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