Page 80 of Heir to His Court

“The look,” I whispered, “that says you are pleased with me.”

Raniel smiled. Such breathtaking beauty in his smile, the kind of beauty I was shocked hadn’t launched wars. Unleashed, it stilled the next several beats of my heart. I also forgot to breathe.

“Did no High Lord ever try to claim you in your youth?” I heard myself ask.

His smile deepened. “Many tried. Some even succeeded.”

My eyes widened. “What happened?”

“When I was too weak to stop them, I became theirs—no one can deny a High Lord save one of equal or greater power. But I learned, Aerinne. I grew stronger. Now, only one alive may capture and claim me.”

“I think it’s the other way around. I am no High Fae.”

Old wisdom in his gaze. “Perhaps not. But you are something more dangerous to me. You are Aerinne.”

I couldn’t speak for a moment. “And you have never even almost bonded before?”

He shook his head. “Bonds rarely strike more than once—it is fortunate. They are as much a curse as they are a salvation. The males go insane with the heat, and the females must endure the depravity of their submissiveness. But. . .there is the inverse. If the male submits to the bond, he can learn tenderness, to blunt his desire for war.”

“What does submissiveness teach?”

“You tell me.”

I considered. “The price of obedience to tyranny. To stand against a tidal wave, and not be consumed by it. It would be so easy to give in.”

Yes, that was what made bonding dangerous to the female. If her male had no integrity, no honor, no true care for her, then he could destroy his mate and she would let him. Was that not the history of the Fae over and over again? Succumbing, offering one’s neck to something stronger simply because we worshiped power?

Perhaps the bonded females saw threats more clearly when they emerged, were able to rally and mount a defense quicker. We called the people to war, and during peace, we soothed the beasts that were our warrior males. We were warriors as well, and almost as savage—but not quite.

Here before me lay the most savage beast of my existence. And I was supposed to. . .gentle him? Impossible.

“Do not fear me, my heart,” he breathed against my lips, then kissed me.

Slow, drugging, deceptively sweet. He tasted my bottom lip with his tongue, tracing the outline of my lips, gently forcing my mouth open before he slid inside. In and out, a languorous dance hintingat the pace he would set when his cock was embedded in my body.

I shuddered, my hands wrapping around his neck as I drew my legs up, cradling his hips. He tasted of fine, slightly salty wine—the tease.

He also tasted of elusive maleness, power, of exquisitely controlled, slowly unraveling heat.

“You do not know what it does to me,” he said into my mouth, “to feel your naked body pliant beneath mine. To taste lips, the salt on your skin, the pulse in your throat. To knowit is all mine, to do with as I will.”

He shuddered, his larger, more dangerous body poised with such care above me. In a flash of understanding, I realized the gentleness was not only for my benefit. He feared losing control as much as I feared giving it over. Edges of memory buried in time fluttered around my consciousness like the ragged wings of graveyard crows. Memories of blood, of screams, of power carelessly unleashed. . .anguish when it was over.

His hands banded around my wrists and he rested his forehead on my collarbone. “You have no idea how difficult it is not to devour you.”

“I can't fight you anymore. I've gone insane from the wanting. Denying me again will finish breaking me. Please, Raniel. What will be will be.”

“You say that only because you have never seen what is left in his bed when a male of my power. . .forgets himself.” He slipped his fingers into my hair, tilted my head to expose my neck, and licked along the jugular vein. “And you still fear me. It's in your scent, in your trembling. Your pulse dances like a trapped butterfly—another dangerous enticement I am reluctant to risk.”

I swallowed. I believed every word he said. Sex with him was potentially deadly. But, “The fear is a gift. For you.”

ChapterTwenty-Four

His gaze flashed to mine as he stilled. “I would not say such things if I were you, my heart. Do not tempt my control. You are not a child—you know the consequences.”

In response, I drew my legs up a little higher, lifted my hips, rubbing against him. “You're afraid. Or you would already have had me. You're stalling.”

He surprised me by laughing. “Oh, this isn't stalling,” he said in a voice resonant with amusement. “This is savoring.”

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