Page 22 of Red Queen

“So do you.”

“Perhaps,” I say, the need pulsing in me now, “I need to deliver my next lesson in the power exchange, giving up control.”

“Yours?” she asks, rising on her toes to bite my throat, “or mine?”

“Oh, my fallen Queen, you haven’t earned the right to own the power.”

“But power is my birthright.”

“Not,” I say, tangling in her hair and fisting her head back so I can return the bite, harder, just this side of breaking skin and the rush of blood calls me, as does her sharp moan, “when it comes to my bed.”

At her whimper I release her and her hand still in mine I start to walk to the door.

She allows me to lead her through the dimly lit corridors of the fortress. As the torchlight flickers on the cold stone walls, casting dancing shadows that seem to hold whisper secrets of their own, I want to glance back at her.

Try and decipher what she’s thinking, work out why she’s letting me lead her to the bed chamber.

Lust and a need for me, to have our connection again is an easy answer, but it’s a fool’s conclusion.

I’m no fool and Eleanna is nothing but complex. She wants me, yes, but she’s playing her own game, too. Her end game is one I’m interested in, one I’m suspicious of because I doubt it aligns with mine. Yet.

She’s using me, no doubt. The feelings are real. Real is easily manipulated. I know. I’m doing it too. But if I took a guess, I’d say she wants her crown and is willing to play me, entwine me in her spells until we garner victory. And then…

Then she’ll renegotiate the terms of our agreement. Consort who sits by her side, a crown of my own. One with no power outside the art of warcraft.

But such games are double edged. To get in close, to manipulate me is to expose herself, those soft spots I know exist, somewhere.

And I intend to indulge in the games of darkness, to make her bend to my will before I give back in kind. I will walk if she can’t change, or won’t listen. I’ll get that crown back because my fallen Queen might be cruel, hard, unbending, but she isn’t evil.

I intend to tear her down until she’s exposed and bleeding, until she’s broken apart and the beating heart of hers is mine to touch. And then she’ll be open, able to listen, rebuild into someone who can lead our kind into the future.

Like it or not, she might be my other half. And I might lose her. To tear her down means she might never forgive me for exposing the delicate and fragile parts of her to my eyes and touch.

There are times I think a kernel of love, the sweetness that once fluttered inside, might still exist.

But for now, there’s this.

“Are you taking me to your bed? Do you deign to fuck me again?”

My mouth twitches. “Something like that.”

I intertwine my fingers with hers, the warmth of her skin soothing the tempest within me. Time enough later for complex thought. Right now, I want to give in to the sexual tension that pulls at me, lights fires in my blood, makes me too aware of her.

I’m sick of deliberately keeping out of her way. It’s time to up the ante once more.

And the pull, the need for her that’s like the need to breathe is impossible to ignore—time to up the ante? I’m fraying with the building desire and where once I thought I’d be able to hold out until she came begging. Her showing up tonight changes my narrative. Moves it up.

Her breathing quickens as I push open the door to my chambers, tugging her in. And the sound, small as it is, feeds the primal urge to have her again.

This urge, this desire is a tempest and one neither of us has ever been able to control. It throws us together just as it rips us apart. I can feel that dichotomy thumping in my veins now.

When we were betrothed, that double edged desire brought us together and flung us apart because desire and opposite beliefs didn’t mix.

But now, things have changed.

I also have power.

More than her.

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