Page 60 of Fae Champion

I rolled my eyes. “There you go with your ‘sacred bejeweled wand’ again.” But I was teasing; the man had every reason for his assuredness. I was no dick connoisseur—but Rush was obviously remarkable in every way. Everyone who encountered him recognized that, even the queen.

His eyes danced with his amusement. “Is that your new nickname for him? Your ‘sacred bejeweled wand?’”

I shrugged, feigning disinterest. “Seems like first you should prove to me he’s worthy of the moniker.”

His smile grew until his dimples showed. “Challenge accepted. But no matter what you say, I’m goingto take it really slow and be gentle with you. You deserve for every part of you to be revered, and our first time together hardly counted.”

Our first time together. Did that imply there’d be more beyond this night?

Don’t be foolish, Elowyn, I reprimanded myself. There was no place for me in Embermere, not when the queen wanted me gone at best, dead at worst. Besides, I was reading meaning into Rush’s words that hadn’t been there.

“You okay?” Rush asked.

I forced a smile to tilt my lips. “Yes, definitely, though…”

Those fingertips trailed another delicate line across my cheek, down my throat, then my breastbone. I shivered.

“Though what?” he asked.

“I am bleeding.” When his eyes clouded over with concern, I hastened to add, “But just really lightly, like, hardly at all. It’s nothing to be concerned about. Unless…” I studied him; his mouth was tugging down with worry. “Unless you don’t want to, you know, with me … because I’m bleeding?” I’d almost saidmake love, but that wasn’t what this was going to be. It would be attraction and sex, despite being pitted against each other at every turn.

“Are you kidding me, El? I’d want to make love to you even if you were covered in a thick coating of gore. Even if you’d showered in blood.”

My face screwed up in disgust. “Ew.” But my heart thudded at his words, odd as they were.

“Are you completely certain you want to do this?” Rush asked, serious once more. “With me?”

I stared so deeply into his eyes that I thought I could sense the goodness in him. “Yes, I’m sure. Now, enough with the talking and get inside me already.” I slapped a hand to his hip as if to pull him against me again.

“While I appreciate your enthusiasm,” he said on another of those deliciously deep chortles, “I’m going to take my time, just like I said I would. I don’t care if you’re writhing, squirming, and begging, calling out my name, you’re going to get what I think you deserve.”

I couldn’t decide whether that was a kind promise or one that would deliver me torment, but when those fingers slid that tender touch to the thin strap of my dress and slipped it off my shoulder, I stopped thinking entirely.

His tongue licked the swell of my breast as he tugged down the fabric, and I let myself get carried away in his current. Wherever he wanted to take me, for this night alone, I’d let him.

18.SPECIAL ENOUGH FOR DRAGONS

Hours later, once the faint echoes of music from the festivities had died down, something stuck its sharp claws in and dragged me from sleep. Like the serpents from the Hall of Mirrors, stark unease undulated around my insides while I pushed away the alluring grogginess trying to entice me back under.

I was nestled in Rush’s arms in a dim room, quiet but for his deep, steady breathing against my hair. Without moving, I surveyed the dark recesses I could make out from where I rested my head against his arm, the other wrapped across my waist as he curled around me. His skin was hot and smooth against mine.

Within my bedchamber, nothing moved, nothing appeared out of place or at odds from before.

It was only me who was different.

If there’d been any doubt what Rush and I’d done in the bathtub earlier had been enough to whisk awaymy virginity, Rush had worshipped and consumed my body in a way that definitely cemented it now. I was no longer the maiden Zako had demanded so persistently I remain without real reason. He’d touted the importance of “purity” for my training, that it’d make me stronger. But whenever I’d pressed, he’d never had a better explanation for his insistence.

I was relaxed in ways I’d never experienced before. Living among a tribe of openly sexual shifters, whose passions bordered on beastly, I’d learned to pleasure myself, to love my own body. Those experiences were nothing compared to sharing myself with Rush. My muscles were at ease even as anticipation of more sex zinged just beneath my flesh. I’d never shared a bed with a man before, never allowed myself to fall into the trusting ease of sleep with someone else there. I was both spent and energized, content and regretful that it couldn’t last, open to him and protectively closed off at the same time.

And throughout all that, the niggling unease remained. What was it? What of all the many things that disturbed me about life at the palace had woken me when my rest was imperative? In mere hours, I’d be fighting for my life against the man who held me in a lover’s embrace.

“Are you all right?” Rush asked against my hair. I hadn’t realized he was awake.

The deep rumble of his voice stirred a smile, and I snuggled farther into his hold. It was risky, I knew,perhaps even dangerous—he’d been labeled my enemy in so many ways. But my heart, happy and full for the time being, didn’t care—didn’t want to care.

“I’m fine,” I said, hearing the smile in my voice.

Beneath the covers, he ran fingers up and down my side, over my hip, and across my thigh. A shiver mirrored his touch, trailing a mere moment behind it.

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