Page 221 of Evil Hearts

“Good,” Ruven said again, sounding smug as hell, and kissed me like a soldier going off to war.

With my soulmate gone, I had a reprieve from horses, but it wasn’t a welcome one. Sleeping alone—once my preferred status—left me irritable, and practically every minute of every day was accounted for by lessons. It was like being a freshman in college again. My brain was practically melting out of my ears.

So when I went to my etiquette lessons on the fifth day to find Ruven lounging against the doorframe with a bridle dangling off his long fingers, I welcomed riding lessons back into my life with open relief.

They were never at the same time. Ruven’s schedule was erratic, and he had to travel frequently. When I groused about it, Syalin informed me that I was lucky it was the spring, because autumn and winter were the social season, and duty required Ruven at the palace or the cities for nearly the entirety of it. I had time to learn how not to fall over my own feet when introduced to the High Court, but I also had time to get to know my soulmate—and to be stolen from lessons at all hours of the day so that said soulmate could do everything in his power to tempt me onto his back.

Bit by bit, I grew comfortable with the equestrian world again. Ruven mucked stalls with me; as a horse, he snacked on oats while I groomed him, and in his own form, he draped himself over my shoulders as I tacked and untacked actual horses. He made time for me, with no reward, and when it was too much and the fear haunted the edges of my vision and left me pantingand sweaty, he was always there with laughter and spice to bring me back home.

I even started looking forward to it. Ruven was like the sunlight after weeks of rain. The moment he stepped into the room, every shadow fled. I turned to him like a flower to the light, and he answered me with vivid affection.

Spring slid into summer, wildflowers giving way to dry heat. Ruven kissed me and touched me and refused to let me fuck him, and I spent the nights he was away with my hands on myself, face in his pillow, wishing I could screw up my courage and just fuckingridehim. But even with him there, arm around my waist, I couldn’t make myself so much as step onto a mounting block. That whole world stayed locked away from me, and so did he.

One scorching summer day, when the sky showed endless blue and even the wind felt hot, Ruven slid onto the bench seat with me as I was eating a picnic lunch in the shadow of a yucca-type tree, one that reminded me of pictures of dragon blood trees. His thigh pressed against mine. His arm draped over my shoulder and tail draped over my lap.

“My lovely ruination,” he murmured, nuzzling his nose into my hair as he inhaled. “I’d like to steal you away from all this. May I?”

“Since when do you ask?” I held up an olive between two fingers for him.

Ruven licked it into his mouth with a sound of pleasure. “I intend to take you down to my favorite swimming hole on the river, but there aren’t any roads to it. And that means…”

My skin chilled. “Horses.”

“One horse,” he corrected, rubbing his cheek against my temple. “Technically, one soulmate in the shape of a horse. A faery steed.” Ruven rested his mouth against my hair. “I was hoping that I alone would be enough of a reward to tempt you,but as I’ve thus been unsuccessful in getting you on my back, and as I have now had to visit the healer twice for friction burns—”

I couldn’t catch my laugh in time, snorting loudly and almost choking on my last bite of sandwich.

Ruven mock-growled and nuzzled me harder, practically shoving me over. “I crave you like air, Avalon,” he said, with the hesitant fear of someone who was certain rejection lay around the corner and was still baring his heart for the sake of hope. “I haven’t once stopped wanting you. When I ask to sleep with you, it’s merely pretty words over the raw need I have for the scent of your skin and the heat of your embrace. It’s beastly and feral, but I can’t escape what I am, or what you are to me. I don’t even want to.”

I wiped my fingers on my napkin and wrapped my arm up around him to rub my fingertips through his hair. “You don’t need to sweeten the pot, Ru,” I said, turning my head enough that I could look at him sidelong. He kept his face against my hair, but I saw his ear cock toward me. “You’re a gorgeous, glorious pain in my ass, and I’m right up there with you on the sexual frustration. I’m just… I’m chickenshit.”

He leaned back to look at me, his expression soft. “What you are is traumatized,” he chided. “If you’d simply like to close out the bargain and claim your reward, all you need to do is bridle me and sit on my back for a few steps in the form of my choice. It needn’t be a horse. I’m pleased to play pony in my natural shape if that’s your desire. I even have a tail,” he said, flicking it across my thighs.

The corner of my mouth tilted up. “But?”

A smile spread across his face, dark eyes gleaming and fangs tilted forward in a dangerous promise. “But I hate seeing you collared, whether by bonds or by fear,” Ruven said, his voice in a low growl. “I want to carry you the way I’ve carried no other lover, and I want to hear your laughter as you remember what itis to be wild and free. I want you to claim that from me, and then I want you to claim everything else from me.”

Everything else.I knew he meant more than sex. We were soulmates, and he was scent-tied to me. Ruven wanted me to claim everything he was—to step into eternity with him, to take what no one else had ever wanted, to put my collar around his throat and to tell him to crave me forever. And, fuck, I wanted that, too. I wantedhim.

“Pick a different color than black,” I said, almost whispering the words, adrenaline sharpening my vision and sending trembling anticipation across my ribs. “It’s too hot to ride a black horse.”

For one heartbeat, Ruven’s whole face dropped into yearning need, his lips parting and brows slanting as his lashes fluttered. “How do you feel about golden palomino?” he asked, putting on a reckless smile. “Suitable for the summer sun, but still striking enough to suit your soulmate’s arrogance?”

“Sure. That’ll do,” I said, tapping him on the nose with one finger. I could feel my pulse in my throat, everything tight and shivery. “Meet you at the main entrance in ten? I should change.”

“So should I.” He tilted his face up and nibbled my fingertip. “Do you promise you’ll come back to me?”

Desire sparkled under my breastbone. “I promise.”

Faery Steed

The lure ofeverything elsegot me into breeches and riding boots, and down three flights of stairs to the double doors of the main castle entrance. On the way, I passed Syalin, who gave a charmed half-smile at my obvious, anxious eagerness, then strolled off whistling a cheerful tune. I took it for approval, screwed up my courage, and went outside.

Ruven was waiting in the form of a lean, elegant horse reminiscent of an Akhal-Teke, with a metallic coat and the crested neck of a stallion. He flagged his tail and pranced in place when I came through the door, clearly showing off, ears perked and a black leather bridle hanging from his mouth.

He didn’t have a single stitch of tack on him.

“You can’t be serious,” I said, my heart starting to pound.

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