Page 150 of Kingdom of the Two Moons

The way his hands are on her thighs. His lips on her throat…

I turn away, only to find Riven standing close behind me, watching my every move. The flames dance in his purple eyes and over his chiseled face. I thought he looked breathtaking in decadent attire, all the gems on him vying with his eyes. But he’s never looked more beautiful than now.

Tall. Serene. Dark and dangerous.

I near him, carefully placing my hands on his chest, feeling the heat of him under my fingers through the scaled fabric seeping into my flesh. A shudder of premonition goes through me as he grabs my hips. A brief brush of his thumbs over my hipbones and a little bit down makes heat flush my very core.

I know he senses it in me by the way his amethyst eyes darken.

He leans in and murmurs over my skin. “Careful. These nights are all part of a sacred rite. Tonight, Caryan’s magic makes all of us wild. Makes it harder to control ourselves ineveryregard.”

I should heed his warning. Maybe. But all I can think of is the feeling of his closeness and his hands on my body. Part of me wants to rip off those clothes and shred his skin.

He kept from me that my mother ran from Caryan. What else does he keep from me?

Maybe I’m one of them after all, because right now, it’s hard not to bite him to taste his flesh. His blood. His lips. I sink my nails deep into his armor, all too aware that Caryan’s still watching me. All too aware of Riven’s hard body under my hands and how he felt above me. Painfully aware of Caryan’s magic, reverberating through my flesh and bones with every heartbeat.

Riven lets out a hiss as my hands slide under his armor and my nails pierce the skin of his chest. “You do not want this,” he growls.

“Maybe I do,” I say, sinking them deeper into his skin, letting all my anger rush to the surface.

His eyes flare as he grabs my wrists, painfully strong. He spins me around so I’m pressed against him, my wrists now captured by his hand behind my back. “Tell me that you don’t want this,” Rivensays again, but his words come cut off, breathless, his lips on my pulse.

I shiver from fury, from heat. “It’s exactly what I want,” I counter as I meet Caryan’s gaze, the woman still straddling him, still moving up and down. I don’t want to think anymore. I want tofeel. More. Something other than this anger, this fear.

And this is dangerously different.

“Melody.” Riven says my name like a warning, as if he’s something to be warned about. His other hand catches in my hair, pulling my head back, making me arch into him. Forcing me into place before he pushes against me. Hard.

I swear the expression in Caryan’s face shifts. Swear I feel all his lethal focus trained on me, as power, night-streaked dew and living, black lightning starts to slither along my skin and under it. I shiver as it runs along my waist, my belly. Flickering along the underside of my small breasts.

Magic, brimming with Caryan’s very essence. However this works, it’shimdoing this.I know it in my blood as if he’s touching me himself.

A strange, different kind of panic fuels me then.What is happening here?

But I keep my gaze straight, my chin up. Keep holding Caryan’s eyes like a challenge. As if in answer, the magic morphs, turning unbearably soft, like river water. I gasp as it runs over my nipples, just as Riven’s strong fingers let go of my wrists to splay over my belly, locking me into place as he thrusts against me another time.

Need, hot and searing, streaks down my spine, threating to make my knees buckle. It buries itself deep between my legs, thrumming there with an unfamiliar ache.

“Melody.” Riven murmurs my name again, this time like a prayer against my ear. And it’s the breathless, deep timbre in his voice, the desire in it, matching my own, that undoes me.

Another wave ofwant, stronger than before, sluices through me, hot and sharp and searing. So violent I can barely breathe. Riven pushes himself against me even harder at the same momentsomething sharp, like talons or teeth, scrapes over the sensitive peaks of my nipples, cutting through my senses.

I’m going to burst. To rip open and burn. And burn. And burn.

I suppress a whimper as Riven pushes his entire body against mine. I meet him halfway, leaning into him, desperate for more friction, cursing the layers of fabric between us.

But I need more. I needhim.

It feels insane. This want. This desire. I’ve never been with a man before.

But I need him closer.Deeper. At the inside of my very being.

Riven lets out a growl that travels right into my core. He yanks my head back, exposing my neck and licks down the column of my throat.

That moment those teeth of smoke and dew and night clamp down my nipples, right under my clothes, one at a time, trailed by a night-kissed tongue and lips that suck at them, leaving me on the verge of pleasure and pain.Caryan’s magic.

Riven’s hand slides between my legs.

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