Page 63 of The Ballad of a Bard

One that she wanted to taste.

Did his mouth taste like unfiltered moonlight, pure and pearl? Did his tongue feel like stars as they burst in the sky, colliding with others and creating something new entirely? Would his white teeth feel like the sharp curve of the crescent moon, hot and cold at the same time?

“Fine.”

Something like sour shame and an embarrassing heat that tasted like bitter disappointment washed over her. It wasn’t enough of a bucket of cool water to calm her raging heart down, but it did curb her hunger for him in a way.

“If you won’t do something with me, then I’ll find someone else to keep me entertained.” A terrible, horrible idea popped into her head. One that she knew he wouldn’t allow. “Altivar was quite pushy for a second dance. Maybe I’ll take him up on that.”

“No, you won’t.” His navy eyes flashed down to her hazel onesin a protective pulse that ripped into her with shredding claws. Hell brewed like a poisoned potion there, sapphire and amber bubbling up to the surface and exploding. Stars, that’s what she saw.

“Yes. I rather think I will.” She made a face at him and spun around to seek out the Prince. Saints, she felt as though she was ignited to the core, with nothing to ground her. Nothingcouldbring her back down from this magnificent high that she was riding. Even the breeze stirred something inside of her that was undeniable ecstasy.

“Crimson.” He yanked her back to him, a cry of dismay leaving her mouth but it was shortly over as she experienced the most delightful sensation of them all. His touch made her want to explode, made her want to writhe and wriggle against him, made her want to ride him until there was nothing left to feel. Until she became one of those stars in his vision and burst into a million pieces.

“Westley.” She bit her lip, no longer caring about the red that stained them. Blood filled her mouth as she bit hard, unable to tear her eyes off of him.

“What are you doing?” He latched onto it, narrowing his eyebrows at the sight of it. His finger swiped under her mouth and she fought the rising groan. Fought the urge to take his finger pad into her mouth and suck on it. “You’re bleeding.”

“You’re so good to me.” She lustfully murmured, tilting her head to stare at his chest, his torso, his powerful legs. “Stop it.”

He didn’t stop tending to her scab. “Stop what?”

“Stop being good to me.” Crimson elicited with a fuel that only grew and grew and grew. “Be bad to me, instead.”

West froze, “Crimson, this isn’t funny.”

“Good. Because I’m not being funny.” She whispered, sneaking her hand up his front on spider legs. “I’m being entirely serious.”Her dress was too tight, too close to her skin, too confining.

“What is going on with you?” That was worry she spotted in his fine features, concern flickering back and forth in blue and ochre.

“I want-” She began and then decided to reword it. Because want wasn’t a strong enough phrase for what was happening inside of her. “Ineedyou.”

A visible shudder ran through him at that, and she took joy in it. In seeing that it had just as much of an effect on him.

“No, you don’t.”

Crimson was red hot, she was scarlet, she wascrimson.“You have no idea what I need right now.”

“I think I’m beginning to.” West’s top lip curled back, an obvious strain in his voice, the tension in his throat as it tensed. “This isn’t you. Something’s happened to you. But what?”

She exhaled, trying to calm herself.

Maybe he was right. Before, she never had this unquenchable thirst for him. It came in small amounts, never in full force. Crimson placed a hand over her chest, right above where her heart lay and began to take soft inhales in order to try to bring the racing back down to a normal, steady pace.

“Your drink.” His relentless gaze on her paused as soon as he saw what she was trying to do, understanding it. West paused, snapping his head over to something else in the room. “What did Altivar put in your drink?”

Clever, he was too clever for his own good.

And within that second of his realisation, she came to one of her own. The vial that she’d seen in his rooms, the one that held her father’s altering blood. The one that two drops could change one’s very deepest desires.

That was it, it had to be.

“Blood.” Crimson traced her mouth, trying to feel where thedesire was controlling her from. “My father’s blood.”

West tracked the motion.

“How in theSaints namedo you possibly know that?” He questioned, taking her chin in his fingers and rotating it every which way as if he could see as well.

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