Page 63 of A Palace of Smoke & Mirrors
Head rearing back, my spine straightened, and goosebumps crawled over my skin with the gall of a huntsman spider. “I’m notsnooping—”
In a flash, the High King grabbed my arm and pulled. My body crashed into his with the grace of a runaway shopping trolley, and my face snapped up, ice-blue eyes narrowed with the precision of a sniper as they locked with his galaxies of gold.
The lovely planes of his face reflected the small amount of light surviving in the dense gloom, casting dark shadows on the unforgiving angles and ridges. I was momentarily stunned by his beauty once more—to be staring so closely at the face of someone who had been designed with magic in the forefront of the creator’s mind, who could manipulate the fabric of the world with the light that lived and died inside his eyes.
“Little white lies,” he interjected, shaking his head.
A ball of saliva gathered at the back of my throat, and I tried my best to swallow it discreetly.
“You were snooping,” Lucais insisted. His voice was a seductive purr, coaxing me to admit to my crimes and waive my right for legal representation. “You caught a glimpse of something you shouldn’t have seen, and you’ve been desperate to find out if it’s real ever since. Well, here you are.” He gripped my shoulders with both hands, long fingers splayed widely across the base of my neck and collarbone, and spun me around to face the collapsing wing of the palace.
I gasped as my back pressed into his chest, and warmth poured into my body from his solid presence in musk-scentedwaves. My skin prickled with the urge to touch him, to press my flesh into his until the fibres of our souls knitted together.
But why is the fog enchanted, Lucais?
“I am not infallible, Aura,” he said slowly. I wasn’t quite sure if he was answering my question—if he’d even heard it. “I am a man.” His hand slid down my chest a fraction, and embarrassment branded my cheeks a colour that only ever bloomed for him as my human heart cracked against his palm like a thunderstorm in the clouds. “I am…” The High King trailed off, inhaling deeply.
His own heart slammed against my spine as it beat, five times to my two, as if there were a race that neither of us wanted to lose. It provoked a sigh to collect in my chest.
“A man,” I finished softly, lowering my gaze to the ground.
“There is a price to pay for everything, and this is how I choose to pay. The palace is older than our history books can determine, and it is part of the job description of any ruler to maintain it.” He bent his head down until his nose was nestled between locks of my hair, and a feeling that could consume my entire body in a single wave gathered against my scalp when he spoke again. “It is one thing to possess such copious amounts of power as I do, but it is another matter entirely to actually use it andmore.”
My lower belly clenched at the sound of his voice, a rapid warmth beginning to develop. He spoke softly, but the edge to his tone was practically a weapon, stroking me from my skin down to my soul, sending an uncontrollable torrent of spine-curving shivers dancing across my limbs until my fingers and toes curled involuntarily and my breath turned ragged.
Lucais.
“The amount of power that I am expending on my extracurricular activities, like the wards and all of that nasty business over in the Court of Darkness, is a cost incurred inaddition to my usual responsibilities as High King. And it means that something needs togive…” His hand slid down my arm until it was curled around my wrist, the pad of his pointer finger against my pulse.
Embers trailed his touch. I felt the vibrations of his voice in my core, setting things on fire.
“This palace—thiscity—is all I have that I am willing to give.”
I could not help the carnal sensation that swept over me as he moved his head, tracing the outline of my ear with his nose. The nape of my neck tingled with a delicate and desperate ache. He hummed in response, as if he could sense it, and I gasped. “Lucais.”
The profound depth in the sound of his voice was simply unfair. “Yes, bookworm?” he purred.
I was dizzy and distracted.
Focus,I told myself.
“H-how bad is it?” I stammered. My lungs were disconnected. I was suffocating under his touch. Swaying, my body leaned further back against the High King.
His nose skated down the side of my neck. I felt his lips press into my shoulder, kissing the groove inside of my collarbone, and it burned a line of fire all the way down my arm.
“Oh,” he groaned, dragging his lips up the side of my neck until he could burn another kiss into my flesh, placing it inside of the hollow beneath my ear. “It’scataclysmic.”
I felt in his touch, more than heard in his voice, the suggestion that we were no longer talking about the damage to the palace or the price he paid for the use of his powers. We were talking about the two ofus…
His teeth nipped my earlobe.
I tilted my head back instinctively, but pulled a deep breath into my lungs and gulped down the excess saliva pooling inmy mouth. I could do very little about the wetness gathering between my legs, but at least I could stop myself from drooling on him.
“I like it better when you hate me.”
“I hate what you do to me,” Lucais replied softly, and my stomach flipped. Using the hand wrapped around my wrist, he brought my arm up to rest across my chest and laid his hand out over mine, linking our fingers. His other arm snaked around my waist with the pressure of a constrictor python. When I turned my head to one side, he sank his teeth into my neck hard enough to leave a mark and send a shot of arousal straight to my nipples.
I couldn’t help it. I moaned, and the sound echoed through the abandoned wing, amplifying the intensity of every sense and sensation.
