Page 32 of Lucky or Knot
I rolled over and off of him, our bodies unsticking in a way that made me wince, and flopped onto my back, the bed giving a horrid screech under me.
With my arm still trapped under him, it only took one quick motion to tug him with me and nestle him against my side. A little to my surprise, he didn’t resist, his arm coming to rest over my chest. The weight of his head on my shoulder, the silkiness of his hair…I stared up at the ceiling, not laughing anymore.
It’d been on the tip of my tongue to say something about how next time we needed to find a sturdier bed.Muchsturdier. Did any super expensive hotels offer beds made out of titanium?
But it hardly mattered. There wouldn’t be a next time. Why the hell hadn’t I insisted he meet me earlier than midnight, of all the stupid times, so that we had more of the night together? It had to be two in the morning already, and now that I’d focused on it, the seconds seemed to be racing past, galloping their way to the inevitable end of this. The gods only knew how Raven had gotten away from Cunningham for a few hours, especially since he’d been with me two nights ago, too. I knew alphas, and I knew toxic, asshole alphas, and suspicion and jealousy and controlling scrutiny came with the territory. Someone like that would keep tabs on Raven. Obsessively, even.
And Raven had sounded close to panic when I demanded to see him. At the time, I hadn’t cared much. What a difference a couple of hours could make.
“How are you getting away with this?” I asked, when the silence had stretched to the boiling point.
Raven tensed up against me, but he didn’t waste his time, or mine, pretending not to understand what I meant.
“The bargain we struck gives him a great deal of power over me,” he said, his voice surprisingly steady. The wild heartbeat hammering against my side told a different story, and his body had gone almost rigid. So much for post-coital relaxation. “But I’m powerful too. Even if I can’t use my magic to hurt him, and I’m obligated to belong to him for now, he’snot stupid or naïve, and when I tell him I require time alone to commune with the air, he knows better than to push too hard. And I’m very good at covering my tracks, luckily for you and your lease on life. Besides, he has his own obligations that keep him busy much of the time. I’ll pay for it, though,” he added, in a weary little undertone that made my teeth clench.
Given my previous total focus on making Raven pay for the way he’d cheated me, which I finally had to admit to myself had been a cover for my desperate need to get him under me again—which had, in its turn, probably been a function of having kissed and licked him too much for my magical health—I hadn’t spent a lot of time thinking about the bargain’s terms and the coin’s bizarre behavior.
But now…
“So why didn’t it work? Paying me for a mirror image of what he paid you for. You said it needed symmetry, right? Why?”
“If I knew, then I’d obviously have done something else,” he snapped, sounding much more like himself. “And it needs symmetry because it does. Because that’s the way these things work. It’s not something I can explain to someone who doesn’t simply feel it in his bones.”
Christ. “You can try to explain it, at least. I’m not actually a complete fucking moron—”
“Then stop acting like one!” He wrenched himself out of my hold and landed on his feet beside the bed, moving with the lightness and grace of someone who really could command the air—or commune with it, whatever the fuck that meant. Raven stood with his back to me, shaking out his hair, clearly putting himself together mentally and physically.
Getting ready to leave this room, and me.
I shoved up to sitting a lot less gracefully and swung my legs over.
“Don’t,” he said tightly, without bothering to turn or lookat me. “Don’t touch me again.”
“I won’t if you don’t want me to, but—”
“No. You won’t.” Raven’s voice rang with total finality.
Something like panic wrapped a big hand around my chest and squeezed. “Look, come on,” I said, hating my own pleading tone. “No. We need to talk about this. You used me for this crazy plan of yours. Now I’m involved, whether I like it or not. I can feel the effects of your magic on me, okay? You owe me.”
Raven spun on me, hair flying and floating in the air, and glared down at me with that innate magic of his sparking in his eyes and shimmering around his pale, perfect body. Most people looked silly or vulnerable when they were naked, one reason why stripping took more skill than we usually got credit for.
Not him. I gazed at him, transfixed, a shiver working its way down from the tingling crown of my head to the soles of my feet.
Magic. He was pure magic. And for a moment, I almost pitied Cunningham: he might think he had the upper hand, but he was playing with fire, trying to own and tame an elemental creature like this.
Almost. Because Cunningham deserved to burn. And in the meantime, Raven was trapped and suffering.
“As I already told you, I fulfilled my side of our bargain,” he snarled, vicious, teeth bared, a feral wild thing struggling against its fetters. “I said I could offer you the coin. And I gave it to you. I never guaranteed that you’d keep it.”
“You know damn well that’s wrong! No, not incorrect,” I gritted out, as he opened his mouth to argue, “morally wrong. And I know you’re not actually angry with me, because I haven’t wrongedyouin any way, and we both know that. So get off your damn high horse.”
A shadow of something like guilt flashed across his pointylittle face and was gone again. He lifted his chin.
“I’ll do no such thing. But you’re right. I’m not angry with you, I’m frustrated by your stupidity and stubbornness. I’m going to shower, and I expect it to take me quite some time. I’d be very grateful if you were long gone by the time I emerge.”
And with that, he spun on his heel and strode for the bathroom.
As if I didn’t even exist for him anymore.
