Page 40 of Death Comes for Her
He made an unconvincing noncommittal grunt in the back of his throat. His ice-blue eyes cut to the ceiling as if the intricate arches were the most interesting thing in the world.
I shifted on his lap, twisting to face the desk and give my full attention to the arranged books. His thighs tensed beneath my bottom, and I wiggled my hips for good measure, as if simply getting comfortable.
“Vulgar thing,” he hissed under his breath. If I didn’t know his game, I’d think him hypocritical.
I bit my bottom lip, purposefully leaning forward, bluffing at being engrossed in the poetry of fair folk. My pointer finger skimmed over lines I read a hundred times in a different life. “Ah, yes, the workings of fairy philosophy. Bit boring in the beginning, but it’s quite exciting by the end.”
“It’s not the most—” he groaned as I wiggled higher “—stimulatingpiece I’ve read today.” He placed his hands on my hips, holding me in place.
“Oh, what is?” I peered over my shoulder, pointedly fluttering my lashes. I caught his eyes zeroed in on my exposed back before they snapped up.
“Iron and Velvetby—”
“—Alfia Morte!” I gasped. He grunted when I practically bounced on his upper thighs. His grip tightened. “Simon, how scandalous! Alfia Morte was known for her erotic prose.”
“How do you know of Alfia Morte?”
I rolled my eyes, angling back to the books. “I was of that age by the end of the war, where illicit things excited me. Any and every scandalous book I could get my hands on, I spent my spare time devouring.”
“A war that, by all accounts, you shouldn’t have survived,” he sighed to himself.
“One of too many victims.”
“You are no victim, sweet pet. The victims of war lie in unmarked graves.” His voice rumbled low in his chest. “You are a survivor.” When my breath caught and I didn’t respond, he continued. “But how would you have had access to books of that caliber?”
“You and your brother are both quite nosey, did you know?”
“Don’t call that bastard my brother,” he sneered, fingers digging near painfully into my hips.
I shifted on his lap to dissuade the hard grip. He eased his fingers, but his reaction inadvertently pulled me closer to his groin.
“You share a Maker. You are brothers in the vampiric sense.” I leaned back, keeping my back inches from his chest. “But no relation in your human life?”
“Gods, no,” Simon scoffed. His arms drifted down to sit on the armrests, and he glared out the window. “Dante is much older than me. I only turned about seventy-five years ago.”
I flipped a page of the book under the pretense of reading. My false disinterest might lure a story from the usually cold and detached vampire.
“He was turned for his prowess as a warrior. Why did Craven choose you, then?” My voice was whisper soft.
Simon’s icy finger tapped at the apex of my neck and spine. A shiver curled down my back, and his feather-light touch trailed the length, stopping to trace the shape of my scars.
“Magic,” he hummed, finger paused purposefully on a scar from a severed wing joint. “I came from a family of distinguished nobles that dabbled in magic.”
“Those bloody swords you manifested,” I mused aloud. Humans with access to magic were rare.
“Hm, yes,” he drawled. That long, artful digit drew over the edges of my pale golden scars, provoking a wanton warmth in my belly. His delicate, meaningful touch made desire pool between my thighs.
“So Craven turned you for that power?”
“Indeed. I was the youngest of seven sons. My ability to access magic was weak as a human, and the power to manipulate blood concerned my family. My father married me to an aristocrat’s daughter far away because they feared what I might become.” He pressed both thumbs into my spine, fingers curving around my ribs. His palms smoothed over my sides. “When my wife died in childbirth, my powers manifested, well erupted is a better word.”
“Oh, Simon—”
“Don’t,” he cut me off. “I don’t need sympathy for something that happened decades ago. Craven found me in the destruction and gave me a new life—a better life. Besides, I did not love my wife. She was pretty enough. Her family came from money, but she was a soft, weak-willed waif of a woman. No fault of her own, mind you. That’s how her family trained her—raised her. But she didn’t have thesparkI needed.”
On the word spark, he yanked me against his chest. A soft moan vented from me as my bottom landed on the prominent erection in his trousers. I couldn’t help myself as I unsubtly ground myself into him until his chest vibrated.
“And Dante didn’t have that spark for you?” My eyes drifted shut, head nearly falling back.
