Page 37 of The Princesses of Ruin
She nestles against my throat, her cold nose sending a chill through me. I hold the back of her head, massaging her scalp through the hood of her coat.
“There will be so much laughter for us after this. I promise.”
She looks up at me and for a flash, her blackened gaze feels alien.
Hostile.
Gold shimmers across her pupil and her expression shifts. “I need Alyse’s power.”
I slide the pack off my shoulder and open the travel case of powers. She snags up the vial of her sister’s blood potion and takes a tiny sip.
“Will that be enough?” I ask, cupping her cheek. I don’t know why, but I need to feel her. Feel that she’s real and here.
She closes her eyes and bobs her head. After a moment, yellow light pulses behind her eyes. She whirls on her heel and mounts Winifred. “No more frigging around. Let’s be off.”
I secure the bags to Kor’Tar’s saddle, then step up into the stirrups. With a jolt, Scarlett takes off. Kor’Tar takes off a second later, catching his mare quickly. The horses’ shoe-clops are muted through the snow, but they draw the eyes of citizens nonetheless. Many of the folk look on with confusion, and some of them with scorn. The champions of the revolution running away? If only we could tell them we weren’t abandoning them, but saving them.
They’ll know when we return and end the dark goddess for good.
The ride south through the Black Forest is cold and uneventful. We allow the horses rest twice. Before sundown, we’re camping in a colder, but thankfully dry, valley between the sea and the mountainside.
We use our spindles to sever great branches covered in fragrant, needle-like leaves, then lasso them together at the base to create a hut large enough for us and the horses. It’s a quiet, dark night, the faint teal glow of my magic the only illumination. Wind howls outside our shelter, but the warmth of our bodies and breath fills the space.
Scarlett unfurls the bedrolls of cotton-stuffed cloth, and the comfortable mattresses begin to suck in air, fluffing themselves. I pull a pair of candles from the satchel and dig quick holders in the earth before lighting them.
Runes zip along the sides as the heat of fire fills the wick, and protection spells radiate out in a thirty-foot square. Each rune is awash with red and green, Alastair and Liliana’s magic scripting itself into the fabric of the world.
“Cozy,” Scarlett says as she saunters toward me. “I could almost pretend we’re on holiday.”
I grin, opening my arms for her. She slips her hands through the gaps between the buttons of my coat. Her fingernails drag across my ribs over the thick cotton shirt. A groan rumbles in my throat and my hands slid down to her backside. I squeeze her thick muscles through several layers of pants.
“You know the world is ending, right,” Scarlett says, her tone playful though her words carry the undertone of her fears.
I press my lips to the shell of her ear. “Then fuck me like the world is ending…”
I pull off her hood and grip her hair, planting rough kisses down her neck with teeth and tongue. She tears open my coat, popping the button, and claws it off my arms. I throw my hands back to shed the clothing, coming back harder each time.
I tug on her pants with one hand, my thumb and forefinger failing to untie the knot holding the first pair up. I growl and my spindles rip free as I claim her lips. I sever the leather string barring my path to her pleasure and push the first layer down.
She shreds my shirt from the holes in the back and rips it off. “I’m going to have to sew that tomorrow,” she says in a reprimanding tone between violent kisses.
I hum in mock sympathy, and she bites my lip. I taste iron and break away from her. The black of her eye fills with my glowing teal and she finally looks like my Scarlett again.
The air is punched from my lungs as the weight of my love for her slams down on me. I stare at her, breathless and awestruck. I never put much stock in the gods after what happened to my parents, but looking on her gives me faith. Not a hope that the immortal origins care enough to see us through to success, but that I have found themost ruthless, powerful, dedicated woman, whom I would fight the gods for.
Iamfighting one for her. With her.
Her expression shifts from heady lust to something gentler, deeper. “I feel the same.”
“I know,” I say, smearing my blood across her lips with my thumb.
When we kiss again, it’s slower, more deliberate. I push her layers away until she’s bared to me. I crouch and pull her into my arms, cradling the curve of her ass. She wraps her legs around my hips as I drop her to the mattress.
My cock flexes behind the restraint of my trousers as I rock into her center. She moans, her hands deftly working the loops of my pants. I use my spindles to shuck them off, then fall against her. The warmth of her center makes me shiver. My hips roll forward and I slide through her slick folds.
Scarlett mewls. “Inside, please.”
I love when she begs. This strong, brutal queen brought to the edge of desperation at my touch. I want to taste her and revel in the serenade of her pleasure, but she said please.
