Page 22 of Craving Their Venom
The sun climbs higher, beating down on the yard, making the air thick and hot. Sweat slicks her skin, making the pale silk of her tunic cling to her body, outlining the soft curves of her breasts, the gentle flare of her hips. Her scent, sharp and femaleand alive, fills my senses, a potent distraction that makes my blood run thick and hot.
The lesson is becoming a torment. Every point of contact, every time my scaled hand closes over her soft arm, every time our bodies collide, is a spark on dry tinder. The air between us is no longer just the space between teacher and student. It is a charged, electric field of pure, undiluted tension.
I have her pinned on the mat, my body covering hers, my weight holding her down. One of my hands is on her throat, not choking her, but demonstrating a hold. My thumb rests in the hollow of her throat, where her pulse beats like a frantic, trapped bird. Her chest heaves with her ragged breaths, her breasts pressing against my chest. Her legs are tangled with mine.
“The throat is a target,” I say, my voice is a rough rasp. “But it is also a trap. An opponent will expect it. You must be unexpected.”
Her eyes, dark and wide, are locked on mine. They are no longer just defiant. They are filled with something else. A dark, liquid heat that mirrors the fire in my own veins. Her lips are parted, her breath a soft, warm puff against my chin.
“What… what is unexpected?” she whispers, her voice hoarse.
My gaze drops to her mouth. The thought comes unbidden, a bolt of lightning in the storm of my mind.This.This would be unexpected. To kiss her now. To devour her mouth, to taste her surrender.
The madness claws at me, the need to claim her, to brand her not just with my protection, but with my mouth, my body. My control, a thing I have honed over a lifetime of brutal discipline, is beginning to fracture.
“You are not learning,” I growl, pushing myself up, putting a sliver of distance between us. I am angry at her, for being so distracting. I am furious with myself, for being so weak.
“You are a harsh teacher,” she says, her voice still breathy. She does not move from the mat, but lies there, looking up at me through her lashes, a picture of beautiful, disheveled surrender.
“I was not taught by a gentle hand,” I snarl, the words torn from me before I can stop them. “I was raised in the barracks, not the palace. My cradle was a shield. My lullabies were the sharpening of blades. I learned to fight before I learned to speak my own name. There is no softness in me, because softness is a luxury a warrior cannot afford.”
The confession lingers in the air between us, raw and ugly. I have never spoken of this to anyone. It is a truth I carry deep within me, the bedrock of my brutal existence. I have just handed her a piece of my own soul, and I do not know why.
She stares up at me, and the heat in her eyes is replaced by a profound, startling empathy. She sees me. Not the General, not the monster. She sees the lonely, brutalized fledgling I once was.
“You are wrong,” she whispers, her voice filled with a strange, aching tenderness. “There is softness in you. I have felt it.”
She reaches up, her small, human hand touching the scar on my cheek, the one Varos gave me. Her touch is not a caress. It is a question. A statement. It is an act of impossible courage.
The last of my control shatters.
With a guttural roar, I am on her again, my mouth crashing down on hers. It is not a kiss. It is a conquest. A desperate, savage attempt to erase her words, to erase the truth she has shown me. I plunder her mouth, my tongue tangling with hers, tasting the salt of her sweat, the sweetness of her fear, the intoxicating flavor of her surrender.
She does not fight me. She melts beneath me, her arms coming up to wrap around my neck, her fingers tangling in my hair. She kisses me back with a desperate, hungry passion thatmatches my own. She is not a victim. She is a willing participant in this madness.
My hand moves from her throat, sliding down her body, over the slick silk of her tunic, to the soft curve of her hip. I am about to tear the fabric from her, to take her here, on the rough mats of the training yard, to claim her completely, when a voice, as cold and sharp as a shard of ice, cuts through the haze of my lust.
“Touching my property again, General?”
I freeze, my body rigid. I lift my head. Varos stands at the edge of the training yard, a figure of immaculate, cold fury. His arms are crossed over his chest, his eyes blazing with a hatred so pure it is almost beautiful. He saw. He saw it all.
I am still covering Amara’s body with my own, her arms still around my neck, her lips swollen and red from my kiss. We are caught. An animal caught in a trap.
I look down at her. Her eyes are wide with a fresh wave of terror. I look back at the Prince. His cold smile is a promise of retribution.
The battle for her body, for her soul, has just escalated beyond all reckoning. And I, who have never known fear on the battlefield, am for the first time in my life, truly, utterly, terrified.
15
AMARA
The walk back to the Prince’s chambers is a silent, suffocating journey. Varos’s hand is a manacle on my arm, his grip hard and unforgiving. He does not drag me as Zahir did, but his touch is no less a cage. It is a cold, controlled fury, a promise of retribution that is far more terrifying than the General’s explosive rage. I am acutely aware of the eyes that follow us, the whispers that sprout in our wake like poisonous fungi. I am no longer just a pet. I am a scandal. A piece of property that has been touched, kissed, claimed by a rival. I am tainted.
The heavy door to the Prince’s chambers slams shut behind us, the sound a crack of thunder in the tomb-like silence. He releases me with a shove that sends me stumbling onto the cold stone floor. I land on my hands and knees, the impact jarring my teeth. The beautiful silk tunic, the color of dawn, is now smudged with the dust and sweat of the training yard. It is ruined. I am ruined.
“You see what your defiance has wrought?” Varos hisses, his voice a low, venomous whisper. He stands over me, a towering black and gold figure, his face icy with cold, aristocratic fury.“You have made a spectacle of yourself. Ofme. You have allowed that… that beast… to put his filthy hands on you.”
I push myself up, my body trembling with a mixture of exhaustion, fear, and a new, unfamiliar anger. “I allowed nothing,” I say, my voice shaking but clear. “He took what he wanted. Just as you did.”
