Page 92 of Daughter Of The Ninth Line
“Yes. It’s not a fucking big deal. Stop it.”
I almost didn’t hear his low, drawn-out, “Fuuuck.” He slid from the bed, and the rejection stung. At least it did, until he started wrapping me in my blankets, swaddling me tighter than a newborn. Then he lay back down and dragged me on top of his body.
I raised my eyebrows, completely restricted. “Uh, what are you doing?”
He groaned and stared up at the ceiling. “Removing temptation. You’re too beautiful. Too fucking tempting. And I owe that fucker Hayle so much for not being a territorial asshole. I’m not going to steal your first time from him.”
“Excuse me? It’smyfirst time. I can give it to whoever I want.” I wanted to poke him in the chest, but my arms were trapped at my sides. “Pompous, bossy asshole.”
He kissed me then. Soft, tentative, full of feeling, but way too brief. “Of course you can. And if you choose to let me be yourfirst, I’d be so fucking honored.” He sipped at my lips again. “But I can’t give you forever, the way Hayle can. He can give you the world and more, but I can only give you this place and tonight. Your first time should be special, with a person who’ll love you and take care of you until you’re old and gray.”
I shook my head. “Hayle doesn’t love me.”
He laughed. “Maybe not yet, but you’ve bewitched him completely. The Third Line believe in soulmates, though they think it’s some big secret. You better come to terms with the fact that Hayle will follow you around like a faithful hound forever now.”
The idea of having someone to rely on seemed like a pipe dream. I’d had only myself for so long, I didn’t know how to be any other way.
I jutted out my chin. “Maybe I want to taste a wide variety of, uh, lovers before I settle down. Maybe I don’t just want one special person to love me forever and ever.” I didn’t even know what I was saying. I was just being combative, because I liked seeing the fire in those normally icy eyes.
He didn’t disappoint as he gripped my chin, tilting my face toward his. “No others. Just me and Hayle,” he growled, bands of air wrapping around me and lifting me up until we were nose to nose.
“Or what?”
He kissed me again, and being suspended in the air like this was both terrifying and a heady flex of power. “I’ll give you so many orgasms, you’ll beg me to stop.” He lowered me slightly, so his lips brushed mine as he spoke. “And then I’ll give you more, until you’re a sweaty, incoherent mess. Then it’ll be Hayle’s turn.”
My whole body shuddered, and I was glad I was wrapped in this blanket cocoon, so he couldn’t see how his words made mybody flush and my skin pebble with goosebumps. His smug grin told me that I wasn’t hiding my horniness very well anyway.
He nipped my lower lip, then lowered me back down on the bed beside him with a sigh. “This isn’t what I came here for tonight.”
Resisting the urge to pout, I looked over at him, trying to shake out my arms. He was definitely holding the blanket closed with bands of air. “What did you come down here for then?” I let out a hiss of indignation. “Free my arms. I feel like I’m suffocating in this thing.” He released me immediately, and I reached over and pinched his pec.
He hissed back at me. “Ouch.” Now it was his turn to pout.
“You deserved that.” I scowled at him. “Now, if you didn’t come all the way down here from your golden tower to fuck me, what is it that you want?”
A laugh burst from him like a crack of thunder, making me jump. “You’re something, Avalon Halhed. I came down here to see if you were a spy. Or somehow bewitching us with magic.”
Now it was my turn to laugh. “A spy for who? The mountain goats of Rewill? Because I promise you, my father doesn’t give a fuck about his own Barony, let alone yours. As for magic, no one in my Line has any that I know of. Father can’t even predict what time the beer will run out, and it only gets weaker from there. Me included.” My bitterness was so strong, I could almost taste it.
Vox pulled me back to his chest, this time entirely unwrapped. His warmth chased away the hurt feelings, the trauma of my past, everything but the feel of him. “I believe you, Avalon, I do. But something is going on. This connection between us is… odd. It feels so right that it makes me suspicious. Nothing’s ever given me the same happiness that I feel right now with you in my arms, and I don’t trust that emotion. How could I feel like this about a woman I hardly know?”
I nodded, understanding completely. I felt like I was a fish on a hook, being reeled through the waters of fate, unsure where I was going to end up, or on whose rod I’d find myself.
Well, I knew at least two rods I might find myself on, but that was neither here nor there. “You think it’s magic?”
“Maybe something residual in your Line? Maybe an outside source who wants to use you to pit me and Taeme against each other, to cause division within the walls of Boellium, perhaps even in Ebrus itself.” He huffed a laugh. “I don’t think they could have accounted for the fact that Taeme is the sharing-is-caring type, rather than the territorial kind.”
A stranger then, because if they thought Hayle was some kind of territorial animal, then they didn’t really know him. His empathy and his innate need to care for his people would have prevented him from doing anything as rash as starting a war over me. “So you think we’re under some kind of love spell?”
Vox shrugged. “There’s no spell I’ve ever heard of that could do it, and Taeme wears enoughtalsto knock out a horse. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be done.”
My mouth was dry. Was there someone out there messing with our emotions, our lives? “And if there is?”
He dragged me higher. “Then we take them out.” He kissed my jaw. “Let me be clear, though, Avalon Halhed. For the next twelve months, you are mine. The yearning might be forced, but the attraction I feel is all me.” He pressed his hips against the softness of my stomach, making me suck in a breath at the length of his hardness.
Swallowing hard, I tried not to think about how dauntingly large it was. “How will we find out?” I wiggled against him, feigning the need to get comfortable, but really, I just wanted to watch him squirm. There was something intoxicating about this power I had over him.
He groaned, tilting his head back and closing his eyes. “By going to the place guaranteed to have information. The library.”
