Page 18 of What Fury Brings
He groaned.
“I need your skin against mine,” he said, just before he put his tongue in her mouth.
The tongue was distracting. It spread fire throughout her limbs, making her ache. It was a stark contrast to his words, which reminded her she had a task to perform.
She wasn’t here for sex. She was here for a husband.
She opened her eyes during the open-mouthed kisses, finding that the way his lashes lay against his cheeks was utterly beautiful.
Focus!
She flipped open the hinge on the ring she wore, revealing the barb underneath.
He was ready to help her remove her cloak when he felt something sharp pierce his neck.
Sanos thought to ignore it and continue, but his body didn’t seem to be working properly. Instead of reaching up to unveil what he wanted, he was falling. The woman bent before he could connect with the floor, catching his waist on her shoulder. Then she stood, grunting under his weight.
It was odd that she should be the one to carry him to the bed, but he wasn’t nearly as concerned with that as he was by the fact that he couldn’t seem to work his hands or his mouth to ask what was happening. He was staring at her backside. In fact, his nose kept bumping into it with the strides she was taking.
“There you go, Andrastus,” she said.
Then he was falling.
He landed on his back, the impact jarring his bones. He felt something soft beneath him, though not soft enough for the fall to be painless. After anotherthud, the woman landed beside him on what he suspected was a pile of blankets.
“We’ve got him, Ydra. Let’s go,” she said before meticulously covering him with blankets.
As Sanos stared up at the star-covered night, he managed to put a few things together.
She’d stuck him with some kind of paralytic.
She’d dumped him out a window.
He’d landed on the bed of a cart.
Horses were moving, taking him someplace.
As the mystery woman placed a final blanket over the top of him, this time covering his head, he suspected that she wasn’t working for his brothers.
She was no whore, and this was no game.
By the time the cart stopped hours later, he could move the first and second joints of his fingers, but no more. He was also fully aroused.
Painfully so.
What the hell was in that toxin?
Was this some nasty test of his father’s to prove himself a man yet again? Had he set up some elaborate ruse to see how Sanos would handle himself under pressure? It was just the kind of thing the king would do. He was always fond of torturing his eldest son and claiming it was all to build his character.
Before he could move his fingers into a fist, the two women bound him with ropes, securing his arms and legs to the sides of the cart so he was spread-eagle. Now that it was starting to get light out, he could see more of the second woman.
She was smaller than the one who’d thrown him out the window. She was fair, with yellow locks that she also wore in one long braid down her back. Her eyes were gray, and she had a bow slung over one shoulder.
Finally, he found he could move his lips. “Did my father put you up to this?” he asked when the fairer one—Ydra—came into his line of sight.
She smiled at him but said nothing.
At least not to him.
