Page 97 of Bound to the Shadow Queen
I took a breath as he continued.
“So if you want to go, go,” he growled, lowering his mouth until it hovered just above mine. “But do not take your freedom just to walk to your death,Morta Mea, because I would find a way to follow you into that grave just to drag you back again.”
I felt the truth of his words sink into me like another blood vow, an unbreakable promise etched into the map of my life.
He meant it. Every syllable.
And I couldn’t deny that something older and fiercer than any shards-forsaken blood ring answered back inside me, a stubborn tether that chose him.
“I don’t want to go,” I breathed, the words sounding so much smaller than I wanted.
Draven’s jaw went slack, and then his mouth was on mine in truth.
His lips crashed against mine, hungry and feral, teeth and heat and need. I wrapped my arms around his neck, the last fragile thread of resistance snapping as I deepened the kiss.
He growled against my lips, his warm breath sending waves of heat echoing through me. Then he was walking us backward until my spine met the icy wall. His hands slid along the curves of my hips, the swell of my breasts with fierce, possessive intent.
I breathed him in, running my tongue along the seam of his lips, entwining it with his before pulling his bottom lip between my teeth and biting down.
Another growl shook the room, heat and ice warring for dominance as he ground his hips against mine.
His teeth grazed along my throat, and I gasped into him, my fingers curled in his hair before tracking down the hard planes of his body. Memorizing the rise and fall of each muscle, each ridge.
“Stay,” he murmured against my lips, both a demand and a plea.
Something inside me unclenched, a ragged and desperate need that had been coiled for too long, answering his with a wild, untamed hunger.
Without a word, he lifted me up, wrapping my thighs around his waist before pulling me from the wall.
He carried me through the room in a rough, breathless tumble toward the bed. There was the frantic tearing of fabric, the clatter of belt and corset ribbons, hands clawing and finding skin, until the room was only a blur of motion and heat.
When he laid me down, it felt less like falling and more like a surrender I had been rehearsing in secret for years.
My heart thundered in my ears, my breaths panting into the frigid air as he pulled away far enough to look at me.
His teal eyes drank me in, sweeping from my loose navy waves sprawled across his pillow, down to the peaks of my breasts, then further still.
Heat spread across my skin, thrumming where his gaze lingered, where it branded. It was a stark contrast to the ice swirling through the room, one that overwhelmed my senses, the contradiction unraveling me almost as quickly as Draven himself.
When his mouth claimed mine once more, I almost forgot to breathe. His kiss was rough, unrelenting. His tongue tangling with mine in a rhythm that left me seeing constellations bursting across a midnight sky of snow.
And then he slowed, the crescendo fading, as he scattered kisses down my jaw, across my throat, lower still.
Each brush of his lips was a new flame, coaxing, unraveling me a little further until my back arched to meet him. When he pulled one breast into his mouth, pleasure spiked sharp enough to make my talons slip free.
I tried to hold them back—tried to hold me back—but they scraped down his back before I could stop them. He growled, not in pain but in pleasure, and the sound reverberated through my bones.
Stars burst behind my eyes as he moved lower, every kiss scorching a path that left me trembling. He hovered between my thighs, and for one heart-stopping moment, he looked up at me.
A question burned in his gaze.
I nodded wordlessly, and then he was kissing me again, my world breaking apart under the force of it. My body shook, my breath coming in desperate catches, and when his growl vibrated against my thigh, I thought I might shatter.
But I didn’t want to. Not yet.
It didn’t matter that we were here, finally laying claim to one another in a way our bond had begged us to do for so long. I still couldn’t shake the feeling that if I let go now, it would be over.
This spell we were under would break, and I would break with it.
