Page 91 of A Court of Hearts and Hunger
“Foolish or not, I yield,” I tell him. “Live or die, I’m yours.”
“No.” He slams one hand against the wall. “I know what you’re doing, and it won’t work.”
“Then it won’t.”
His face contorts, a grimace of anger and desperation.
“This is what I do. This is what I’ve done to every human I’ve taken. My research has provided for me and mine; it has earned me status and respect among my people. This is why I’ve survived the ever-changing rulership of the Dread Court. I take what I need. I devise spells others could never create, much less fathom. I purchase my safety and my freedom. I buy the privilege of pursuing my work. And for that, I need raw materials, sources of natural power. Sources like you. I have put this off long enough, and if I wait any longer to begin—then I—it will only get worse—”
The arms he has braced against the wall above me are shaking. He’s shaking.
I reach up, slowly, as I might reach out to a restive horse or a skittish cat. My fingertips brush along his cheekbone, sliding to the edge of the gash in his cheek. I trace its corner, then move down to stroke his jawline.
“I don’t yield,” he whispers. “This tenderness is a lie, a ruse for your survival.”
“Maybe.” My thumb grazes his lips. “And maybe not. Is it truth or a reflection? You won’t know until you touch the mirror.”
My own words barely make sense to me. I only know that every bit of my body and mind are glowing for him—luminous and sensitive, brimming with lust and hope, all of it sharpened by fear.
For a shuddering moment he resists, waging the battle, holding up his defenses.
And then the rigid lines of his body break, and he sways against me, a crush of broad male chest and lean hips. His mouth hovers, his lips skating against mine, his hot breath savagely uncertain. I grip the back of his neck and pull him in with a groan of pain and desire in the back of my throat.
Kissing him is like falling into a midnight swirled with blood, into a black sky peppered with stars—dark intensity blended with longing, sparkling with bright desire. Breath flows through his mouth from his lacerated cheeks, and his teeth prick my tongue as I slip it inside him. But none of that matters. Nothing matters except his bones and mine, his flesh and mine, his consciousness and mine, thrashing together like our tongues.
I am not close enough to him. I need everything between us to be gone. I need to cleave him open and put myself inside him—I need him to invade me, surround me, solidify the two of us forever.
The violence of it takes me beyond myself. Shatters everything I knew, every scheme and question. When he pulls back to let me breathe, no danger seems greater than never getting to kiss him again.
“I will not guarantee your life.” His breath is rough against my lips. “But I will grant you another reprieve, until I have examined the book.”
I nod, and when he doesn’t move away, I’m bold enough to wind my fingers into the brown waves of his hair, where I encounter the roots of his long ears. The light from the orbs overhead shines through them, turning their centers pink and partly translucent.
When he was pleasuring me, and I grabbed his ears, he had a very interesting reaction. Curious, I stroke the pinkish interior of one ear with my finger.
He groans, his body quaking against mine. “That feels—gods…”
Taking his ear in two fingers, I stroke again.
“Fuck,” he whispers. His hips crush harder against mine. The thick ridge under his trim white pants is more noticeable than before.
A soft clink near the examination table attracts our attention, and Riordan jerks back from me, putting space between us as he turns around.
The Cat is appearing, strip by strip. He’s standing by the table, holding a pair of long knives and wearing a shamefaced expression.
Riordan sniffs at the air. “You little deceiver—you opened those bottles so I wouldn’t smell you through the fumes.” He raises his eyebrows, eyeing Caer’s weapons. “What were you going to do with those?”
“I was going to hurt you if you harmed her,” mutters Caer.
Riordan frowns. “But I dissolved the life-debt spell.”
“I know,” the Cat spits. “This isn’t any bargain. It’s just me.”
“You’d cut me up for the sake of this human woman?”
Caer wrinkles his nose. “Apparently.”
I tense slightly, wondering if this confession might make Riordan change his mind yet again. But after a second’s pause, he chuckles. “Take our kitten upstairs and feed her. I’m going to study the book awhile, before you and I have to appear at Court.”
