Page 58 of Kingdom of Ashes & Bone
“Damn,” commented Ess behind me. I shook off my shock (and the urge to stomp on his foot again), and gawked at this amazingly strong, brilliant woman in front of me. Ell’s comments about her being fearsome were starting to make sense. Just because I hadn’t seen it before didn’t mean it wasn’t there.
Not wanting to wake her again, I carefully detached my hand, and backed away. My shoulders shook as I fought to keep everything reined in. Leilani rushed to my mother’s side, touching her neck lightly and putting a palm to her lips.
“She’s stopped breathing!” she called out, alarmed. “I—oh. Oh no.”
I lost the grip I had on my control. Water dripped onto my arms
It was me. I was crying.
Zariah’s arms came around me as my entire world crashed down. My mother had been my everything: my reason to endure. My reason to stay.
I still had reasons to fight: the others in the mud quarters, the little girls, my friends … but those reasons felt dulled. Less urgent. My mother had been my purpose since I was a little girl. Now that she was gone, there was an emptiness that lingered, like a hole in your gum after a tooth had been punched out.
Zion embraced me from behind, and the warm cocoon of my boys slowly filled the torn hole in my heart from my mother’s death.
“You made her so happy. She was very proud of you,” Zariah whispered into my ear while running his fingers through my hair. “It’s OK. Just cry. Do you want us to take care of her for you?”
I knew they were just as exhausted as I was, but I nodded anyway. I was so, so tired, and they had offered.
“I … I’m sorry. I tried. Even if you don’t believe me.” Ess’s throat bobbed with emotion. At that moment, I realized I didn’t hate him. I wasn’t even mad at him. I was just tired.
“I know,” I said instead, and to my shock, he reached down and gave me a brief (albeit awkward) hug.
“Here, let’s get you settled in a bed next door. I’ll have some meat and cheese brought up, and we will take care of everything,” Zariah interrupted, gently separating us.
Ess’s eyes were wide as he watched Zariah pick me up in his arms.
My eyes were already growing heavy as they carried me down the hall and to a different suite of rooms. All of that sounded agreeable. And then, when my mother was laid to rest, we would leave.
Forever.
My eyes cracked open slightly as my body met soft silk and pillows. Whoever laid me down moved away, and I reached out blindly, not wanting to be alone. I was tired of being strong all the time. I wanted to cry and be held.
Zariah leaned into me, his nose nuzzling my neck as he inhaled my scent. “Mari. You need to rest,” he said gently.
My nails dug into the skin of his bare shoulder. He was shirtless; had he just been out as a dragon, then? Memories of how Zion’s body had erupted into gold scales flooded my vision, as well as howfullI’d felt as his cock had shifted and lengthened inside me—
“I need you. Now.” I pulled him back down onto me and he wasn’t ready, crashing both of us back to the bed with a muffled ‘oomph.’ My hand slid down his chest to cup his already half-hard cock.
“Not fair, flower,” he growled at me.
I was done with the fair. The world wasn’t fair, so why should I be? Just when we’d won the day and I had a chance to finally knit my life back together, my mother and my father were stolen from me. I was done caring what others wanted or expected from me.
“Fuck me, dragon boy,” I snarled back, daring him to snap.
His hand darted out and snatched my hair, pulling hard as he wound it tightly around his wrist. The burn in my scalp was liquid pleasure in my veins.
“You’re only doing this because you’re in pain. You want a distraction. Calm down, and we can come back to this when you’re in a better frame of mind.”
Talk, talk, talk. Good thing I knew the one thing that would set him off.
I wrenched my head to the side and made defiant eye contact with him, grinning like a possessed woman.
“Make me.”
There was a moment of shocked silence where his eyes widened, his pupils dilated, and his nostrils flared. Suddenly, I was flipped around with my face shoved into the sheets, and I was barely able to breathe. He yanked my arms behind my back with a bruising grip around my wrists as he pinned them down against my lower back with one hand. A moment later, his heated body covered mine, his fangs grazing against my ear. I knew I was close when I felt smooth skin give way to prickling scales against my flesh.
“What did you say?” he growled into my ear.
