Page 93 of Wolf Queen Ruin
Well, mostly alone.
My thoughts were insistent, leaving me breathless, twitching, squirming, and all of them centered around Damien.Our time together in the jungle.His lips on mine.The ferocity of how he tore my clothes off so he could ravage me.
And ravage me he did.I hadn’t been fucked like that in…ever.I thought Ryder had been great, but he’d been my first and only.But Damien had brought me to my knees and had ruined my body in the best way possible.
By week three at the Repository, I left little snail trails everywhere I went, my whole body flushed with heat.If I didn’t find a way to ease this wanton ache between my legs, I would spontaneously combust.
Late that night, that feeling drove me from my bed to wander the sterile corridors.With Felix’s magic, my ankle was fit for racing through the Paris catacombs, but my zapped energy kept holding us back.
Felix did report that Aria and Jade remained stable, their conditions neither improving nor worsening.Part of me stupidly hoped that they’d start to recuperate with the single piece of the Shadow Fang we’d brought back.
But they didn’t.
I paused at a large window overlooking their room and admired Aria’s perfect, relaxed face and the slightest smirk on Jade.God, I loved them.Sometimes it scared me how much.
“I look like I could use a good wank, don’t I?”Jade’s imaginary voice asked.
I snorted.“Don’t we all?”
“Don’t we all what?”
I startled at the voice, turning to find Damien approaching.He moved with that distinctive grace, silent and purposeful, dressed in dark jeans and a simple black henley that did unfair things to his broad shoulders.Since our arrival, we hadn’t found ourselves alone.I suspected he was trying to give me distance so I could heal and rest.At least, that’s what I told myself.
“Just restless,” I replied, turning back to my family to avoid meeting his eyes.“Felix says I’m cleared for travel tomorrow.Is Elliot holding up okay?”
“He’s stable, but the progression continues.Time is becoming our enemy.”He joined me at the window, his presence a cool, solid weight beside me.“Which is why I’ve been making arrangements.Paris will be complicated.”
“Complicated how?”
“Let’s just say my welcome in certain vampire circles has long expired.”His jaw tightened, a muscle there flexing beneath the skin.“Parisian vampires have particular reasons to want my head.”
“Great.So we’re walking into another trap?”
“Not a trap.”His lips curved into something too sharp to be a smile.“More like a viper’s nest I lit on fire, put out, lit on fire again, and now the vipers are after my head.”
I blinked at him.“That’s…oddly specific.”
“It was 1793.It was the Reign of Terror, and I was tracking a vampire spy, who turned out to be a double agent.”He shrugged, like it was the most normal thing to talk about.“The viper’s nest was metaphorical.The fires, unfortunately, were not.”
I couldn’t help but laugh, which earned me a surprised look from him.
“You find the idea of my beheading amusing?”he asked, but there was something warmer in his eyes now.
“I findyouamusing,“ I corrected.“It sounds like you also have a knack for getting into trouble.”
“I do.Some habits transcend mortality.”He looked down at Aria through the glass.“She looks just like you.”
I nodded.“She’s always been a stubborn little thing, too.Just like her mother.”
His gaze shifted to me, something unreadably intense in his expression.“I can imagine.”He studied my face with such focus that my pulse quickened.“She has your strength in her.I can see it even now.”
The silence returned, less comfortable now as the weight of both our spoken and unspoken tensions pressed between us.
“Would you like some air?”Damien said suddenly.“I know a place.”
“God, yes, I love air,” I blurted.
Nice, Luna.Always the coolest of cucumbers.
