Page 35 of Feathers so Vicious

I didn’t see it coming, the hand that clawed into my hair. It ripped me backward with such force, my hip collided with the ungiving stone. More painful was thatthudto the side of my head when it hit the table edge—maybe its leg. I braced my arms behind me, catching myself from landing flat on my back.

“What is she doing here?”

My teeth clenched at those words. That voice! It had haunted me throughout my delirium.

Righting myself where I now sat on my ass, my dress in tatters around my left arm where the impact must have ripped it, I looked up at Lorn. Watched how she draped herself over Malyr’s lap, twirling a black strand of his hair around her finger.

The sight stunned my mind for long moments, though it shouldn’t have. Of course they were lovers. Their absolutely pestilent personalities suited each other perfectly.

“What is she doing here?” Malyr fisted and stretched his hand, then lifted it to cup Lorn’s cheek. “She isboringme.”

My teeth clenched until my molars throbbed for reasons I couldn’t quite grasp. What was his entertainment to me? His attention?

Nothing.

“Yes, dull virgins do that to us, don’t they?” Lorn said, letting a new flare of heat climb up my neck while she cupped Malyr’s smooth-shaven cheek. “Are you happy I returned sooner? Did you miss me while I was gone?”

“You know full well that no moment passes where you’re not on my mind.” Malyr’s eyes found mine, and a smile that promised nothing good curved his thin lips. “Mmm, where are my manners? Granted, those many months I have spent at the Tidestone dungeons did nothing to nurture my social graces, but even I remember that introductions ought to be made. Although… come to think of it… Little dove, I believe you have already met Lorn?”

That heat spread, flaring up the itch around my scabs. No, he didn’t just believe; that bastard knew what had transpired the day of my capture. How she’d killed the only person who had ever shown me love. I could see it in that bemused twitch on his lips.

Lips he pressed to Lorn’s.

He kissed her, passionately, moaning into her mouth, lapping at it, caressing it with his tongue. What would it feel like to be kissed with such passion? Would it tingle in my belly? Turn me weak?

Those questions put an odd twinge in my chest because I’d never been kissed before, making this yet another thing I knew nothing about. More painful was how Malyr kept staring at me throughout, as if to remind me of how foolish I was. Just a girl. A child.

“Give the girl to me for the night,” Lorn murmured between kisses as she writhed her feminine, shapely body against him. “I want revenge.”

“You had revenge.” Malyr’s throaty, male groan pebbled my skin as he lifted his hips upward against her. “This girl ismine.”

Sebian suddenly appeared behind me and pulled me up, letting the fine hairs rise against his body heat. “Alright, time to go, sweetheart.”

Oh, he didn’t need to say it twice.

I retook possession of my arm and hurried off. “Don’t bother, Raven.”

ChapterThirteen

Sebian

Present day, Deepmarsh Castle

Don’t bother, Raven.

Groaning in frustration, I followed Galantia out of the great hall, my cock painfully stiff. Things could’ve gotten real interesting down there—quite possibly ending with my mouth on her juicy cunt tonight—wasn’t for fucking Lorn. How could Malyr have been so reckless, letting her walk in on him like that?

Lorn took no issue with the women Malyr bedded. They were nothing to him—the same way the sorry bastards she fucked were just prey to her. But the way his shadows had seeped from his skin as though Galantia was already writhing beneath him…? How he’d stared down at her, so spellbound, he hadn’t even seen Lorn coming? That shit would turn Domren’s betrothed into a corpse before I had a piece of her.

When Galantia all but tumbled up the stairs, I shifted into my unkindness, only to reshape at the upper landing and grab her arm there. “Stop running.”

That flinch of surprised fear didn’t go unnoticed before she yanked away from me once more. “Leave me alone.”

My ears pricked at her tone—angry, with a hint of shame. “What did I do now?”

“Nothing,” she bit out, and that carried more than just a hint of accusation. “You simply… enjoyed the evening’s entertainment. I can’t believe you’re the same person who looked after my wounds.”

An odd twinge spiraled through my core, though it shouldn’t. What had she expected? That just because I had cleaned her cuts, I would coddle her now? Take care of her? Fuck that.

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