by Alex Lidell
The fight leaves me much faster than it has any right to, and I know I will give him the answer, even as I glare. Stars. Those piercing gray eyes might hold more magic than just earthquakes. “Why is yelling at you in the common room so much easier than holding my ground in private?” I mutter.
River smiles, his flashing white teeth confusing my senses even more. Still holding my chin, he rubs his thumb over my mouth. “Because the bedroom and the battlefield are two places I never yield,” he says and, without waiting for an invitation, presses his lips over mine. Takes a kiss. Deep and thorough and so sex-clenchingly strong that my underthings dampen.
He pulls away, his nostrils flaring with satisfaction. Smelling my arousal.
My skin heats.
With a small chuckle, River sits on the edge of my bed, the tall mattress perfect for his height. Opening his knees, he pulls me to stand between them, our eyes nearly level. His broad hands brush along my shoulders, my hips, the undercurve of my bottom.
My breath catches at the memory of what he did there when we last lay together, my face flaming hot enough to melt metal. I hated it. My treacherous body, however . . . My thighs clench and I try to step back, only to find myself trapped in the male’s muscular arms.
“It’s time to answer my question, Leralynn,” River says, his silver-speckled eyes holding mine. “No evasions, no half truths. I love you. Which means I need to know what had you curling in on yourself back there. What truly set you off?”
Stars, how closely was River watching me to see my body shift? Before I can push the thought away, the memories that sparked that reaction return to wash over me mercilessly.
We were together, River and Coal and Shade and Tye and me, my body echoing the males’ power. Holding enough of it to stop Griorgi and Jawrar. Except I didn’t. I brought the whole damn town down around our ears instead. If River, so injured he could only crawl, hadn’t gotten to me in time to take control of the magic, we’d all be dead. “I’m the reason Griorgi is free,” I manage to say finally. “Because I couldn’t control the magic. And now everyone is paying for it.”
River studies me, his broad shoulders filling my vision, his thoughts too deep to read.
“And we have our final trial tomorrow, with no more do-overs,” I blurt out. “We’re one more crazy Lera explosion away from being put to death, whether by my hand or the arena’s wards.”
Still, River stays quiet. Watching. Listening.
I squirm to back away, but he lifts me to sit sideways on his lap instead. “Settle down, Leralynn,” he says into my ear. “And then listen to what you just said. My father has tainted Lunos for nearly a thousand years, managed to break the ancient wards that hundreds of thousands of fae and mortals died to erect, and allied himself with Mors’s emperor. And yet it is you whom we should hold responsible for the mayhem?”
I shake my head. River is missing the point. “We had him in Karnish. If I hadn’t—”
“Griorgi had us in Karnish.” River’s voice hardens. “And if you hadn’t connected the quint, we’d be dead.”
“I—”
“You failed to singlehandedly defeat the king of Slait, yes. I heard you the first time.” River shifts me to have a full view of my face. Those deep, beautiful eyes study me with disconcerting intensity, as if nothing else exists in the world. With his formal jacket shrugged off somewhere in the common room, the heat of his body seeps through his simple white shirt, filling the air between us. River brushes a knuckle down my cheek. “And I told you that you saved our lives. I wouldn’t like to have to repeat myself again, luv.”
Luv? Heat. Sheer, burning heat engulfs my skin, starting from the spot along my cheekbone that the male just touched and shooting straight through my core. My blood and sex heat at the same time, the indignation and flash of fury as strong as the sudden grip of excitement. The former emotion wins, and I shove River’s chest. “Bastard.”
He captures my wrist, his large hand wrapping easily around my forearm. “Unfortunately not.” His deep, masculine voice brushes my neck. “I fear my lineage is something everyone is quite certain of.”
My thighs tighten, suddenly very aware of being atop River’s. The bed, the dim bedchamber, the low voice . . . the unyielding gaze and grip that the male has on me. I squirm beneath the pressure of his attention, only to discover a decided hardness beneath my bottom. With the next heartbeat, I can’t bring myself to care about the king of Slait or the emperor of Mors or the trials.
River’s gray eyes spark, raw desire flashing through the mask of control. His lips part, taking small gasps of air as the hardness beneath me pulses gently. Beneath his crisp, tailored shirt, his muscles coil so hard I feel the tiny vibrations of his rippling tension. “Leralynn . . . ” He swallows and the arm he has around me releases to grip the edge of the mattress in a white-knuckle grip. “There are a great many things going on just now. I don’t imagine you want . . . You better leave the room. Not too quickly, please.”
My gaze narrows, the very notion of denial rallying my body into alert. If I’m the prey the fae warrior’s instincts sense me to be, I’m a bloody willing one. “It’s my bedchamber.” My voice rings through the heated air. Free of River’s restraining arm—which my body wants back where it belongs, no matter what my logic whispers—I twist until I’m facing the male, straddling his thighs as if riding a horse. “You don’t get to order me out of it.”
My hand goes around his neck, my heart pounding as I pull his mouth down toward mine.
A growl vibrates River’s chest, his hand tangling in my hair, tilting my head roughly to the angle he desires. When his mouth takes mine, the deep, possessive warmth of it shoots heat all the way to my slicking sex. The clenching intensity of sensation floods my senses and I jerk back. Try to jerk back. River’s grip on my hair tightens, keeping me in place as his unyielding kiss deepens, his tongue claiming my mouth.
A fresh jolt of flames sears my nerves, tightening my muscles all the way down to my curling toes. Stars, the male hasn’t even touched me down low and my body is already approaching the edge, desperate for more. It’s one part infuriating to three parts intoxicating.
From beyond the door, voices rise and fall in conversation, the echoes of Shade’s sensual laugh kindling flames of a different sort. Shade. Tye. The others, just beyond the door.
River pulls back at once, studying me until I want to squirm again beneath his intense scrutiny. “What’s wrong, luv?” he asks. That word again.
“Nothing.” I sound breathless, my swollen lips slow to obey.
Hand still twined in my hair, River tips my face up toward him. “Tell me.” An order.
Instead of kicking him for it, my treacherous body shudders with desire. “The others. They, well . . . They are all very close just now. En masse. I—I can feel their magic more than I used to.” After our explosive connection in Karnish, their threads, their essences, are impossible to ignore. It almost feels like we’re all in this room together.
A hint of amusement colors River’s gaze. One hand still in my hair, his other slides down my body, a slow growl of appreciation accompanying its journey between my heavy breasts, down my belly, and into the waist of my trousers. With an immortal’s maddening patience, he runs his fingers through my wet folds. “The others likely have worked out what we are doing by now.” He raises his now glistening fingers and inhales my scent, before cocking a brow at me. “Did you want them to watch?”
My eyes widen, my heart hammering against my ribs. “You wouldn’t.”
River chuckles. “I’d forgotten for a moment how much more . . . closed mortals are about such things. Fae are more visceral.” He licks my wetness off his fingers. “One day perhaps.”
“No,” I say forcefully. My sex throbs.
River gives me a look that sees all too much. “In that case, you may wish to keep your voice in check.” His own lowers. “A feat that I intend to make very, very difficult.”
5
Lera
I draw a short, sharp gasp as River tosses a pillow onto the dresser top. Lifting me up, he bends me over it, my toes just touching the floor. A heartbeat later, his hands expertly relieve me of my trousers, leaving my upturned backside open to the nippy autumn air, my sex open to him.
Pulses of need rake my sex and shoot down the backs of my legs. I squirm to release the tension between my thighs, to stop the already growing ache, but River places a strong hand on my lower back and presses me down.
His other callused palm massages my backside, waking each nerve to his touch. “You are beautiful,” he murmurs, leaning down to whisper into my ear, his hardness pressing against me. “And just now, you are at the perfect height for me.”
My breath hitches. My sex tightens, my hips undulating in spite of myself. “Stop talking,” I say between clenched teeth.
River chuckles again, the rich sound so unusual from him that my bones sing.
His voice changes suddenly, taking on that air of command that my mind resists but my body goes crazy for. “Open for me, Leralynn,” he orders, his hands already on my wet, quivering legs. Pushing them apart until I can’t clench at all, my aching insides utterly dependent on him for fulfillment. My knees try to close on instinct, but River’s thighs are there. Blocking me. Holding me in place. Letting me feel the restraint. “Settle down.”
I take a breath. Release it. Will my muscles to loosen.
“Very good,” River says softly, moving his fingers to massage the lower curve of my backside before sliding along my aching sex. Forward and back, forward and back, the wet sounds and my unsteady breaths filling the quiet room, each stroke ending maddeningly shy of my apex.
With a shudder, I arch up toward him, receiving a teasing flick of my bud that makes me gasp. A thick trickle of wetness slithers down my leg.
River catches it, wipes it away with his hand, and—
“No!” I tense, trying to squeeze my backside together even as the male pulls apart my cheeks. The last time he went near there . . . Stars. I’ve never hated and loved something so much at the same damn moment. Have never felt a release as strong as when he . . . filled me so thoroughly. The thought of it, of him—my heart races.
“I’d keep my voice down if I were you,” River says softly, his free hand returning to stroke my wet folds. Circling my opening. Teasing my swollen bud with soft flicks. Right. Left. Right. “Unless you’ve changed your mind about that audience, of course.”
I grip the sides of the dresser, barely biting back a moan. Each of River’s ruthless caresses sends a fresh wave of need coursing through my blood. The sensation is so strong it hurts. Aches. Screams. Sweat beads along my temples, my body trembling from the approaching abyss. When the tip of River’s callused finger scrapes the hood of my apex, I shudder violently. One more stroke and—
He stops.
I whimper.
River’s other hand, so patiently waiting on my bottom, brushes between my cheeks. “Open.”
I shake my head.
Another circle around my opening, my wetness smeared along my bud until I writhe with need. Close. So, so close.
“Please,” I beg, my body convulsing against the restraints. Needing the release he teases. “It hurts. I can’t. I need—”
River taps my bottom, and this time, I’ve nothing left with which to resist. With firm insistence, he traces the entry, slicking it with my own desire. “One day it will be me in here,” he whispers, sliding his finger into me. In and out. In a bit further. Out. In further still. The stretch and burn of it merges with the pulsing in my sex until I can’t tell the difference between pain and pleasure.
River’s weight shifts as he frees himself, the hard tip of his shaft positioning itself at the edge of my sex. With a twirl of his finger that triggers every nerve inside me, he thrusts, sheathing himself to the hilt.
The double fullness magnifies each thrust of River’s cock, its wide head playing along my ridges. Thrust. Thrust. Thrust. The dresser creaks under his force, and I push back against him, making River growl and move faster. The male pulses inside me, my own swollen apex throbbing in rhythm. When his hand returns to caress my bud one more time, I no longer care who hears my scream as I tumble over the edge.
“Stars,” River grunts, timing his own release to follow mine. His warmth spills inside me, a harmony to the aftershocks still raking my flesh. A few heartbeats later, his strong arms gather me against him. Sitting on the bed, he pulls me onto his lap, stroking me gently. “You are beautiful when you climax,” he murmurs into my ear. “Just listening to you find your pleasure makes me find mine.”
I smile in sleepy contentment against his hard chest.
The chest moves.
Blinking, I realize River has laid me flat on the bed while he pulls off his shirt and wraps the material around the bedpost. “What are you doing?” I ask.
He grins. “Only getting started. Now, give me your wrists.”
The following morning, the glow from River’s intense attention yields to nauseating anxiety as the five of us fill the preparation room. The now familiar scents of leather and salve, sweat and sword polish, fill my nose. Outside the windowless space, I know hordes of Citadel warriors-in-training are climbing to the top of the bowl-shaped arena, readying to watch the morning spectacle.
In their defense, every one of our bloody trials has been a spectacle.
Even now, before the gong has sounded, we are already an exotic anomaly—a quint with runes from the second and third trials already wiped, preparing to repeat the first challenge they once forfeited.
My loose, wine-colored uniform hangs off my body, revealing my bound chest—the last time I’ll ever have to wear the oversized tunic, stars willing. Vaguely, I feel my males moving about me, tightening armor and choosing weapons and waiting around with that annoying nonchalance that I can’t seem to master.
A knock at the door jolts me from my thoughts, and my brow knits at the sight of Klarissa, her dark hair and champagne robes rippling in the low light.
“Please forgive the intrusion.” The female’s melodic voice brushes right past me to wrap like a silk scarf around River. When the male raises his gray eyes to her, Klarissa smiles, holding up a folded note that makes my stomach clench with dread. “After some deliberation, the Elders Council has decided to add a small condition to your trial. I’m certain you will see the wisdom of the council’s decision once you think on it.”
“Will I?” River’s voice is hard enough to crack stone.
“Of course.” Klarissa uses her long, painted fingernail to perfect the parchment’s folded crease and hands the message to the prince. “After all, at the end of the day, it is truly the weaver whose power must be demonstrated. If you yourself will not trust Leralynn in the safety of the arena, how can the Elders Council trust her in the wild? That is simply not a risk we’re willing to take.”
Klarissa is gone before River can shake open the letter, his jaw tightening once he does. “The Elders Council has instructed that our weaver is to take charge of the magical movements during the trial.” River folds the paper carefully, all his attention on the task for several heartbeats before finally sliding up to meet my gaze. “Furthermore, the council would like the weaver to be the one who retrieves the flag.”
“What?” Stopping in the middle of the preparation room, I stare at the commander. After the destruction I wreaked in Karnish, no sane person would let me anywhere near the males’ power. And for all her viciousness, Klarissa isn’t daft. “She can’t be serious.”
“She can, and she is.” River runs a hand through his hair, his back straight. “The rest of us may assist, but the primary magic is to come from you, Leralynn.”
Silence settles into the air, slowly seeping into my bones. Before I can find my tongue again, a large body comes up behind me, bringing the smell of wolf and rain. “You’ll be all right, cub,” Shade murmurs into my ear, his heavy arms resting on my shoulders. “I promise.”
&nb
sp; “Me?” My hands ball into fists, my blood heating. I step away from Shade and turn on the male. On all of them. “It’s not me I’m worried about. Our surrenders are used up. If we fail to retrieve the flag this round, the wards will kill all of you. This isn’t the time for me to be playing with my new toys, and River needs to go to Klarissa and make that clear.”
“I don’t believe I can,” River says with a gentle apology.
“Good.” Coal’s voice snaps like a whip, cleaving the room’s nervous energy. Leaving off the sword buckle he’d been adjusting, Coal uncurls to his full height. Dressed in his usual black leather pants and vest—a silent defiance against the maroon uniform shirts and sashes that the rest of us wear—and low blond bun, the male’s hard face holds an edge of steel. “Because Klarissa is right.”
“What?” I twist fully toward him.
“The battle in Karnish shook you, mortal.” He crosses his arms. “Hiding from your power beneath a fuzzy blanket isn’t doing you—or anyone—any favors.”
“Are you insane?” For a moment, I truly mean the question. “I can face my bloody fears in a practice arena, when your life doesn’t hang on my staying in control.”
“Practice arena?” Coal’s eyes blaze. “How has that been working out these past few days? Because I’ve seen no more progress from you than from that punching bag over there.”
“That’s enough,” Shade growls, flashing his teeth at the male.
“No, it isn’t.” The restrained violence in Coal’s lithe muscles sings loudly enough to fill the room. “There is not enough stress in the practice arena to truly make her understand her power. We have tried that already—we’ve tried everything. The council is, for once, bloody right—it is time for a change. Time for her to stop hiding from the colossal power she carries within.” Coal turns to me, his eyes blue flames. “Because when we leave here, mortal, the stakes will be higher than losing our lives in a trial.”
