Page 74 of Beyond Those Gilded Walls

My hand flew up to meet his, feeling only smooth skin there as well, where there had been still-healing flesh just hours ago.

“And even if I didn’t,” he continued, “do you truly underestimate yourself so much that you think I would turn down a chance to have you beneath me like this?”

“Why me?”

“Why not you?”

“Don’t tease me, please.”

He rolled off me, settling in at my side and running his thumb over my cheek and lower lip before grasping my chin and turning my head to face him. “I felt you watching me that first night you were here, up on the balcony, and it felt different. People watch me all the time, make no mistake, but they are watching me out of caution. You were curious, but there was no fear in your gaze.”

“Surely someone has been curious about you before, Tallon.” I tried not to roll my eyes.

He offered a wry smile. “Yes, but much like how you say people treat you, they were only curious as to what I could do for them. What I could offer, what my magic could offer. You have never looked at me like that, even when I was avoiding my end of the bargain we made. You were curious just to know who I was. Curious for the sake of knowledge, not of anything to gain.”

“And yet you tell me you’d give me everything.” I shook my head, squeezing my eyes shut. As much as I wanted to believe him, to believe that this could be real, I couldn’t. “We need to find out if Eadric is going to retaliate or if we will have another chance to find the treatment before Emyl passes.”

“I would have given you everything, even then.” Tallon sighed softly, moving off my body and letting the cold air surge in between us. I’d never felt more alone in that moment, cold air on all sides of me, but I tried to remind myself this was for the best. “He will not retaliate. He would be foolish to try anything. No, he will wait and form a strategy first.”

“Your bargain with him is broken now, right?” I pointed out, looking up at the ceiling. “Wouldn’t it be wise for us to strike back before he can gather a strategy? You said that if one of you hurt the other, the magic would retaliate. So he is dealing with a stab wound too. Would he heal as fast as you, or would he still be injured?”

He froze beside me, letting out a soft exhale like he’d been punched in the stomach. I turned my head to see what revelation he’d had and was met with hands gripping both sides of my face. “You are brilliant, my wolf.”

The kiss he pressed to my mouth was rough and quick, though it held no less heat than the others we’d shared. He lingered for a moment, his gaze darting between my eyes and my mouth. He kissed me once more, slower this time but still brief, and then he was rolling away to turn on his stomach and look back at me over his shoulder.

“Is there still a mark at the base of my neck?” he asked, his voice muffled by the muscle of his shoulder pressing into his mouth. “Vaguely shaped like an hourglass?”

“No, there’s nothing like that,” I said, reaching out to touch the skin at his nape, tracing over the points of swirling black that hugged over the tops of his shoulders and draped down onto his back. His skin was warm and smooth beneath my fingers and I pressed my palm flat between the expanse of his shoulder blades, watching how his muscles flexed around my hand.

A full body shiver accompanied the goosebumps forming along his arms. I drew my hand back as he shifted.

“If you want me to believe you when you say this was a mistake,” Tallon drawled, twisting to look over his shoulder more as he pressed up onto his palm, “then youreallyshouldn’t touch me like that, my wolf.”

My face heated, and suddenly, my lap was far more interesting than the expanse of naked flesh in front of me. “I never said this was a mistake, Tallon, just that we shouldn’t have done this now, when there are more important things we should be focused on.”

He turned to lie on his side, propping his head on his fist. I forced myself to keep my eyes on his face and not on the way the muscles of his stomach flexed with the movement. Based on the smug smirk on his lips, I didn’t do very well. The smirk softened and he reached out to tuck his index finger into my fist, tugging slightly. “Odyssa, nothing could be more important than this, not to me. But I do understand.”

I took a deep breath, nodding my appreciation. His words stirred something in my chest and made me want to hide beneath the covers with him for an eternity, but my mother’s voice echoing in my head had me frozen. I nodded my head towards his neck. “Do I have a mark from our bargain? Shouldn’t you have one from our bargain too?”

“You do, and so do I. They are not all in that same place,” he said. He flexed the arm lying beneath his head and pointed to a spot on his inner bicep. It was tucked between the stark lines of the marks, and though it was the same inky black, it was clear it didn’t belong in the pattern. More abstract, like spilled ink across a page rather than painted lines, it was shaped oddly like an hourglass. “I don’t know where yours is, but you do have one. Do you want me to find it for you?”

Were it not for the lecherous grin and teasing tone that accompanied his question, I might have let him. “No, I was simplycurious.”

“Pity.”

“Now that the bargain is broken between you and the prince, can you not remove the curse or the magic or whatever you call it from Emyl?”

“It doesn’t work that way, my wolf. I am sorry.”

“But you can help me more now, yes?”

“Of course, and I will.” He tipped his head. “What are you thinking?”

“Good. We will get the treatment tonight then. You are more powerful than him and no longer bound to not harm him.”

“You are more powerful than him too,” he said. “But yes, we will get it tonight. After earlier, he will likely keep it on him or somewhere else, not in his study.”

There were too many things in that short statement that I wanted to ask about. I opened my mouth to speak several times before finally deciding to start from the beginning. “How am I more powerful than him?”

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