Page 120 of The Oracle of Dusk

Theron smiled—a look promising passion and torment in equal measure.

“Then I’ll die a happy man.”

He captured her bottom lip between his and nibbled, his eyes never leaving hers.

Aurora shuddered as a thrill of pleasure shot through her.

Her resistance crumbled in the face of her need. She broke, her arms circling his neck, her fingers digging into his scalp. Aurora slanted her mouth over his, welcoming his thick, hot tongue. Mindless and needy, she pressed herself fully against him. He took his hand from the back of her head and hitched up the sopping skirt of her gown. Pushing aside her underclothes, he slid his fingers along her molten core.

“So wet for me,” he rumbled against her skin as he kissed her neck and nibbled on her sensitive ear.

She moaned, regretting the loss of his mouth on hers. Aurora gripped him by his hair, taking pleasure in his groan of pain, and forced him back to her lips.

“I’m not done kissing you yet.”

His eyes flashed with approval. Theron’s next kiss was rougher than the last, his fingers pressing harder against her wet heat. Cold and rain forgotten, she burned for him, for his touch, for his tongue on hers, for the press of their bodies. Her head swam as the world around her faded to nothing. All that remained was Theron, his wicked mouth and his teasing fingers. It was bliss. In that moment he was hers alone, and she was his.

His finger breached her, stroking her inner walls. She broke from their kiss as her breath left her in a rush. His lips were on her neck again, unerringly finding the spots that made her shiver.

“My little fairy is so tight. I can’t wait to ruin you,” he growled in her ear.

Yes, she wanted him inside her, wanted to follow this bliss into oblivion and never surface. She would make him hers, brand him with her body and never let him go. And she would turn any who stood in her way to bones and dust.

He sank his teeth into her neck as he slipped another finger inside her. She cried out, stretched tight and aching for more.

“Everyone will know who you belong to when I’m done with you,” he growled, easing the sting of his teeth with kisses.

As she leaned in to give him a matching mark she froze. Dark red hair plastered his neck. Red, like the princess’ wedding veil.

Theron wasn’t hers. He never had been, and he never would be. This was pure folly. The dreamy haze of passion was torn away in an instant.

“Put me down. We’re done here,” she said, her voice flat.

He blinked in surprise, withdrawing his fingers as if burned.

“Did I hurt you? Did I do something you didn’t like?” he asked, setting her on her unsteady feet as he searched her face for the answer.

“Soon, you’ll be married to someone who isn’t me. I think it would be best if we stopped here.”

His eyes darkened with anger.

“Where is your fire? Your determination? Do you plan on rolling over and accepting your vision without a fight?”

“I wasn’t able to stop the last one! Why would I be able to stop this one?!” she shouted back.

Especially when this one was more than just foreseen, it was the history she knew, recorded in ancient times by the king’s own biographers. There was no escaping the fact that he would wed another. And she didn’t think she had it in her to fight against the full weight of both prophecy and history only to fail.

He gripped her chin in his hand and glared daggers at her.

“And yet I survived. You don’t see everything,” he hissed.

“I see enough,” she whispered, her voice cracking.

Theron released her in a huff and stormed off, leaving her to her misery and the pouring rain.

Chapter 20

Theronwasinafoul mood. More letters had arrived from home, all from his most loyal advisors begging him to conclude his business in Viridis as quickly as possible. As if his imprisonment in Boreas were some holiday he’d irresponsibly taken without tying up loose ends first. As if he wished to bear a blasphemer’s mark and had been negligent in getting it purified. As if he had a bloody choice in anything that had happened to him since he’d stepped foot in this cursed queendom.

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