Page 84 of A Court of Bones & Sorrow

Vail tore his hand from my breast and shoved it between my legs, pushing my underwear to the side while using his leg to spread mine wider. “Don’t”—he shoved two fingers inside me with zero warning, and I let out a strangled moan as he gripped me to him while harshly pumping his fingers in and out—“talk about the others when I’m inside you.”

“You weren’t,” I panted, “inside me yet.”

The hand around my chin pulled it further to the side before Vail struck, his fangs piercing my neck just as another finger joined the others that were fucking me hard. The sharp pain mixed with the building pleasure was too much, and I came all over his hand.

He pulled it free to flick my overly sensitive clit before rubbing it with two of his fingers that were slick from my arousal. I jerked in his grasp, but his arm tightened around me, keeping me flush against his body.

“Vail,” I half whimpered and half moaned as he continued to tease me. His fangs slid out, and he laughed against my neck before sliding one of his legs between mine to rotate us until he was beneath me, my back still flat against his chest. The legthat was between mine leaned to the outside, making my legs spread even more.

“Next time we do this,” he rumbled into my ear, “it’ll be in front of a mirror. That way, we can watch me fuck you. Watch as my fingers disappear”—he thrust three fingers inside me, stretching me out, and I moaned from the fullness—“into this perfect, tight little pussy of yours.”

Shivers coursed through me as he continued to pump his fingers in and out, his thumb occasionally brushing over the sensitive bundle of nerves, causing my hips to buck. Vail increased his pace until my entire body was trembling.

As if he could sense how close I was, his fangs grazed my neck again before slowly sinking in. He didn’t drink, just bit down hard, as if he was pinning me in place, claiming me.

That was all it took to push me over the edge. My pussy clenched around his fingers as the orgasm rolled through me, and I screamed his name again before sagging against him in a boneless heap.

My eyes had shut at some point, but I heard him licking his fingers after he withdrew them. Then he shifted us until we were both on our sides once more. I could feel his erection pressed against me, but when I reached around to slip my hand into his undershorts, he stopped me and guided it back to rest on my hip.

“You need rest,” he said roughly. “And if my cock gets inside you . . . I won’t be able to stop for hours.”

The reality of what we’d just done crashed into me. I was lying on a cave floor with the man who had once been my dearest friend, then became one of my worst enemies, and now . . . I didn’t know where we stood or how much I could truly trust him.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Samara

I’d expectedthings to be awkward between us in the morning, but they weren’t. We didn’t talk about what had happened, but things had definitely shifted between us.

Kieran would probably have mixed feelings about this new development. He was easygoing about a lot of things, but not when it came to people who had hurt me, and almost nobody had hurt me more than Vail. Considering I felt the same about him and Draven, I couldn’t really fault him for that. I had no idea how Roth and Alaric would react to Vail potentially entering our . . . thing.

My lips quirked into a wry grin. I didn’t know how the Velesians so easily navigated these multi-threaded relationships. Well, most Velesians. Poor Rynn was more lost than I was when it came to this type of thing.

“What are you thinking about?” Vail stretched out a hand to help me over a fallen log.

“Nothing.” I slipped my hand into his and gave him a sunny smile. He narrowed his eyes but didn’t call me out on my bullshit. It felt strange for him not to launch back a scathing remark. A girl could get used to this.

“If we’re to make it to the southern tip of Lake Malov by tomorrow morning, we need to travel a little further tonight.” We both looked up at the rapidly setting sun. “Rynn mentioned a cabin about twenty miles from here. It’s warded, which means we’ll have a safe place to stay tonight, and it’ll put us only a few miles from where we’re supposed to meet her.”

I chewed on my bottom lip. “Do you think we’ll run into the moon devils again?”

“No.” He shook his head. “We should be out of their territory by now, and they’re likely still recovering from whatever tore into them last night.”

“What do you think that was?” I asked. While I was glad whatever it was had shown up when it had, that didn’t mean I wasn’t worried about there being a bigger and badder monster lurking out there—one that could be tracking us now.

Vail didn’t answer right away, and I didn’t push him as he pondered it. We wound our way through the trees that only grew thicker the further we pressed into Velesian land. The type of fauna changed as well. Along the coast, the trees were spread out a little more, and the other plants . . . well . . . they were devious. Particularly in the Moroi realm further south, everything was deceptively beautiful. The better to lure in unsuspecting prey so it could devour them.

The plant life of the Velesian realm hid nothing about its intentions though. We passed several trees that were weeping what looked like blood, and large, purple flowers stood upright from the ground—their six-foot-tall petals closed tight as something bulged in the center of them—likely digesting whatever they had caught last night with the black, thorny tentacles that slithered around their base.

Not for the first time, I was glad the Moroi had ended up where they had. The Velesian realm was twice the size of ours, but I was pretty sure my ass would have been eaten a long time ago if I lived here.

“Most of my concentration last night was spent on staying upright and not passing out.” Vail finally spoke. “I heard several loud cracks, which makes me think that whatever attacked the devils was large. Maybe attacked from above and broke some branches on the way down?” He shook his head, clearly not buying his own theory, and looked at me. “You didn’t see anything?”

“I was a little busy keeping your heavy ass moving.” I waved a hand at him. “Do you really need all those muscles?”

A squeal leapt from my throat as Vail grabbed me and picked me up like I weighed nothing at all before pinning me to a tree. He was so much taller than me that my feet were nowhere near the ground, so I wrapped my legs around his waist.

“I think you can benefit quite nicely from my muscles.” He grinned, and for a second, it took my breath away to see such a carefree look on his face instead of the usual scowl.

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