Page 38 of Beast of Blood and Ash
For the first time in what felt like forever, I wasn't afraid. Omvar didn't trap me.
He sheltered me.
He pulled back, breath rough, his golden eyes blazing with a potent longing. His chest was a living furnace against my ribs, the mate-bond a hum between us. It was sharp, real.
This was my mate.
Holy. Crap.
His voice came out thick, words dragged from a cracked, dangerous place. “We don’t need to go any further.” His tone quivered at the edges, a thread of control about to snap. “Only what you want.”
The scramble of internal panic screamed for me to run, but it was drowned out by the ache low in my belly, and the way my skin buzzed under the weight of his gaze. I met his eyes, swallowing the fear one more time.
“I want this,” I said. The voice was mine, but it sounded like someone else, someone reckless and utterly starved.
Relief hit his face, a wave, instantly bleeding into hunger. He crashed into me again, claiming my mouth in another bruising kiss, a wordless surrender to the gravity between us. My hands found his shoulders as he lifted me, carrying me as if I weighed nothing toward the sleeping platform that dwarfed my body.
He set me down with impossible care, every movement a negotiation between his raw strength and my human fragility. The platform’s surface was warm, and I felt grounded, pinned to a new axis of pure sensation. His hands, callused and lethal, skimmed my sides. They never threatened, always waited for an order.
Omvar knelt beside the platform, muscles coiled so tight he looked like he was fighting an urge to tear himself apart.
“I want to see all of you.” The words slipped out, surprising me with their sudden need. But it was the truth. I wanted to see every inch.
Omvar straightened, chest swelling. For a moment, he just stared at me, pride and a bashful hope flickering in his gaze. Then he reached for the knot at his waist. I watched, helplessly mesmerized, as he stripped: first the battered wrap, then the tunic, peeling it away to reveal a body forged by violence and survival, both alien and beautiful. Every scar was a path leading to the core of him.
And then he laid a hand on the waistband of his trousers, his eyes fixed on me, asking for permission.
I nodded, sharp and helpless, my pulse frantic against my ribs.
He bared himself without hesitation.
His cock was alien and obscene and utterly hypnotic. Red scales glinted at the base in the yellow light of the room, fading to crimson flesh streaked with thick, black veins. At the tip, a mobile, fleshy lip flexed, twitching as if tasting the air—or waiting to taste me.
A bead of fluid gleamed at the opening, slick with anticipation. Beneath the strange sheath was a heavy weight that made my throat tighten, awe and disbelief warring inside me.
I’d felt it, fumbled with it in the dark, but seeing it in the open, seeing every impossible detail, was a challenge. This was not human. This wasn’t even pretending.
I didn’t hate it. Not even close.
My skin flushed with a want I couldn’t name. Heat pooled between my thighs, a hunger that tore through the fear. I pressed my knees together and shivered.
Omvar’s gaze went molten. The head of his cock dipped when he saw my reaction, the fleshy lip curling ever so slightly, as if begging for my attention.
“Touch yourself,” I ordered, stunned again by the sound of my own voice.
A look of pleased surprise twisted Omvar’s face. His hand wrapped around the thick, scaled base. He stroked, slow at first, then harder, the mobile tip rippling and flexing with each pass of his thumb. The alien rhythm of it was brutal and graceful all at once.
I watched, rapt. Absolutely fascinated. My fear dissolved under the onslaught, replaced by a breathless, needy, aching want. I wanted to taste him, to ride him, to claim him in a language older than names.
He caught my eyes, holding me in the furnace of his longing. “Can I see you?”
Shyness warred with the fierce ache in my chest. I swallowed, my pulse thudding a heavy beat, and reached for the hem of my shirt. My hands trembled, but his gaze never left my body, tracking every inch of pale flesh as I bared it to the strange, hungry air of Scalvaris. When my shirt was gone, Omvar made a sound. It was low and wrecked, the kind of sound that made me feel powerful.
Admired. Wanted.
It made me bold. I shimmied out of my pants and bared myself completely, letting him see every scar, every imperfection. Every mark that had made me who I was. His pupils flared, bright and sharp. He hummed a note of desperate approval, his claws scraping softly against his own thigh.
Something wild possessed me.
