Page 19 of Rules of Stone
I want him. Every fiber in my body wants to be pressed against his, even with the mating bond muted. I may not be his female right now, but he is my male. And I’m too lonely, too tired, to care about the former.
My hand fists in Tye’s shirt, pulling the male toward me roughly, my lips covering his with desperate need. As the warrior’s taste fills me, his achingly familiar mouth hot against mine, my body wakens, begging for more. Real or not.
Tye’s hands grip either side of my face, pulling me away gently even as his sudden hardness throbs against my belly. His breath comes hard, his green eyes gleaming in the moonlight. “Not that I mind, lass, but I think you do. Or will come morning.”
My heart pounds against my ribs, the sound echoing in my ears. “Come morning, I’ll deny it ever happened,” I say, my breath ragged. Needy. Maybe I’m not Tye’s conquest, but he is mine. A notch onmydamn belt. My teeth grind together, my hands digging into his shoulders. “Don’t go getting attached, pretty lad.”
A tiny predatory growl escapes Tye’s lips, his emerald eyes flashing in the moonlight. “Oh, we’ll see about the morning, lass. I’m told I can beverymemorable.” The male’s mouth is descending upon mine even as he bites off his own words, his body pushing me back back back until I feel a tree trunk digging into my shoulders.
Tye’s kiss deepens, his lips and tongue plundering my mouth with hot savageness. Heat ripples through my core, my legs and arms and abdomen tingling with energy as pressure builds high between my thighs. My sex pulses hungrily, blindly. More. I want more. The void inside me howls, screaming for Tye’s cock while I clench and clench around nothing.
With a growl, I shove into Tye, my strength too great to be mortal even in this world’s shackles. A lesser male would have swayed from the assault, but Tye, Tye only lifts his face away from mine as his body absorbs everything I can throw and doesn’t give an inch. Heartbeat after heartbeat, he stands his ground, looming over me while his broad shoulders block out the moonlight. He stands, taking it all—until he moves.
Grabbing my wrists, he pins them above my head, his knee forcing my thighs apart. Deprived of means to squeeze my legs, the pressure along my sex turns unbearable. I struggle futilely against his hold, each failed attempt to escape only feeding the merciless ache inside me.
A flash of Tye’s teeth, of the canines I can’t see, and a sharp sting sinks into the tender spot where my neck and shoulder meet. The pain of the claiming shoots down my body, turning to exquisite heat.
Tye licks the bite, the tiny laps of his tongue starkly soft, as exotic as ice in the eye of a flame. I writhe, but the iron bands of his hands at my wrists let me do nothing but feel every unbearable zing. My body trembles, the surrender and storm of sensation battering me from all sides. The world about me narrows to the dampness soaking my underthings, to the tingling heat that brings me to my toes with desperation.
Tye shifts my wrists until he controls both my arms with one hand, his other sliding along my shoulder, my breast, my waist anddown down down.
17
River
Coal tapped his ear, signaling to River.
River paused, cocking his head in search of the sound that Coal had marked. A wolf howled. An owl hooted nearby, a pair of squirrels who should be sleeping scattering along the trees instead. As if something—someone—was disturbing their slumber. Someone whose heavy breathing River could now make out.
A small movement of River’s hand had Coal walking again, the warrior’s steps silent on the cold earth. A predator stalking prey. River’s steady heartbeat kept its rhythm even as his mind raced. Whatever the foe, it was too close to the Academy. Had to be put down. Now. Tonight. With Shade’s help if possible, but not at the risk of letting it escape. River’s blade whispered free of its sheath.
The sounds of panting breath increased, branches snapping beneath feet that belonged to neither River nor Coal. Close enough to the Academy’s wall that a stone’s throw would reach it. Stopping with his back pressed against a wide oak that was the last point of concealment between them and the target, River shared a readying glance with Coal.
The warrior nodded.
River’s hand lifted and closed into a fist in the moonlight.Go. Go. Go.
Twisting around the trunk at the same time as Coal, River brought his sword into ready guard just as the foliage opened to—
Tyelor of Blair, pinning Leralynn of Osprey to a bloody oak, the man’s hand so deeply inside the woman’s tight pants that his fingers couldn’t help but be stroking inside her hot folds even now.
River’s chest tightened, heat simmering in his blood and filling his lungs, his face, his hands. Leralynn’s auburn hair was loose but for a single braid on the left side, swinging like a mesmerizing pendulum with the couple’s movement. The moonlight showed the naked skin of her exposed throat as she tilted up her head to meet Tye’s kiss, her undulating body giving so generously of itself that a tremor ran along River’s skin, making his cock twitch at the thought.
The furnace inside River blazed hotter with each of Lera’s soft gasps, and when her face turned slightly, she reminded him so much of Diana that River had to bite back a roar. The damn woman was out in the wilderness, beyond the Academy’s protective walls, here where three people had died in as many nights. That alone made River’s arms long to shake her. Except his arms wanted to do so much more than just shake the woman. The scent of her arousal spun River’s head, the glistening wetness on Tye’s fingers as his hand slowly withdrew and slid up her torso toward her heavy breasts as tantalizing as chilled wine in a desert’s midst. An ache he had no right to feel for a student gripped River’s groin so fiercely that no shifting would be enough to relieve the sudden horrid tightness in his britches.
“What the bloody hell are you two doing?” River’s voice was ice. Too controlled for his racing heart, so polar to the inferno inside him that it was a wonder the two didn’t meet in an eruption of steam.
Lera gasped, tearing her mouth away from Tye’s.
Tye cursed, his green-eyed gaze moving between River and Coal in a too-experienced assessment of the situation even as he pushed Leralynn behind him. As if his back would protect the woman from the deserved wrath.
Leralynn’s eyes widened as she met River’s, her skin blanching beautifully. When she turned, River caught sight of the sword hilt rising above her shoulder. She’d not come here just for the…for companionship, then. River didn’t know whether that made him feel better or worse.
Not that it mattered. Leralynn was done. Sage might not allow students to be shown the door outright, but by the time River was through with her, she’d be running for the exit. Which would be best for all involved.
18
Lera
