Page 95 of Wings of Lies
He shook his head, gripping his sword hilt as the scar on his chin darkened. “Maybe if you’d stop being the ignorant, helpless wimp you are for one second, you’d survive!”
They were his words. I saw his lips move. But the voice that saidhelpless wimpwasn’t his, even if they were spat in the same way and just as demeaning and arrogant. It wasn’t Aspen. It was— The memory was at my fingertips. But it stayed at the edges of my mind,taunting me. So I was left with the bitter taste of fear and an unending loathing I didn’t quite understand.
But that word. That damned word. My hold on my power slipped as my rage took over.
“Do not”—the itch surged—“ever call me that again.” Pressure pushed behind my eyes. The sense of deja vu overwhelmed me.
He smiled, the red glow making him look vile and wrong. “I call it how I see it.” Throwing my words back in my face, eyes flashing blue.
The call in my blood sprung to my hands as I swung at his face. He dodged deftly, smirking. “Careful Lucille, wouldn’t want to find you naked again…”
Low blow.
I jerked my knee up, going for the source of his arrogance, and was stopped by my chains.
“What would that be… the second—no, the fourth time I’ve seen you naked because of your lack of skill?” he continued, smug.
Every inch of my skin raged with the itchy energy.
Mindless, I pushed off the floor planks with all my strength and tackled his royal ass off the side of the carriage, catching him off guard.
He took the brunt of the fall, letting out a grunt as we landed in a heap on top of a soft patch of moss. Straddling him, hands covered in a deep purple, I placed one around his neck, threatening to squeeze as I bared my teeth, ignoring the tingles.
How dare he?
I wrenched my arm back, ready to wipe the pretty smirk off his stupid, handsome face. Ready to make him feel the overwhelming, itchy, fiery pressure of whatever this was. Because what coiled in mycore felt different from all the other times my purple flames erupted. It was hot and lacked the crackling noise of ice.
My chest heaved in and out, purple flames spreading from my hands up to my neck and pushing behind my eyes.
His smirk fell. Now he saw them.
“How—”
I clawed into his hair, ripping his head back with my other hand, hoping to dissolve some of his stupid soft locks.
He flinched, and I thought I saw a purple wisp slowly eat a piece of his hair, but then the coiling in my core changed to burning.
Everything my undulating darkness touched, I felt ten-fold.
No longer was his hair just soft. Instead, it slid between my fingers like a satin caress. His skin went from smooth to a vibrating velvet. It took all my strength not to move my hand against his neck to caress him. And his smell. Heavenly Hell. Sweet apples mixed with my favorite piney scent. I swallowed back a moan but couldn’t stop my body from arching against him.
The heat in my cheeks reached the tops of my temples as Aspen’s frown changed to a look of hunger I didn’t understand. But I didn’t need to. Not when my pelvis rubbed against his. Not when the hard length of him grew beneath me and pressed into a place I only gave thought to earlier today. A place that now throbbed with an urge I never knew I had.
Aspen’s eyes glowed, flames hovering on the edge of his irises. He lifted his hands off the moss and grabbed my hips. The contact was pure ecstasy.
“Lucille, what are you doing to me?” he whispered. His voice strained, fingers digging into my sides.
The heat growing between my legs made me crave for him to press harder.
“Nothing. I’m doing nothing,” I spat, attempting to hold onto anger that wasn’t even there. My unwanted desire for him fueled my purple flames, somehow covering the intact leather of my jacket.
Aspen moved one of his hands up my spine, returning the favor of gripping my hair. But instead of jerking me back, he jerked me toward him—nose to nose. The scent of him wrapped around me, addictive and sweet. I squeezed my eyes shut in pleasure.
“Lucille, wait,” he groaned as his nose trailed along my neck. I felt his unending desire for me swallow his confusion. “Damn it, you always smell like winterberries and sunshine. It kills me. Every. Fucking. Day.”
My eyes snapped open to pure starvation.
He jerked his hips, hitting the ache between my thighs, and I couldn’t help the moan that escaped.
