Page 45 of Ember and Eclipse
She rushed him, throwing a punch with her free arm that landed on his side, causing pain to shoot from her wrist up. The impact was a surprise, but she hit him again with the same fist and then brought the blade down.
Except he caught her, wrapping his hand entirely around her forearm. He pulled her into him sharply, directing her arm upward, bringing her flush against his body. She struggled to distance herself, but his arm around her back effectively trapped her against him.
Her chest heaved with her heavy breaths.
And still, her magic didn’t answer.
“This is just some game to you. You’re,” she panted, “just ridiculing me.”
“Am I?” His silver-pooled gaze became molten.
Though her position was awkward, she slapped him with her free hand. It was hard enough to turn his cheek and make a satisfying sound. “Fuck you,” she hissed and briefly glimpsed his ticking jaw.
“Don’t make threats you’re not going to follow through on,” he said evenly.
Just as she was about to knee him, he pushed her away with a growling rumble.
Catching herself before she lost balance, she took another two steps away from him to create more space.
“Come on then,” he commanded as he picked up a knife from the discarded pile, spinning it easily in his hand.
It didn’t matter. She’d fight until one of them was dead. She refused to go back. Taking a determined breath, she attacked again.
He dodged all of her strikes and responded in kind. She was able to block or evade some, but his fist connected with her stomach, knocking the wind out of her. Even as she gasped for air, she managed to block his knife before it landed in her shoulder, but she was forced to give up ground.
“I will drag you to Asear and hand you over myself. He will take from you, carve you up until you arenothing,” Devdan said. “And here you are putting little effort into this fight.”
When she closed the distance this time, she came away with a shallow cut on her arm. The stinging pain was grounding—it brought her crashing back into herself.
“You’re being weak,” Devdan taunted. “And I already told you I wouldn’t kill you. When you lose this, I’ll tie you up for the rest of the way so you can reacquaint yourself with—”
Letting out a frustrated and feral noise, she lunged. This time, she didn’t care where his blade went, so she didn’t bother to block it. Instead, her focus was on bringing him to the ground. Burying her face in his chest and driving through, she wrapped her leg around his at the same time. But as his knee buckled, he snatched her, sending them both crashing into the stones.
She scrambled for the dominant position and, leaning forward, one hand planted on his chest, she let her steel kiss his throat. Crimson blossomed against his dark skin, contrasted by the blade’s shining metal. His grip around his own weapon loosened until it fell to the pebbles with a soft clink.
With heaving breaths, her gaze traced his lips, his jawline, all the way down to the blade at his throat.
One swipe, and she’d be free.
Devdan gripped her hips, huge hands spread to grab as much of her thighs and backside as he could. As if he only wished to touch her before he died.
She searched his face. Everything from the warmth of his touch to the feel of him beneath her had her hesitating. She was faltering, being pathetic. Mercy wasalwaysa weakness. One drag was all it would take, and she would be free. But he slowly sat up, forcing her to press into his neck more or relent, until they were face to face.
She bared her teeth at him as the knife’s edge sliced a little deeper into his skin.
“There she is,” he murmured, a reverence and softness in his voice that had never been there before.
One of his hands traveled from her hip, up her side, to the nape of her neck, his fingertips grazing her scalp before he fisted her hair. Despite the blade to his throat, he pulled her closer and leaned into her. His lips brushed her ear, his breath warm on the side of her neck.
“The moment I took my first breath, I shouldn’t have been allowed to live. I should have been killed that night because when a pup kills its mother during labor, it is considered an omen, a curse. If it were not for the deep love the pack leader had for my mother and a promise made before she died, I would have been. But that didn’t stop the pack from hating me, sending me away, exploiting my skills while never truly accepting me. I have made a revolution out of my life. I’ve survived out of pure spite. Despite being constantly surrounded by death, Irefusedto yield to it. Not in a man’s war. Not for my pack. And not in that witch prison.”
His voice dropped into a raspy whisper. “But you. You are a wildfire, and I have no intention of surviving you.”
Her lips parted, but any response she had died in her lungs. Devdan gathered her impossibly closer, avoiding the injuries on her back as he did. If any space had been left between them, there was none now as he crushed her against him. She could feel his every tightening muscle and the echo of his heartbeat. His cheek was rough with stubble against hers, and despite herself, she closed her eyes from the feeling of being this close to him.
He maneuvered them until she was on her back, her legs wrapped around his waist, the steel only lightly pressed into his throat now.
And then his lips were on hers.
