Page 106 of Realm of Wind and Vines
Since I’m assuming that she’s talking to me, I turn towards her.
A dead fish smacks into the side of Orion’s face.
The riverbank goes utterly silent.
I gape at the Unseelie King as the dead fish falls down from his cheek to hit his shoulder before landing on the grass right next to his fancy shoes.
For a moment, no one moves. No one even breathes. I swear the river itself stops flowing.
Then Orion slowly turns towards Isera.
“Sorry.” She flashes him a completely unapologetic smile dripping with challenge. “My hand slipped.”
In a flash, Orion has closed the distance between them. With a firm grip on her collar, he slowly draws her face closer to his. “Your hand slipped?”
She summons a shard of ice and presses it against his throat before he can pull her all the way to him. Their lips are so close that they’re almost touching.
Another villainous smile slides across Isera’s mouth as she replies, “Yes.”
“If there is so much as one single stain on my clothes from that fish, I will make you spend the rest of the night washing it out.”
“You seem to spend a lot of time fantasizing about taking your clothes off around me. Desperate much?”
“Let’s not forget who cuddled whom in that cave.”
Heat flushes Isera’s cheeks for a second as she presses out, “I did not cuddle you!”
“No? So you’re saying that you didn’t wake up with your arms around me and your cheek snuggled into my chest?”
“That was only to prevent hypothermia!”
“Sure.” His eyes gleam with devilish light. “Just admit that you want to fuck me.”
“You’re the one who couldn’t keep control of his cock when I climbed onto your lap while stealing the dragon steel back there in your court.”
“You’re the one who got down on your knees and offered to suck my cock for all eternity.”
“In order to trick you into a bargain and then trap you in it so that you have to obey my will. Which I managed to do anyway.” With the shard of ice still against his throat, she rises up on her toes and slants her lips over his. “You belong to me now, pretty boy. Don’t forget it.”
“A bargain that I’m becoming increasingly certain is based on a lie. And once I prove that, the deal will revert and I will win our bargain by default.” He slides his tongue along his bottom lip, only a breath away from hers. “And thenyouwill belong tome, little viper.”
From the river, Lyra suddenly calls in a cheerful voice, “Why don’t you just fuck each other and release all of this tension between you?”
Orion and Isera practically leap apart. Brushing his hands down his embroidered shirt, he turns away from Isera and tries to appear unaffected while she draws her eyebrows down in a scowl and moves to pick up the fish she threw.
“What?” Lyra laughs, and her orange eyes glitter as she flicks a glance towards Alistair. “A nice fuck is good for the soul.”
His cheeks flush bright red, and he almost drops the fish. Snapping his gaze down to it, he clears his throat while the flame in his hand gets inexplicably larger.
“Azaroth’s flame,” Draven mutters from the river. “It really is like being surrounded by children. At this point, summer will be over before we get this done.”
“I don’t mind,” I call back to him. A teasing smile spreads across my lips as I deliberately rake my gaze up and down his body. “I’m enjoying the view.”
Draven, who is still standing knee-deep in the water in only his underwear, slides his gaze to me. Drops of water run down his skin, and his muscles shift with every move he makes. My grin widens. At long last, that smile that he has been holding back spreads across his handsome face. Shaking his head at me, he gives me a look that lets me know exactly what we will be doing the moment we’re alone again.
He was right, though.
Catching enough fish for all seven of us took longer than we had expected. It was only once Isera’s patience ran out and she froze part of the river that we could finish our task more efficiently.
