Page 152 of Beneath a Shattered Sky
For half a second, he freezes, then his arm loops around my waist, pulling me closer.
“I want him dead.” Bree’s voice is flat and lifeless. “I want to wake up knowing I can look into the eyes of strangers and not find him hidden among them, waiting to charm me back into slavery. I want the name Lyarthorn torn down and buried so I can play an instrument without being reminded of him. I want to peel off every single knife tattooed on my body, even though I know I need them to protect you.”
It's a lot of admissions in one go for my quietest Guard, and I’m careful when I respond, aware that one wrong word will only make things worse.
“That sounds less like you want him dead, and more like you want to undo what he did to you.”
He huffs out a breath. “Stupid, I know, but killing Máel didn’t fix anything. It didn’t make me any more comfortable with being in a crowd, or magically fix how my skin feelswrongwhenever a female looks at me a little too long. Killing her wasn’t enough and… I’m afraid killing him won’t be enough either.”
He takes a huge breath, letting it out slowly.
I trail a single finger along Naris’s head where it’s inked on his abdomen, heart melting as the ink rises up to meet my touch.
“You’re censoring yourself,” Bree accuses, breaking the quiet. “What are you thinking, dragonfly?”
“You won’t like it.”
His fingers tilt my chin back to look at him again. “Let me decide that.”
“I think you want closure, and you’re scared because you know killing him won’t grant you that. I think you want to heal.”
“You think I should talk to my father?” He releases my chin, letting the eye contact drop.
“I don’t know him well enough to judge the wisdom of the decision,” I concede. “But I wonder if talking to him might bring some sort of closure that you didn’t find with Máel.”
And perhaps he needs that more with his father, given the huge betrayal that Torrance committed. After all, Máel never pretended to be anything she wasn’t, but Bree trusted his father, depended on him for decades. He was charmed into accepting his debt as a result of that familial bond. Everything that happened to him in the Toxic Orchid was because of that one backstabbing moment.
And ever since he was freed, he’s bottled up all of those feelings. Hiding.
“If not him, thensomeone,” I insist.
He’s silent for long enough that I don’t think he’s going to answer. When he does, it’s so quiet I barely catch it.
“I told Drystan I’d see a mind-healer. I just… I suppose I’ve been avoiding it.” Then, a little louder, “Go to sleep, dragonfly. We’ll deal with my father in the morning.”
His fingers trail through my hair, playing in the strands until I succumb to exhaustion.
Forty-Five
Rhoswyn
Iwake to a different set of fingers digging into my hips from behind.
“Hush, Pet.” My whole body relaxes as I recognise Lore’s voice, only to tense all over again as something hot, hard, and heavy rubs teasingly against the lips of my already soaked pussy. “You don’t know what you do to me, do you?”
“Lore,” I moan, still half-asleep.
Goddess, I’m trembling. My breasts are so heavy, and my nipples have been worked into aching little points.
Just how much foreplay did I sleep through?
“Shhh, you don’t want to wake the others, do you?” His voice is in my ear, lips caressing the sensitive lobe. “I have plans for you, and I don’t think Daddy Drystan will approve.”
Alarm bells should be ringing at that sentence, but the vestiges of sleep and my own rapidly climbing need manage to silence them. The scorching head of his cock rubs against my clit, sending tremulous fireworks through me. I’m hot,uncomfortably so, and when I arch my back, trying to align us, his fingers tighten on my ass.
The first inch of him slips inside my pussy, and I gasp into the pillow. My hands find the cool, intricately carved ice of the headboard and brace against it as his warm, wet tongue licks up my spine, followed by the scrape of too-sharp teeth.
“Open up for me, pet. Let me in.” His whispers cut off as one of the others shifts in their sleep, and I freeze, only to squirm a heartbeat later as he pushes a little deeper.
