Nectar of the Wicked (Deadly Divine, #1) (41)
I swallowed, unsure if I should be frightened or aroused. For I was an even mixture of both.
His finger pressed upon my screaming pulse. “Especially in front of my people.”
I was tempted to ask what that punishment might entail, but when his lashes lifted with his eyes from my heaving breasts, the darkness within warned against it. Pheromones and his iced energy radiated in a vaporous heat, alluring and deadly.
It was on the tip of my tongue—an apology and a request for him to place that soft mouth on mine—when he dropped to his knees.
And pushed his mouth against my stomach with a low groan.
His heavier scruff tickled, coaxing a panted breath from me when he crouched lower. My thighs were gripped from behind. His fingertips bruised as he dug his nose and mouth into my core.
The sound that left him was animalistic.
I set my hands upon his shoulders, swaying slightly. “Florian...”
“Miss me, sweet creature?”
The desire to ask him where he’d been and why he’d left without warning—especially on what to do with his quiet home and ill-tempered staff—became a burn. But he’d chosen me to wed for a reason. He’d chosen me because I would be grateful enough for what he gave to let him be.
His teeth nipped my mound, and I yelped. He ordered, “Answer me.”
“Yes,” I confessed, then moaned when he kissed where he’d bitten.
His mouth dipped even lower, and after one lazy swipe through my core, he rose and licked his lips. His fingers brushed his mouth, but they failed to hide the pleased tilt when I reached for him and he evaded me.
It seemed this king I’d tied myself to enjoyed a little revenge.
He threw my earlier words back at me. “I’ll see you later, butterfly.” Then he closed the door on his way out.
Once again, Florian did not attend dinner.
I was more relieved than disappointed. For the teasing he’d given me had left a tight coil of painful need, and I wasn’t certain I was above apologizing for my defiance in order to have him remedy it.
I ate quickly, Olin glaring at me as I carried my plate from the dining room and down the hall. But I wasn’t going to the kitchen.
I headed outside, passing the stunned guards patrolling the grounds, and toward the stables.
Henron was still packing up for the evening, his face smudged with dirt and a piece of hay in his mouth. It bobbed with his question. “You’re going to feed the beast quail eggs?”
“And liver,” I said, skirting around him and marching to the rear stalls.
He trailed me with a light laugh. “Do you truly intend to keep the wolf?”
“I intend to let her heal before releasing her back into the woods.”
Henron returned to stacking hay bales as I greeted the cub who’d been sitting with her ears pricked, seemingly waiting for me.
Her rear wiggled as she approached the plate of food I set on the ground. She looked up at me, and at my nod, didn’t hesitate a moment longer before mopping the porcelain clean.
Henron leaned over the stall door, tapping his knuckles on the wood. “She won’t go, you know. Not now that you’ve altered her scent and given her a reason to stay.” He eyed the wolf and scratched his long nose. “And you cannot domesticate a wolf.” His apricot eyes conveyed what he knew I did not wish to hear.
She would need to be given a merciful death.
Florian’s warning about messing with the way of things came back to me. I sighed, knowing he’d been right. I knew then, and I’d done it anyway. Regardless, I protested weakly, “She would have died.”
Henron hummed. “Perhaps because she was supposed to, Princess.”
My nose scrunched at the endearment. Before I could tell him not to call me such a thing, he disappeared, presumably to retire for the night.
Snow looked at me with eager eyes, wanting more to eat.
“In the morning,” I promised and petted her soft head before checking her healing wounds.
Florian was in his rooms when I returned.
Like the rising of the sun minutes before the sky lightened, I could sense it—feel the energy reaching through the cracks in the stone of the manor.
I sat on the bed and stared down at the bedding, wondering if he would come to me while knowing he would not. Knowing that meant I should leave him alone.
It was hard to sleep when he was so close, rendering me lost to all the many reasons as to why he might not be interested in seeing me. Lost to wonderings of what he was doing, if he ever slept or merely lazed around in an arrogant kingly fashion, I kicked off the bedding as an unexpected sweat broke out across my flushing skin.
After breakfast, I was leaving the dining room when I felt the first ripple in my new and perhaps not-so-magical world.
A bellowed curse was followed by a crash.
Florian had a warrior pinned to the wall with his forearm at his throat. The golden vase from the hall table was now in endless pieces on the floor. “You know better than to have heart for those who had none for us. You will go back and fucking take it, understand me? There is no room for a pretty little conscience within this court.”
The male started to protest, then shouted in pain as his cheeks changed from a ruddy red to blue. Ice crawled and crusted over his skin, cracking as Florian spoke. Cracking and peeling and tinkling to the floor with skin and blood.