Nectar of the Wicked (Deadly Divine, #1) (56)

Upon returning to my quarters, I found them empty of my wolf.

“Snow?” I called, inspecting the bathing and dressing chambers.

About to charge out into the hall and back downstairs in search of ghastly Olin, I stopped dead in my tracks.

The door connecting my rooms to the king’s was wide open.

Beyond it was a dark and narrow hall squashed between his bathing and dressing room.

He’d taken her as bait. Yet I still walked toward the dim light of his bedchamber. To get her back, I had to, and I’d grown fond of having her comforting weight at my feet while I lost sleep in this manor filled with serpents.

Florian sat shirtless on his bed with a glass of whiskey in hand. My wolf dozed at his side, the novel he’d evidently stolen from my nightstand in his lap.

“I see what you mean,” he said by way of greeting. “Though the descriptions do leave a lot to be desired.”

Snow’s ears pricked when I told her to come with me, but otherwise, she didn’t move at all.

Traitor.

Florian smirked and ran a long finger over Snow’s head. “She would make a lovely—”

“Do not finish that sentence.”

His eyes flashed. “Pet.”

I gritted my teeth, growling as I spun to leave.

His chuckle quickened my heartbeat. “I do not intend to harm your wolf, butterfly, or she would already be dead.” There was a pause, then threateningly soft, “Come to me.”

The command lashed at my skin with caressing fingers. My own curled into my palms, temptation mixing with hatred and a myriad of other warm and cold feelings. It should not be a hard thing, ignoring this king after learning his true motives.

Yet it was.

Even without the needy changes occurring within my body, it was nearly painful to ignore a being so overflowing with wretched power. A being with a presence so commanding, it had rendered me submissive from the moment I’d first laid eyes on him.

It went beyond mere attraction.

The sound of his voice stirred more than the acute and growing want inside me. Florian Hellebore evoked a violent blend of hunger and curiosity. An unquenchable need to get as close as possible and burrow deep beneath his skin.

But surrendering would only give him what he wanted.

And I was now all too aware that his wants were not the same as my own, and that he’d tricked me with honest lies.

Kreed’s earlier warning lingered. But it couldn’t stop me from saying, “I’d rather not.”

Though the words had been more gentle than I’d intended, they still created a silence that felt like a heartbeat thudding closer to my back.

The heat of his gaze was a winter breeze, and I swore some of my hair shifted over my shoulder before he made a sound of amusement. “Your little games of disobedience,” Florian said, and my skin grew taut over my flesh, “are good for nothing more than exciting me.”

I shouldn’t have, but I’d already done so many things I shouldn’t have, so I turned and said, “You only say that so I will stop disrespecting you.”

A thick brow arched, his eyes darkening as I stepped closer to the bed he lounged upon as though it were a divan.

As if the growing tension in the room rankled, or she could sense what was about to happen before we could, Snow stalked back into my chambers via the door I’d left open.

Florian placed the book upon the bed, carefully and with his gaze moving from mine to the erection pressing into his loose cotton pants.

My stomach swirled, my eyes unfastening from the truth he’d shown me and roaming up his stomach. They took their time, counting his abdominals as I imagined what it might feel like to touch every muscled and defined inch of his bare torso.

He noticed. He noticed everything.

Rather than allow the embarrassment to creep up my neck to my cheeks, I forced a small smile and swayed closer to the edge of the bed.

He might affect me. That much I could never deny.

But that didn’t mean I would do as he expected—flee from him with my cheeks heated and my heart thrashing through my limbs.

The only tell that he was surprised as I climbed onto his bed at his feet was the slight narrowing of those moonlit eyes.

Crawling between his knees, I prayed to the goddess he wouldn’t hear the fear in my thundering heart, and said, “I’m afraid I do not understand what you’re talking about.”

“To be expected.” He sipped his drink, then set it on the nightstand without taking his eyes off me. “As you are very much a hands-on learner, aren’t you, sweet pet?”

My teeth met, even as thorny heat dropped to my core.

The challenge in his eyes said that no matter what I decided—if I stayed or if I stormed back into my rooms—he would win.

Regardless, I wouldn’t back down now. I couldn’t.

And not one part of me wanted to when I kept my eyes on his and dragged a fingertip over the waistband of his night pants. His breath hitched, his giant body instantly tensing.

My head spun with the knowledge that just one touch could elicit such a response in this arrogant and cruel creature. “Are you going to teach me, then?” I whispered with a smile and pushed that fingertip under the elastic of his waistband. “Majesty.”

His skin was shockingly hot for a male with winter running through his veins.

“Of course,” he said, voice thick. “Nothing has ever given me more satisfaction.”