The Night Prince (The Wolf King, #2)(88)

Chapter Forty-Six





Blake blinks. The wolf disappears from his eyes.

“Oh, it’s you. I thought you would have been sensible enough to leave while I was sleeping.” His grip around my wrists loosens but he doesn’t let me go. “Is there something I can help you with, little rabbit?”

His thighs press against either side of my hips. His scent is everywhere, dark pine and poison. It’s stifling. Words evade me.

He arches an eyebrow. “I’m actually trying not to provoke your master right now, believe it or not. It’s not the best time for you to visit me in my bed.”

I roll my eyes. “Get off me. I was. . . It’s none of your bloody business what I was doing!”

He laughs. “You’re in my room.” I try to clench my fist around the folded parchment without him realizing. I try to nudge him aside. He doesn’t move. His gaze travels slowly from my face to my hand. “Oh, I see.”

I shake my head. I stretch my arm as he slides his fingers up it. His touch heats my skin. My knuckles hit the headboard. I try to twist away and knee him in the crotch, but I can’t get out from beneath him. His chest is inches from my face when he looms over me, frees one of my wrists, and plucks the parchment from my fingers.

He releases my other wrist, then kneels over me. He clucks his tongue. “Naughty little rabbit.”

I get the familiar tingle in my teeth, the urge to bite him. Those pages are mine. Those answers are mine. He doesn’t have the right to take them from me. I’m fed up of letting people take things from me.

Blake tenses. The ridges in his torso become more pronounced. He drops his voice to a whisper. “Whatever you’re thinking of doing, I’d advise against it.”

When we were in the chapel, and his wolf started to surface, I did something to him. I grabbed him through the bond, and I pushed the wolf back. I open the cage that binds my emotions and invite him in.

I feel him everywhere. That thread of him coils around me, and I grab it.

“Aurora. Don’t.”

Instead of pushing him away, I pull. His breath hitches, and it might be the most delicious sound I’ve heard. His eyes become amber and feral. Sweat breaks out on my skin. I feel his wolf, and it’s agitated. It wrestles against my hold.

He falls down and clenches the pillow on either side of my head. He dips his mouth to my ear. “Why would the rabbit provoke the wolf?”

“Because I know you don’t like it.” My voice is strained. I’m losing my grip on him as he battles against me, and the room starts to swim.

His laugh is breathy. “Are you sure about that?”

He stops fighting. Lust surges down the bond, hot and restless. Hunt. The air thickens. He shifts his position on top of me, and nudges my knee with his thigh, spreading my legs. He’s trying to distract me. He wants me to loosen my grip, to let him go, because he’s afraid.

I cry out and I pull harder. His hand flexes by my head and a low groan escapes him. He presses his forehead against mine.

“Aurora. . .”

I touch something inside him. A hollow, endless ache fills me. It’s like falling down a hole that has no bottom. I hold on. He mutters something under his breath. It sounds like he’s counting. When I know I consume every inch of him, as he does me, I roll him off me. I snatch the pages from his loosening grip.

I let go of the bond, and I feel him retreating, fast. I can breathe again. The posts of the bed blur around me. I feel like the fever is coming for me as something wild floods my blood. I half stumble, half crawl, to the foot of his bed.

I unfold the parchment. I catch the words Anam-Cridech.

He is on top of me again. I try to fall down onto the pages to protect my prize, but he hooks an arm around my waist and pulls my back against his chest. “Don’t,” he whispers.

There’s a tempest inside me. I have the answer I’ve been searching for in my hand, and he’s going to take it from me. “I deserve the truth.”

“You don’t.”

He snatches the parchment from my hand. His chest bumps against the top of my head as he leans over me and tosses it into the fire. It lands on the logs, and the flames take it.

A soundless scream tears from my lungs. Whatever thin line of peace that has existed between us lately snaps. Red clouds my vision. My blood howls. Wildness rises inside me, and I can’t suppress it. I sink my teeth into his arm.

A low sound scrapes against his throat. His arm tightens against my torso.

“Fuck.” His voice is strained. “Easy, little rabbit.”

I snarl. Something takes over me and I bite harder. I don’t think I could let go if I wanted to. I want him to hurt like I hurt. I want to make him bleed.

“Aurora—”

I try to stop, but there’s something rabid inside me and it won’t let go. His breathing is ragged. His heartbeat thunders unsteadily in my ears. His knuckles brush my torso as he clenches his fist. He groans.

“If you break the skin, you’ll mark me. You don’t want to do that.”

I don’t know what he’s talking about, but panic floods me. This is not me. I’m not in control of myself. I can’t stop. I moan against his arm.

“Okay. I’ve got you.” He sends his emotions through the bond, a surge of them that I cannot decipher. They flood me. He’s everywhere. His ice cools my fire. My vision blurs, and when darkness rises, I let it take me.