Page 51 of With Wing And Claw

‘I … I told you to stop,’ she whispered, slumping against the wall. Only the vines kept her knees from buckling. Her breath came in shallow gasps. ‘I really did.’

‘Oh, yes,’ Naxi agreed, coming up on her toes, her finger sliding to the edge of Thysandra’s jaw. ‘You told me. Very convincingly. Multiple times.’

She parted her lips to say,Good.

Naxi’s mouth was already on hers.

Wet and warm and sweet like honey – a kiss smothering all words of objection, tasting of stolen moments and deadly secrets. She melted into it before she could stop herself. Shameful surrender, but there was no resisting the lure of those demon lips kissing her as if theyknewher, taking possession of her as if they’d done so a hundred times before …

And perhaps they had.

In dreams, they just might have.

Naxi kissed like she smiled – unrestrained, unapologetic, a slight thrill of danger just beneath the surface. One of her small hands fisted in Thysandra’s hair. The other roamed down across her body, brushing and pinching in all the right places, drawing a tantalising line over her throat, her chest, her stomach … There was no resisting that touch. Even without the vines tying her against the wall, she would have been unable to pull away now, to stop this cresting wave.

Traitor’s daughter.

But how could she help it when treason tasted so, so good?

A mewl escaped her, swallowed by their kiss.

Naxi’s fingers in her hair drew tighter. A perfect sting of pain, accompanying the perfect sting of pleasure as those clever little fingers slid beneath Thysandra’s dress and – gods have mercy – up over the inside of her thigh. Every muscle in her body tensed as she arched into that forbidden caress, pride and shame forgotten. Vines dug into her skin, and she barely felt them anymore – felt nothing but those delicate fingertips, skimming closer and closer to where she so desperately needed them.

‘Please,’ she heard herself moan. ‘Please…’

Naxi abruptly broke their kiss – lips flushed and wet, something frenzied in her large blue eyes. Her fingers continued their frantic circling, up, down, and never close enough as she whispered, ‘Did you miss me, Sashka?’

Fuck.

‘No,’ she gasped. ‘Of course I didn’t—’

‘Don’tlie to me.’ That sweet voice turned to razor-edged steel in an instant. Naxi’s cornflower irises seemed almost aglow in the darkened room, piercing and ravenous, nymph eyes gleaming with a demon’s hunger. ‘I’m done with playing games. Did you miss me?’

Thysandra hesitated, just for a moment.

Fingers pinched the flesh of her inner thigh, hard and vicious.

‘Fuck.’ It was half gasp, half shriek as her back came away from the wall again, limbs straining towards that merciless touch. ‘I didn’t miss you torturing me, damn you!’

A ruthless, breathless giggle. ‘Are you saying you did miss the rest?’

She knew the truth she wasn’t speaking out loud. Any other truth was safer. ‘I once let Emelin escape just to pass you a message, for fuck’s sake – wasn’t that enough?’

‘To let me know you should have killed me when you had the chance, yes.’ The unholy glee in Naxi’s voice should have scared her, should have chilled her to the bone. Instead, it merely sent another feverish shiver down her spine, towards the heat gathering at her core. ‘So I did haunt you, then?’

Thysandra could no longer think.

She just wanted to befreeof this.

‘Haunting is too gentle a word,’ she ground out, slumping against the wall, her fists clenching in their fetters. ‘You’re a gods-damned plague, if you want the truth. A … a grievous affliction. You turned my greatest triumph into a fucking nightmare – is that what you want to hear, then? That I spent a century wishing I’d never laid eyes on you in the first place?’

Naxi laughed, the sound sensual and spine-chillingly harsh in equal measure. ‘Because you couldn’t stop missing me?’

She was beyond lying.

‘Yes,’ she snarled. ‘And go to hell, you—’

A finger flicked up between her legs.