Page 81 of With Wing And Claw

Fingers curled inside her. ‘Come for me.’

‘Can’t,’ Naxi babbled, too far gone to hear herself, let alone stop herself. ‘Need to touch you – need to – please—’

‘You can touch me later.’ A hoarse laugh heated her soaked, swollen flesh. ‘First, you’re going to come for me. Screaming.’

She gasped. ‘But—’

‘Naxi.’ The fingers thrusting inside her slowed for the first time, and she wanted to cry, wanted tokillsomething. ‘You’re so fucking wet. You’re so fucking beautiful. You taste like honey and roses. Feel what you do to me.’

What she did.

To Thysandra.

And then a voracious tongue dragged all the way up between her thighs, from her slit to the throbbing bud of nerves above, and shefeltit. An unmistakable burst of pleasure that wasn’t her own at all, the undiluted delight of devouring the most delicious thing in the world …

Just a glimpse, but it was enough – it wasbetterthan enough.

She crashed over the edge in a single blinding flash of pleasure, moaning garbled pleas as her body folded in on itself. Every convulsion of her muscles echoed back at her in gleeful triumph. Every breath was full of Thysandra, that perfect, sweaty, earthy scent. She let the sensations wash over her, wave after wave after wave, until at long last the shudders eased and she was just blissfully hollow, numb even to the sizzling emotions flaring around her.

Thysandra’s arms wrapped around her, lifted her, cradled her. Smoothed her hair from her clammy forehead. Tucked her dress back around her sticky thighs.

Naxi breathed.

Just sat and breathed and felt … home.

‘Think you won the negotiations,’ she heard herself mutter, strangely slurred words, as if she was dead drunk on pleasure. ‘At least a day of loyalty, I think.’

Her reward was a low, husky laugh. ‘Oh, trust me – you don’t want to betray me tomorrow, either. I’ve got plenty morein store for you.’

Something was wrong with that assertion, Naxi vaguely, drowsily realised. Because the fucking had nothing to do with it, really. She wouldn’t betray Thysandra even if they went back to being celibate for the rest of their lives, not as long as she still had a place to be harmless – was that something she ought to say out loud?

But talking washard, and she was so very happy, and really, she did have better ways to put her lips to use …

‘Can I tear that dress off you now?’ she murmured into Thysandra’s shoulder.

A matter of priorities.

Orgasms first. Food second. Surely they’d have time for talking later.

Chapter 18

Old Thysandra would neverhave asked for a tour of the servants’ quarters.

Then again, Old Thysandra had been a wilfully blind fool.

And so New Thysandra found herself making for the castle’s easternmost expansion in the early hours of morning, her skin tingling with an odd mixture of tension, determination, and the afterglow of half a night spent fucking a pretty little demon halfway to death. Her eyes were itchy with exhaustion. Her heartbeat refused to settle into its usual pace. Around her, the court was as deserted as a mausoleum, the arches and spires lifeless and stilted – which was not uncommon around this time of day but unnerving all the same. Every whisper of wind became a sign of alarm, every shifting shadow a dagger about to sink between her wings.

She strode on all the same.

Do better.

Next to her, Gadyon and Nicanor followed without questions – the first mildly dishevelled as always, the latter’s night-blue attire twice as flawless to compensate. Neither of them gave the impression they’dseen the inside of their eyelids much over the course of the night, but both had jumped into action the moment she woke them and asked them to accompany her; she hadn’t even needed to elaborate on the matter of her own spontaneous disappearance.

‘Still no trace of Bereas and the others,’ Nicanor summarised as they walked down the winding corridors – his casual efficiency unable to negate the fact he was wearing twice his usual number of daggers. ‘Turns out he owes Silas two more favours. Funny, isn’t it, how the fools claim to want war yet run off as soon as they get involved in anything truly resembling a fight?’

Fools.

Even tense and tired, Thysandra couldn’t help but take note of that meaningful little word – a suggestion that he knew damn well it would be madness to resume the war against the rest of the archipelago. Which was a relief. She’d never explicitly asked for his opinion on the matter, and she hadn’t been looking forward to testing just how much wiggle room the loyalty of their bargain allowed.