Page 43 of A Taste For Lies (The Apex Kingdom #1)

Chapter 43

ALORA

T aran shuts the door behind Mei with a soft thud, and I try valiantly to keep my breathing steady. Why couldn’t I have thrown on a robe when I was up earlier?

“You shouldn’t be here,” I whisper, even though I trust Mei to keep it to herself.

My bed dips as he settles his weight onto it, ignoring the tiny stool. “I couldn’t help it. I needed to see you. I had to see for myself that you weren’t hurt.”

“Surely Maeve told you…?”

“How’s your leg?” he cuts in.

My brow furrows. “It’s good as new. Completely healed. I don’t understand it.”

He closes his eyes for a brief moment. When they reopen, there’s a softened quality to them. “I can answer that. Just after I injected you with the antidote, your eyes glowed amber.”

I gasp. “Like a—?”

“Like an Apex,” he confirms. “I believe your creature surfaced to save you from the bloodbane.”

“Did Lord Winters see? ”

“No. No, I don’t think so,” he assures me. “It was hardly a moment before you passed out on his table. I’ve told him and the court the antidote must have reached you in time. But, Alora, in that moment, I saw…”

“What?” I lean forward, caught up in his words.

One of his hands finds mine, a calloused thumb running along the top of my palm in soothing strokes. “Please don’t be upset.”

“What did you see?” I demand.

“Your lynx,” he breathes. “Looking out at me from behind your eyes.”

I freeze.

“I scented it too,” he continues. “But that’s gone now.”

“I remembered something while I was unconscious. About…my lynx. About…the day I emerged.” In starts and stops, I reveal the whole sad tale, leaving nothing out. He watches me with that steady gaze the entire time, his big hand tight on mine.

“The ache is gone, but my lynx is still missing and so is my power. I want to connect with my creature again, to bring her back,” I finish. “Please, will you help me? Teach me as you taught Carter and Astrid?”

“Gods, Alora.” He gives me a sad smile. “You don’t even need to ask. I’m so fucking sorry that happened to you.”

“I understand why she did it,” I murmur. “My mother, I mean. Now that I’ve met Lord Winters and the king and seen what they’re capable of…she was frightened. And she’d been taught that turning in Apex was the right thing to do. That they are—that we are—dangerous. I thought the same of all of you when we first met.” I drop my gaze, ashamed. “I called you…” I’m unable to say it.

“I understand. Emergence leaves its mark upon us all,” he reminds me, and the words hit deeper this time. “You’ll find your balance, Alora. You’ll bring your lynx back—I know you will.”

“There’s something else.” I draw in a deep breath. Here goes. “You said you saw my lynx looking out at you.”

His mouth tightens. “Yes, that’s right.”

“Has that ever happened to you before? Is that a part of your gift? ”

“No, never. Usually, I can scent the creature, but to feel it—no, that’s never happened to me before.”

“Me neither. Except…except the night you found me in Count Zhao’s study.”

He leans back, an uncertain expression on his face. “What are you saying?”

My eyes close. As if I can keep it from being true if I can’t see him.

“Eyes on me, My Lynx.” His husky command has me automatically obeying, unwillingly opening my eyes to collide with his. To find his creature looking out at me behind stormy silver gray.

In a voice scarcely louder than a whisper, I admit, “I sensed your stoneclaw.”

“What?” The prince jolts backwards, his jaw slack, hand dropping mine. His reaction is so reminiscent of Xinlei’s when I told him that it might have made me laugh if this all wasn’t so fucking scary. “When I saw you for the first time, I could see your stoneclaw looking back at me.”

I didn’t think it was possible to stun him still further, but I’ve managed it. His mouth works, as if trying to form words and failing. He rakes his hands through already tousled coal-dark hair. “You know my creature.”

Not a question, but I answer it anyway. “Yes.”

“No one knows my creature,” he says under his breath, almost to himself.

My brow furrows. “No one?”

“Almost no one,” he amends. “No one who would have told you. And no one who would talk about it so that you could have overheard.” Which means, he knows I’m telling the truth. He spears me with a piercing look. “Has this ever happened to you before?”

“No! No, of course not. Well, except for Mei, I suppose. I guessed hers might be a songbird.”

He huffs. “Not a terribly large leap. But you didn’t say you ‘guessed’ my creature. You said you sensed it. Immediately.”

My voice drops back down to a murmur. “Yes. ”

Taran’s silver eyes widen. “This is why you were so anxious when I found you under the desk. I could scent it on you. I thought it was because of the pearls, but…”

“I also had never been caught before,” I point out, a little bitter, even now. The corner of the prince’s mouth quirks. “But yes, I didn’t understand what it meant, and your creature is straight out of a godsdamned legend. It didn’t make sense to feel this…connection to someone I’d never met. Much less an Apex.”

I’m not sure what it is that gives him away. Some slight movement of his eyes—darting away as if he can’t fully hold my gaze. The automatic clenching of his jaw.

“Taran?” My tone is heavy with suspicion.

As if in answer, his hand slips into his pants pocket and closes around something there. My pulse flutters. He’s finally going to show me what he’s been carrying around all this time.

His nervous intake of breath warns me before my mind even realizes what it is it’s seeing.

There, catching the dim light from its place resting on his outstretched hand, is a lynx figurine made of amber.

My calling card.

I lean back almost instinctively, and when I speak, my voice shakes. “Where, where did you get that from?”

“Atop Count Zhao’s jewelry case. I could lie to you and say I took it so you wouldn’t get caught stealing the pearls. That’s what I told Carter and Maeve.” He inhales another rasping breath. Like he’s having trouble getting air down. “But I don’t want to lie to you anymore. I can’t lie to you anymore.” My gaze is fixated on the amber lynx, worn in places from being held in a warm hand. I refuse to think about what that means.

“When I first caught your scent, it was like nothing I’d ever sensed before. I felt…intoxicated for the first time in my life.” He shakes his head with the memory. “You smelled like paradise.” His hand closes around the tiny lynx, and he pockets it once again. “Like home. ”

He leans closer, and I mirror his movements. His eyes are swirling silver shadows, burning with his power and the strength of his emotions. “I stole that lynx because I couldn’t stand for anyone else to have a single piece of you. Even then.” One hand reaches up and cups my face, the other splays across my lower back, pushing me closer. The forgotten blankets pool on my lap. “I kept it all this time because I needed something of yours to hold on to. Something to clutch when the urge to claim you was riding me so hard, I was ready to give up everything, everything , for just one taste.”

“And now?” I breathe, heart pounding doubletime.

“Now, I’ve watched you nearly die in my arms. Now, I’ve learned you feel the same undeniable pull. Now, I know you’ve seen the truth of me—the beast at the very heart of my being. And you’re still here.” His voice is almost wondering. “You haven’t run.”

My mouth tips up into a smile. “I may still.”

His next words are little more than a rasped breath against the curve of my lips. “Then I’ll catch you.” And he captures my mouth with his.

I won’t deny I’ve wondered what it would feel like to kiss the beast prince. Even before I discovered the kind male lurking within the beast, I was drawn to his dominating presence, my body alight with the desire to close the distance between us.

But reality surpasses every expectation. Every distrustful thought, every worry that’s plagued me since embarking on this treacherous journey eddies from my mind.

Because all I can concentrate on is how incredible he tastes .

My tongue dances with his stroke for stroke, and it is, gods, it is licking creamy vanilla ice cream chased by after-dinner liquor. All my senses are firing so intensely that when my ears pick up his quiet groan, I lose all sense of control—if I ever had any to begin with.

My hands spear into the soft waves of his dark hair and his long arm winds tighter around my waist, tugging me flush against him. I melt into the embrace, my nipples pebbling at the friction as my chest brushes his .

Every hungry thrust of his tongue shoots another shudder of throbbing need between my legs. I’m growing light-headed from lack of breath and all I can hear is the thundering of my own heart in my ears. A steady drumbeat of more, more, more. Please more.

“Gods, I love hearing you beg me,” he rasps in my mother tongue. His impossibly deep voice sounds even huskier than usual, the melodious words scraping against gravel. My mind stutters—did I say that out loud? But I forget all about it when his hand slides back to tangle in my hair.

His grip is firm, angling my neck, exposing it to hot kisses under my jaw, pausing only to nip at my ear and drag in a long inhale. A gasped whimper escapes, and he responds with a low growl, tightening his grasp on my hair almost to the point of pain, and I still want more.

My stomach clenches, my core heats, and I’m starting to think I’m finally going to get what my body is so desperately craving when the prince pulls back. We’re both breathing hard, his hand still twisted in my hair, my nightgown askew.

“I need to leave,” he grates out. “I don’t trust my creature around you. Especially not in this room, in this bed practically coated in your scent. If I let myself lose control…I’m afraid of what might happen.”

“That’s why you wanted to stop attempting the linking,” I murmur.

He hums in agreement. “That night in the redwood, it was all I could do to keep my hands to myself. Your scent was…potent.” My throat tightens as I remember how intimate it felt inside the tree. How I ended up in his embrace that night anyway.

My lips turn down in a pout, and he releases my hair, swiping a thumb across the protruding lower lip, eyes hooded with lust. “Fuck me, these lips,” he breathes, fusing his mouth to mine once again. His tongue sweeps the seam before he nibbles gently on the bottom curve. “Softer than I imagined.”

But the mention of the linking reminds me. “Taran, how did you find me the day of the hunt? How did you know I needed you? ”

He leans back, his eyes unfocused as he searches his memory from that day. “I was already on the strider, planning to come after you. Carter told me he left you alone.”

“I told him to,” I interject.

“Hush, Lady Lynx, he told me that, too. I was going to let him take the strider himself when I felt something I can’t explain. A tug on my power. I tasted your scent in my mouth.” He shrugs helplessly. “I was racing through the forest when I heard you scream.”

My hand finds the lynx charm my father made me. “Before the boar found me, before I shot the hare, I was trying to find my lynx. Focusing on my auditory sense. I thought I felt a stirring of something, perhaps, but then my olfactory sense took over and I lost it.”

His head cocks to the side like his creature. “What are you saying?”

“Taran, I think, just maybe…the linking worked.”