Page 18 of Bite The Power That Feeds

Once I felt him, everything stopped.

It stopped because it felt so damn good.

My eyes locked on his, with my lips parted for breath.

He looked at me just the way he did before, with sheer possessiveness. Then he started to move, his face burying in my neck, the two of us clinging on for dear life as we fucked like wild animals.

5

LARISA

Our accommodations weren’t on the ground but up in the trees. A spiral staircase took us to the very top, a humble abode with a single bed in the same room as the kitchen, with a separate sitting area. Windows were plentiful, and if it weren’t nighttime, daylight would flood every corner.

Kingsnake took a quick look around, his red cloak shifting behind him as his shoulders moved. He turned in a circle, and when he faced me again, it was with a hard expression.

“You don’t like it.”

“No.”

“I think it’s kinda neat—”

“It’s vulnerable and precarious.”

“I’m sure Queen Clara would make other arrangements—”

“It’s fine.” He unfastened his cloak then removed his armor, setting the pieces on the couch because he had nowhere else to put them.

I moved to the small dining table and took a seat. It was dark, but I could make out the details of the room and the outside perfectly. There were more color variations than I’d realized, different ways of seeing the world.

Kingsnake entered the room, dressed in his trousers and nothing else. He took the seat across from me, his large body sinking into the chair, his jawline covered in a thick shadow because he hadn’t shaved on the journey. For a man spoiled by luxury, he could take the rough road and adapt to it perfectly.

He crossed his arms over his chest and stared. His mood was heavy like storm clouds, his dark eyes bright like strikes of lightning. His anger was palpable, even if I couldn’t feel it pressed right up against me.

I didn’t speak.

He continued to stare.

I suffered his anger in silence, too uncomfortable to speak.

“I’m waiting for an apology.”

I couldn’t do that either.

“And an acknowledgment that I was right—about everything.”

My eyes shifted away.

“Look at me.”

I refused, focusing out the window over the kitchen sink.

“Larisa—”

“Yes, I heard you.” I kept my gaze averted.

He turned quiet, his stare hot on my face.

“It’s so fucked up.” I thought of my mother. My father. Friends who’d died because of a disease our gods had released. “Every person for the last…thousands of years. And I could have been one of them.”