Page 33 of Brimstone

He sucked his bottom lip into his mouth, nodding. “Mm-hmm. Memories and scents have always been heavily interlinked for me. I smell something, and I immediately experience the association.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t liken me to the smell of melting sugar, then. Or the warmth of the sun. Or . . .” It was so hard to breathe properly when he was staring at me like this.

“You forget that I’m a winter creature, Saeris,” Fisher murmured. “I don’t crave the attention of the sun. The snowcapped mountains, the forest, the frozen river . . . those places are my home.Youare home.”

He held my face in his hands, lightly stroking my cheeks with his thumbs. He studied my features as if seeing something only he could see—and he couldn’t bring himself to look away. It was thrilling to be witnessed so thoroughly. A little frightening, too. I always found myself waiting for the moment, the slight twitch of his mouth, the shadow falling across his eyes, where he took in my flaws and realized that I wasn’t perfect. It was like waiting for an ax to fall . . . only the moment never came.

“Beautiful,” he whispered.

“Fisher—”

His eyes had been fixed on my chin; they snapped up to my eyes. “No.” He shook his head. “Let me enjoy it. I can already feel what you’re thinking, and I want none of it.”

“But—”

“I despise the gods, Saeris. I’m Oath Bound by this land and the blood of kings. I swore I would never offer up a word of gratitude to them again, but youhavemade a liar of me. You’re a gift that cannot be ignored. My heart . . .” He swallowed, giving a tiny shake of his head. “I’ve killed more people than I can count. I lost the parts of myself that knew how to feel anything other than pain and sorrow centuries ago. But for better or worse, you have brought me back to life.”

His mouth came crashing down onto mine. I had stilled the air in the bedroom, but Fisher stilled my soul. This was what peace felt like. My chest burned. My throat. My ears. Beneath my palms, Fisher’s pulse pounded as he plunged his tongue past my teeth and claimed my mouth.

Pressing a hand into my back, he pulled me into him, huffing a strained breath down his nose. He was hard. Everywhere. All of him. His chest was all packed muscle. His arms, wound tight around me, were bands of steel. And his cock? I could feel just how hardthatwas, straining against his pants; the head of his erection dug into my stomach as he curved himself over me and rocked his hips forward, groaning.

“Three nights. That’s how long I’ve paced this room, fantasizing about fucking you raw, Saeris Fane.”

I gasped when he dipped to lave his tongue against my neck. The noises he teased out of me were borderline embarrassing, but I didn’t have it in me to care right now. “Only . . . the past . . . three?”

“I was praying you’d live all of the others.”

I didn’t want reminding of the fact that I’d nearly died. Not now, with his strong hands on my body and the sound of theblood in his veins roaring in my ears. “I want you,” I whispered. “Please . . .”

Take me.

Claim me.

Fuck me.

Own me.

The thoughts hammered like a war drum in my head. They were all I could think . . . and I knew that my mate could hear them, too.

“Careful, Osha,” he said roughly, kissing along my jawline. He stopped when he reached my ear, tugging on my earlobe with his teeth. “You might just get what you wish for.”

Grabbing mindlessly at his shirt, I arched my back, melting into him. “Please. Please . . .” I made a strangled sound when I felt his teeth again, this time at my neck. The blissful prick of his canines at the hollow of my throat made me goverystill. “Oh, fuck,” I panted. “Fuck. Fisher . . .” He didn’t bite me. The sharp points of his teeth had broken my skin—I could smell the blood already—but he didn’t press further. He hovered there, his heat making my head swim, the smell of him wreaking havoc on my insides, the shape of the sinful smile at his mouth brushing teasingly against me.

He flicked the tip of his tongue over the two points where his teeth had punctured my neck, slowly licking away the blood.

“You taste like the end of the fucking world,” he purred. “Just kill me and be done with it. Nothing will ever be better than this.”

Fuck!

My body had a mind of its own. I reached up, winding my fingers into Fisher’s thick waves, desperately trying to pull him down onto my neck, but he just chuckled, the sound of his rich, deep laughter eliciting an explosion of need right behind my solar plexus.

“You’re much stronger than you used to be,” he mused. “But I’m still stronger, Little Osha.”

In a second, he’d picked me up, thrown me down onto his bed, and pinned my hands over my head. With one leg on either side of my hips, he straddled me, his massive frame looming over me. Dark waves hung into his face, throwing his features into shadow as he smirked suggestively. “Are you particularly attached to those clothes, Osha?”

“Yes!” I laughed, trying to pull my hands free. He was right, I was stronger now, but he was always going to be stronger. And he had gravity on his side, too.

“Then I apologize,” he answered with false contrition. Tendrils of smoke and shadow spiraled out of him from his hands and his chest, slipping up from the open neck of his loose shirt like serpents. They snaked around my arms, sliding over my body, leaving a trail of heat in their wake. Particles of magic flashed and caught the light, made manifest as Fisher’s power collected and pooled at the center of my heaving chest, slipping beneath my shirt. They diverged, splitting into a hundred even finer threads of power, and then went about its work. My shirt didn’t stand a chance.