Page 69 of Crown of the Dunes (The Ballan Desert #2)

Something dim in the back of my mind told me my reaction was strange—that I rarely liked the touch of others.

I shook my head to clear it, but the motion just made me more unsteady, and I tipped toward Calix.

He caught me, and I leaned my weight against him.

His other arm wrapped around me, and I let him hold me to him as a strange sort of effervescence bubbled beneath my skin.

Perhaps it was just relief after so many weeks of constant worry about Kelvadan’s food supplies.

“You all right there?” He smiled down at me. “I’m not used to literally sweeping people off their feet.”

I tried to smile at him but was distracted by just how warm I was. My mind was drawn to the persistent itch forming at the base of my spine.

“I…” The beat of the drums overwhelmed me, and I frowned.

“I need to borrow the queen for a moment,” a voice rumbled behind me.

Prince Calix’s grip on my waist tightened, but it was overshadowed by another touch on my upper arm.

Warm, callused fingers pulled me away from Calix, and I went with them willingly.

Where Calix’s arms had felt pleasant and warm, this touch burned, lighting a fire under my skin that I didn’t want to quench.

Calix frowned, and something flashed in his eyes. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but I waved him off.

“It’s all right, I’ll be right back,” I said.

Then Erix was pulling me through the dancers and the crowd toward the palace entrance.

“Erix, what’s wrong?” I asked.

His only response was a grunt as he pulled me through the open doors into the shadowed hallway. Worry tried to bubble to the surface of my mind—that another monster had risen or Izumi and the clans were coming—but was overshadowed by my awareness of Erix’s solid form at my side.

He jerked me around a corner and the breath rushed out of me as he suddenly pushed me up against a wall, caging me in with his elbows on either side of my head.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, his voice barely human, sounding more like the warning growl of a wild animal than anything else.

“What’s wrong is that I’m not strong enough to watch another man hold you in his arms. I’ve suffered many wounds in my life, but none so painful as the way my heart shattered when I saw you smile at him. ”

His hands found my waist and the tips of his fingers slipped below the edge of my beaded top.

An involuntary whimper escaped me at the press of his flesh on mine and the sudden awareness that it wasn’t enough—not nearly.

My fingers closed around his upper arms, to grasp him to me or hold myself up, I wasn’t sure.

“I had to get you away from him, or I would have broken Calix’s wrist for daring to touch you,” Erix continued, his breath hot on my neck as he leaned in, speaking directly into my ear.

I should have been concerned by his words, but my body didn’t seem to be following the commands of my mind anymore.

I arched into Erix, eager to press more of myself against him, even as a voice in the back of my mind screamed that I needed to tear myself away from him.

Tonight was supposed to be a celebration of my engagement to another man—of an alliance that would save the people of Kelvadan.

Being found pinned against a wall by another man just steps away from where the celebrations continued could shatter the alliance Kelvadan so desperately needed.

My flesh did not care for any of these reasons though, and another high-pitched sound escaped my lips.

“Sands, Keera,” Erix whispered, one of his hands dropping from my waist to my upper legs, slipping under the dangerously high slit in my flowing silk skirt to find the skin of my thigh.

“Perhaps this is the desert testing me. Kelvar would not let the woman he loved go, and he doomed us to suffer rather than be parted from her. Now I face the same challenge, and although I have seen how it ends, I find myself aching to hold you tighter.”

“Please, Erix,” I begged, feeling as if I was burning from the inside out.

Erix’s fingers skated higher, and he made a choking noise in his throat as they slipped through the wetness already starting to coat my inner thighs. I started to keen, but he clapped his other hand over my mouth to silence the noises escaping me.

“You have to stay quiet, or somebody will find their perfect queen begging for the touch of a man who is supposed to be her prisoner.” His voice was rough as sand .

Unable to speak past his fingers, I instead parted my thighs further, urging his touch higher. He obliged, finally sliding his fingers over my sex. My eyes rolled back in my head, and my knees trembled, but Erix slipped one thigh between mine to keep me in place.

“Why did you have to wear red?” he rumbled into my ear.

I could barely make out his words as his fingers traced torturous circles over my most sensitive spot, but I desperately tried to hang on to the sound of his voice.

“The way you look in red is enough to make me want to burn this whole city to keep you to myself.”

Finally, his fingers slipped inside me, a balm to the burning ache that pooled between my legs and began climbing up my spine.

My head fell back against the wall as he stroked me insistently.

My vision blurred until all I could see was the molten silver of his eyes in the dim light as he watched me with a predatory intensity.

He barely even blinked as he pumped his fingers inside me, the wave of heat under my skin growing into a raging inferno. His thumb found its rhythm at the apex of my thighs as he stroked me, and I came apart.

Only Erix’s thigh between mine and his free hand pinning me to the wall kept me standing as I shuddered.

His palm muffled the wordless cry that bubbled up from my chest as pleasure crashed through me.

He didn’t stop stroking me until my moans turned into pants, when he finally eased his fingers from me.

I waited a long moment, proving that I could be quiet, before he removed his hand.

“Erix, something feels strange,” I finally voiced. “I need… I need—” I couldn’t voice the rest, but I could tell Erix gathered my meaning from the way his fingers slipped through the obscene wetness now dripping down my thighs.

His brow furrowed, and he began to pull back. I clutched his arms tighter, unwilling to lose his touch.

“Keera, you’re burning up,” he started.

“The laka ,” I murmured my head spinning. “It tasted strong and strange. ”

He leaned back, scanning me up and down. I wondered what he saw—my silk skirt bunched up around my legs and my beaded top slipping off one shoulder as my mouth hung open and I breathed in short pants. I squirmed uncomfortably, wishing he would touch me again.

“Keera,” he murmured, “We have to get you out of here.”