Page 62

“You cannot take it from me,” I told him plainly, meaning both that I wouldn’t permit him to do so and that he would fail if he tried to take it by force.

“But if all you need is to hold it in your hand so that you can gain a sliver of magic from it then you can do that. The last thing I need is you fading to insanity because your magic is corrupting you from the inside out.”

“I need no further corruption,” he agreed and I almost smiled before beckoning him closer.

Bastian didn’t hesitate. That was something I’d noticed about him; he wasn’t a man to waste time on deliberation and he prowled to the side of the bed before moving onto it, positioning his body above mine and letting his weight press me down into the mattress.

He was pushing me, trying to make me blink first but I only parted my thighs as I reclined back onto the pillows and watched him as he reached out to take hold of the vial which hung around my neck.

I caught his wrist before he could touch it, making his eyes snap up to mine and somehow shrinking the space between us even further as my thin dress and his precariously knotted towel became the only things barring us from full contact.

“Know that if you try to take this from me I will slit you from throat to navel and leave you to choke on your own blood while your innards spill from your body,” I warned and he smirked at me in reply, causing a dimple to appear in his cheek which made my heart flip over itself.

“Such pretty words from such violent lips,” he replied in a rough tone. “But I’ll give you my word for whatever value it holds. I won’t steal your little bottle of bloodshed, spectre, only take a taste of it now and again.”

I relaxed my hold at his oath despite knowing the word of a Stonebreaker meant little to nothing, but there was bald honesty in his gaze and for some reason I believed he meant that even if every other thing between us was ripe with falsehoods.

I didn’t take my hand from his wrist entirely though, keeping my grip on him as he reached for my necklace, his calloused fingers dragging across the softness of my skin for only a heartbeat before he lifted the little vial into his fist.

Bastian sucked in a sharp breath, his body tensing over me as he gripped the vial, the tendons of his wrist straining beneath my fingers.

His eyes fell closed and I tensed too, studying his features, the rough scratch of stubble which still clung to his jaw since cutting his beard away, the twin scars which cut through his bottom lip and ran over his chin, down his throat.

There were more scars around his throat now, these angrier, more raw and marking the place where the green gemstones had been embedded into his flesh.

They punched holes in the tattoo which ran up the righthand side of his neck, what looked like some kind of family crest with a mountain at its heart and thorny vines roaming free of it, flowers blooming along its length.

I didn’t recognise the crest any more than I recognised his family name but there were plenty of powerful families in Avanis, their roles in the governing of the land of earth often changing as they fought among themselves for leadership.

Bastian’s eyes snapped open and he pinned me in his gaze so intently that I could have blushed.

“We’re a fucked up pair, you and I, aren’t we?” he said and I shrugged a shoulder, trying to convince myself that the weight of him pressing down on me had nothing to do with how hot I was feeling, how fast my pulse was racing.

“Show me a Fae who isn’t a little fucked up in this war-torn world of ours,” I challenged.

A brush of something against my wrist drew my attention and I looked to the small vine which was crawling across my skin, winding around my wrist and slowly tugging it towards the headboard.

“Are you hoping to tie me up?” I asked, my pulse racing even faster now.

Never before had I experienced earth magic in such an intimate way.

I’d had boulders hurled at me, the ground split apart at my feet, missiles of stone, wood and sand launched my way, but never had I felt the caress of this kind of magic against my skin.

I should have recoiled from it. I should have been disgusted by it, repulsed, and yet there was a part of me which had never been able to fully feel that way about the other elements.

I was born from the land of Cascada, the power of water had never been destined for me but it had belonged to my parents.

And despite the shame of that, I could admit to myself that I had sometimes wondered what my life might have been like had I only been born a day later than I was.

Would it have felt as natural to wield water as air felt to me now?

Would I have borne that hopeful, na?ve determination that Everest had back in Never Keep?

Might I have been less jaded, less scarred, less broken than I was now?

Certainly the pain I felt at losing my sisters never would have found me.

My fate and theirs could never have aligned.

But in that I had my answer because my place was, and always had been, beside them.

“Tell me,” Bastian murmured as I allowed his vine to draw my arm further up the bed, its grip tightening around my wrist in a way that made me want to bite down on my lower lip.

“How did a creature so full of defiance ever survive in the rigid hold of Stormfell? Or have they loosened their leashes on their pet soldiers in the time I spent in captivity?”

“I fought for the right to be defiant,” I told him. “I defied every expectation everyone had of me to fail. I rose above all obstacles and carved my own place out among their ranks. But don’t go making the mistake of thinking that I wasn’t punished for my lack of conformity.”

“Whippings?” Bastian drawled. “Your kind always were so tiresomely fond of whipping.”

He gripped my side just as his vine yanked my arm tightly above my head and in the brief moment of surprise he managed to flip me over beneath him.

His hold on the vial didn’t let up, the corded necklace yanking tight around my throat as he pulled it behind me, though not tight enough to cut off my oxygen.

I snarled angrily, trying to buck him off of me as he pushed his weight down on my ass but he just shushed me and tugged harder on the vial, forcing me to arch my spine and tip my head back while a second vine quickly secured my other hand to the bedframe too.

Honestly, it wasn’t the worst position I’d ever found myself in and as he pressed his powerful body down on me I couldn’t help but wonder what it might be like to claim a little relief from my pain beneath the weight of his dominance.

“Don’t panic, little spectre, I haven’t come for my payment just yet.

I only wanted to count your scars and yet here I find you have none at all.

” His fingers brushed over the bare skin of my spine which the gauzy dress left exposed and I snarled furiously as I tried again to buck him off.

All I really succeeded in doing was driving my ass back into his crotch and he chuckled wickedly as he bore down on me again.

“But you’ve written a story here, haven’t you?

” His fingers brushed against my spine again then across the span of my back before creeping to my side where the tattoo I had worked into my flesh with blood magic and pure honesty stood out against my skin.

“One which I have no interest in relaying to you,” I hissed, knowing he wouldn’t be able to make sense of the runes and ancient words which were mixed among the clouds and elemental symbols for air.

“I get the gist. ‘Look at me so tortured and hard done by, but oh how I love my kingdom and oh how I wish to die for it one day too.’” He chuckled darkly at his own summary, and I cursed him while my skin prickled at the callous mockery of all that I was.

“Do I need to throw you off of me with magic or were you planning on making my time down here worthwhile?” I taunted, driving my ass back against his crotch once more and pushing my gifts at him, seeking out the lust I knew I’d find there while his cock grew hard behind me.

“I’m not fool enough to fuck a Succubus,” he growled. “I’ll not be ruined for all others, spectre, even for a ride as thrilling as I’m sure you’d be.”

“Fine. You can stop wasting my time then.” I twisted my fingers and a blast of air magic struck him in the chest hard enough to hurl him from the bed.

The cord holding the vial of my sisters’ blood jerked tight around my neck but he lost his hold on it before it could break.

Not that it would have regardless, thanks to the protective magic I’d placed around it.

Bastian fell to the floor with a thump and a curse and I severed the vines he’d bound me in with a sharp tug.

I rolled over, magic thrumming in my veins as he pushed himself to his feet but before we could follow through on this dominance foreplay the sound of amplified footsteps beyond the hidden door drew my attention.

I gave Bastian a sarcastic little pout before dropping my silencing shield and he stalked away from me to ditch his towel and pull some of the loose-fitting clothes from the rail that had been left out for us, taking a moment to destroy the vines he’d created with his magic too.

I didn’t look away from him as he dressed, my eyes roaming over his powerful body while his back was turned and The Tower flexed across his muscular form.

Yes he was an asshole, and a Stonebreaker to make it even worse, but he wasn’t utterly lacking in appeal in a purely physical sense.

It was just a shame that he had to go and spoil the fantasy by opening his mouth so very often.