Page 7 of Lord of Ruin (The Age of Blood #2)

Chapter Four

Samuel

S amuel tangled the bed sheets in his grip, holding on for dear life as Shan rode him with a punishing speed.

She had one hand firmly on his chest, holding him in place as she took her pleasure above him.

Her other hand rested at the apex of her thighs, rubbing at her clit as she clenched around him.

She was beautiful like this, all her masks and lies stripped away, leaving her as bare and as vulnerable as she ever was, focused on finding the release that she desperately craved.

Her cunt was so warm, so slick, and he wanted nothing more than to lose himself in her.

But she was the one who had mounted him, who had needed this—reduced to just a body in motion. So, he could give her that.

He would give her the world, if she asked it of him.

Samuel let out a slow breath as he struggled to hang long enough for Shan to find her peak.

He released the sheets, moving his hands—one found her waist to help her balance, the other found her left breast, thumbing across her nipple, rough, just like she had shown him.

Shan cried out, her eyes drifting closed, as she approached her climax.

“Yeah, love,” Samuel rasped out, meeting her thrust for thrust. “Just like that.”

Shan threw her head back as she came, sinking down and taking his cock all the way to the hilt.

He could watch this for the rest of his life, her entire body flushed, her hair hanging in mad tangles, pressed against the column of her throat by sweat, her lower lip pulled between her teeth as she swallowed her cries.

She slumped against him, gone completely boneless, so Samuel wrapped her in his arms, flipping their positions and pressing her into the bed.

Finally, he allowed himself to chase his own completion, Shan spreading her legs and smiling oh so sweetly as Samuel thrust into her.

He was so damned close, the bedroom filling with the sound of flesh-on-flesh as he wrapped a hand around her thigh, opening her wider and allowing himself to sink deeper.

It was so good, but he couldn’t quite get there—it was missing something, he needed just a little push.

And Shan, blessed Shan, understood, brushing his hair from his eyes and whispering, “Come for me, Samuel.”

He pressed his teeth into the meat of her breast as he came, unable to resist the directness of her command, as she gifted him the release that he needed, but only at her behest.

They lay together afterwards, bodies entangled and pressed so close that Samuel wasn’t entirely sure where he ended and she began.

After the frantic nature of their lovemaking, it was a peace that Samuel needed, the way their pulses calmed and their hearts started to move in sync, the sweat drying on their skin.

Pressing his lips to her forehead, he whispered, “Mind telling me what that was about?”

Shan grumbled, shifting so that she could press her back against his front, nuzzling into him as she hid her face. “It’s nothing, really, just work.”

Samuel did not stop caressing her side, even as he hid his sigh in the pillow.

It had been like this for weeks—Shan slipping off to the King’s side, committing whatever nightmares the Crown needed from her, then crawling back to his bed, slipping in his arms and demanding he fuck her through all her doubts and fears.

And he did not mind it, truly, but…

“You can talk to me, you know.”

The words hung awkwardly on the air, and Samuel wished he could snatch them back just as soon he said them.

Shan stiffened in his grasp, and he could feel her closing him off as she pushed herself into a sitting position, the blankets shifting under her.

“You’re sweet, Samuel, but really, it’s only the normal trivialities. ”

Shan slid from the bed, reaching for her dressing gown.

Somewhere over the past few months, Shan has been steadily moving more and more of her things into the Aberforth townhouse.

She had claimed it was simply for convenience’s sake, but Samuel knew the truth.

That her home was far too empty and lonely since her brother had moved out, and she couldn’t face the ghosts that haunted her alone.

It was one of the many secrets that lay unspoken between them, and Samuel had gotten quite good at reading between the lines.

It was how he knew that Shan was lying now, as well, and he could push all that he wanted, but she wouldn’t relent.

She thought she was protecting him from all the horrors that came with being Royal Blood Worker, sparing him the blood on her hands, but she couldn’t understand that he did not care about that.

All he wanted was to help her, as he had failed to help Isaac.

Which reminded him—

“There is something I’d like to talk about.”

Shan looked up from the cigarette she had been lighting, another new habit that started in the last few months. The red tip flickered between her fingers as she took a long drag. “What is it?” There was a hint of exasperation in her voice, as if she knew what he was going to ask.

The argument they had been circling for so long now.

The words caught in his throat, so Samuel shifted to buy himself time, grabbing his sleep pants from where they lay discarded.

He had been thinking of a new way to approach it, to couch his arguments in a different framework.

To make her understand that whatever they were doing, there was one thing they couldn’t let happen, not unless they wanted to become the very thing they feared.

That he feared, at least. He wasn’t so sure about Shan, anymore.

“I visited Isaac,” he admitted, at last. “A few weeks ago. I toured the dungeons, looked for—”

Shan huffed, loudly, cutting him off. “Samuel, please. Not this again.”

“If not now, then when?” Samuel stood and crossed the room to stand in front of her, but Shan still didn’t respond. She simply stared off to the side, taking another deep inhale of her cigarette. “If we don’t do anything, he will die.”

Shan flicked the ash into the tray that contained far too many stubs, the growing proof of her discontent.

“He will die regardless. There is nothing we can do to stop that. There is nothing we can do to stop this.” She looked up at him, finally, but the spark he was so used to finding there was gone. “You need to accept it.”

The finality of her tone was a stark dismissal, and he couldn’t help the snarl that followed. “This isn’t what we agreed to.”

Last year, when the curfew had first been laid, when the Eternal King had set down the laws, he and Shan had come to an agreement. They would do anything they could to stop Isaac in the moment, to keep the nation from crossing the line from civil unrest into civil war.

But the plan had never been to let Isaac actually die, had it?

“Shan, please,” Samuel continued, sinking to his knees before her. She didn’t respond to his touch, his hands on her knees and his eyes wide. It was a cheap tactic, but he wasn’t above begging. “I can’t just stand by and do nothing.”

For a moment he thought it wouldn’t work, but then the edges around her eyes softened.

She crushed out her cigarette with an oath, then leaned forward, placing her hands over his.

Her thumb rubbed soft circles into his skin, comforting and grounding, but something in Samuel feared that he was being manipulated.

That she couldn’t stop manipulating those she loved, even if she wanted to.

“I know you care deeply about him,” Shan said softly, “as I once did.”

“Once?” Samuel echoed, fear choking him before he could say anything more.

When had this changed? When had she changed?

Was it in the quiet but steady way that Shan had been shutting him out over the past months, withdrawing from him bit by bit, the mystique of lies that he had worked so hard to breach slowly building itself back up?

Loving her was like trying to hold smoke—the harder he held on, the more she slipped away.

“Shan,” he breathed, “please.”

Her hand moved to his face, cupping his cheek, brushing at the wetness that spilled from his eyes. He hadn’t even realized he had been crying, but here she was, catching his tears. “Do you trust me?”

Hells, he wanted to, but that certainty fractured a bit more every day. “I am trying to.”

Her touch turned rough; the gentleness replaced by something crueler. “If nothing else, trust that I know what I am doing. There are things you do not know, that you cannot know. And some things that a person cannot come back from, no matter how much we wish it so.”

Her voice was haunted, her gaze far-away, and Samuel realized where he had seen it before. He had seen the same pain in Isaac, the same loneliness and resignation. Whatever the King was asking her to do, the work as the Royal Blood Worker that she kept, even from him, it was destroying her.

And Samuel didn’t know how to save her.

“Please,” he said, but she only stood, and Samuel dropped his hands to his lap, clenched his fists where she couldn’t see. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. They were supposed to be a team—she had promised him that, once.

“I should go,” she said, stepping around him. “There is much I need to do.” Her hand landed on his shoulder, squeezing tight, and then she was gone, her footsteps echoing on the floor as she entered the en-suite bathroom.

Samuel rubbed his eyes, dashing away the rest of the tears. If she wouldn’t help him, then he would have to do it without her.

And there was one other person who might be able to help him.

It wasn’t difficult to find Antonin LeClaire, even after he moved out of the LeClaire townhouse.

In the past months he had divested himself from Shan’s home and circle, striking out to make a life free from the machinations of his sister.

And despite the tangled web of affection between Samuel and Shan, he understood why Anton needed to do this.

Even if Shan could not.