Page 120 of Obsidian and Frost

He wanted the pain.

As he hit the floor, I couldn’t take another second of it.

He spat up a mouthful of blood, and his opponent kicked him in the face screaming that the Graverun King was about to be dethroned.

“Lazriel!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.

Despite the overbearing uproar from the crowd, many heard me, turning their heads my way.

Normally, it would risk causing a spiral—I didn’t like drawing attention to myself.

But in this moment, I couldn’t care fucking less.

All that mattered was the flinch I saw from Lazriel, the fact that he’d registered my voice.

And as his opponent went to kick him in the face again, Lazriel’s hand shot out, he grasped the guy’s ankle, then hauled him away with a single ruthless move that almost knocked him out cold.

Lazriel sprung to his feet, his eyes locking with mine a hundred feet from where he stood, instantly finding me through the dozens of onlookers.

He must have seen it in my eyes, something there that I’d been trying to deny for a long time, because his entire focus shifted.

His eyes hooded.

And then he burst out of the circle, unceremoniously ending the fight, snatching up his satin robe, then snagging me across the waist in a burst of vampire speed, our surroundings blurring into nothingness.

20

~Velra~

My back hit a wall with a discombobulating jar.

I was very aware of his hands glued to my hips, his fingers basically digging into the sides of my leather bustier.

That minty scent of his infused me.

But it was his steel-gray eyes that held me captive more than anything else.

Fury and passion warred in equal measure as he panted down at me, essentially caging me in against the wall.

The rough stone wall of that same alcove he’d brought me to my first day here at Wraeven Academy.

The symbolism behind that wasn’t lost on me for a moment.

I stared up at him, the fact he was doused in blood, that his eyes were glowing, the vampire and the wolf blazing forth in equal measure.

It was a heady fucking thing.

“You like it,” I rasped, trying to catch my breath. Both wanting to and not wanting to all at the same time. This moment, this intensity… I didn’t want that broken.

“Like what?” he answered, brashly, definitely still in his fight-mode mentality.

But his eyes flickered almost violently as though he was fighting to tone it down with me—kind of wanting to because he believed I needed it, but also not wanting to because of what he’d clearly seen from me in that moment when we’d connected back there.

“The hurt. The aggression, the physical violence, thepain.”

“Tried to tell you that night inThe Fade.”

“You weren’t just trying to make me feel better.”