Page 61 of Red Demon (Oria #1)

Yield

I t had been almost two weeks since Faruhar and I had been alone together.

In the inn above the tea shop, I opened an oak door to see a bed more luxurious than any I’d ever slept in—huge, with a thick down comforter and way too many pillows.

Across the room was a large stone bathtub big enough for two, with no curtain to shield it from the rest of the area.

I froze just inside that door, wondering how that night would end, studying her for any clues as to how she wanted tonight to end.

Faruhar could have asked for another room. She didn’t. Heat crept up my neck.

She stood by the sink, her back to me, running water. “Not the hospitality I expected from the Underground.” She went back to washing her face with a sigh.

Wondering if she wanted privacy to wash anything else, and too pigeonshit to ask, I told her I was going to go downstairs to ask about towels.

There were enough towels.

Just outside, I pinched my eyes tight, considering banging my head on the wall to clear my thoughts. I concluded Faruhar would hear that if I did.

A woman cleared her throat.

I opened my eyes to find Mira watching me with a blushing smile. Relief washed over me, a lifeline thrown into the churning sea of whatever the fuck my brain was swimming in.

“Jesse,” she said, a small bag in her hand. “I … I’m glad I caught you. Ash told me not to meddle, but prepare yourself for meddling.”

She pulled a small vial from that bag, her eyes darting between me and the closed door to my room.

I took the vial, its smooth glass cool in my palm. A label with typed script read “Silphium Y.” My eyebrows shot up. “Is this what I think it is?”

“Probably.” She bit her lip. “Shuts down fertility until you’re ready to make Galen proud. I suspect he already picked out names for all your future children in his head.”

A huff of laughter escaped me, then an incoherent sound. I shook my head, gesturing back at the room. “She doesn’t… She hasn’t…”

Mira’s lips twitched, and she covered her smile with her hand. “It takes twenty minutes to be functional.”

My cheeks burned. With a sigh, I uncorked the vial and downed the potion in one gulp, my thoughts as murky as it tasted.

The thing was, I was in deep shit, my thoughts more derailed from reality by the day.

I’d been overthinking things, like how it was Oria that sealed Asri marriages, and I doubted the bionetwork was in the habit of blessing marriages for people it tried to kill.

I took a shuddering breath, reminding myself I was the friend Faruhar trusted, someone she found “not ugly.” That’s all I had.

I didn’t know if she wanted to see me at all once this mission was over.

I wanted to crush that vial in my hands.

“Thanks, Mira. Tell Ash I’ll wake him a little before dawn for training.”

“Absolutely not,” she said, turning away.

Laughing, I said goodnight, then retreated into my room.

Our room.

I kept my back to Faruhar, hesitating with my hand on the doorknob. “Safe to turn around?”

“Yes.”

Whirling around, I froze.

There she was, perched on the edge of the bed, wearing Riverhawk’s black Chaeten leather underneath her studded leather vest, her hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. She glanced up, expression intense as always. “I just got most of the blood off the pants. Up for night training?”

“Sure,” I replied, letting out a breath.

We started into the starlit woods from either end, the game familiar.

Far won the first two rounds as always, tracking and ambushing me in hand-to-hand combat before I found her.

I felt confident as I started round three, rolling my feet over the ground to make no sound.

For one, my night vision was more advanced than hers.

For two, I’d gotten much better at predicting her next move.

She didn’t like to be exposed on the ground.

She’d strike from above in the tall trees unless there was a crevice to pierce from, and I searched for one that fit her style.

From the branches, there were only so many ways she could descend safely.

When I saw the branches on the way down, I could predict how she’d drop.

So if I could spot her first, she was mine.

Then there she was, her outline bright enough to break through the grayscale, although I kept on pretending I didn’t see a thing.

I searched to the sides, checking empty bushes and brush, and walked under the tree to give her the moment she wanted.

When she fell from the trees to take me, I shifted to meet her, using her momentum against her to pull her hard into the ground. She fought for her freedom, and lost.

“I have you,” I said with a grunt, holding her against my body. She tried to break away, rolling us down the hill, but I held on, tangling with her until a tree stopped her fall. When her body hit the trunk, I hissed in a breath, and moved to cradle her head. “Fuck, are you okay?”

She kneed me in the jaw, then laughed at me.

But I reacted fast, wrestling until I pinned her lean body under mine, with her hands over her head.

She looked up with wide eyes and mouth parted as I ground her to her place, not giving her a moment’s reprieve.

I grinned. This was the first time she was fully and truly at my mercy.

I thought she’d glare and curse at me, but she just stared back, drinking me in, unused to defeat.

Or maybe she was speechless because I was a man, and I straddled her body with my hips lined up to hers. Could just be that.

Fuck, I needed to keep my focus. “Yield,” I demanded.

I watched her chest heave under me, her panting breaths. My blood heated as I studied her face, so close to mine, lit by winter stars, and yet this was the edge of danger, where I knew I could fall and fall and never hit an end.

“I yield,” she whispered with a hint of a smile, her tone only drawing me closer, making me want more.

When I released her arms, I expected her to scurry away, probably get a hit in for good measure.

But she sat up, crawling backward a step to rest her back against a tree, trailing her feet inside my thighs as she did.

She watched me, curious. I waited for her to push me away, to regain that cold focus, perhaps say something dry and sardonic to put me in my place.

I was her friend, the one she trusted, nothing else.

But the way she looked at me now, the subtle parting of her mouth, had me entranced.

“Jesse,” she said. My eyes closed with the pleasure of my name on her lips.

That edge I mentioned. I was fucking over it.

I leaned into her, trailing my hand over her lips, questioning. She exhaled into my hand.

I brought my lips to hers, and she opened for me slowly, trembling in surprise.

I tasted her desire as her hands came up to cradle my neck.

She hummed as my tongue penetrated her mouth, and I fought to claim her, relishing her surrender even as I capitulated my desires to her.

Faruhar laid her scarred palm across the muscles of my chest, her thumb trailing.

She kept demanding, pulling me closer, her hand bold on my back.

I stood, taking her with me, not wanting to break the spell and risk a moment without her body against mine.

When she arched into me, I rolled my hips forward to meet her.

She groaned, leaning in. I drew one hand down over her shoulders and the kiss deepened, feeling the curves of her body under the armor. Way too much armor.

My hands moved down to her waist, my fingers probing just at the bottom clasp of her bodice. I searched for any rebuff, only for her arms to lace around my neck tighter. It only fueled my hunger when she shivered against me, her head to my neck.

“Jesse.” She kissed my collarbone. “What are you doing?”

I could only laugh at that, holding her head to mine before I had to lift it and kiss her again. Words were hard; so was my cock. I smiled into her next slow kiss. “No idea.”

She pulled my head away to look into my eyes, and I relished every detail of her beautiful scarred face under the moon and stars. “That’s not reassuring.”

“Far, do you want me?” I asked, knowing she did, believing it was as simple as that. I wanted her—this. It was impossible for me to pretend otherwise a moment longer. I moved my mouth from her lips, down to her neck, kissing, tasting.

She removed the last clasp from her studded bodice and pulled it over her head, unleashing her hair with it.

I took that as my answer, mesmerized by how that hair cascaded around her shoulders and how her nipples peaked their tips under her linen undershirt.

I flitted over those nipples with my hands, and her head rolled back as I cupped them through the shirt, my breath fogging the winter air.

Together we lifted that shirt up over her head to free beautiful, perky breasts that took my breath away. For a moment, all I could do was stare.

“You’re beautiful, Far … the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” I said, voice shaking as I dipped down.

I gripped her back and swirled my tongue over a perfect mound of flesh.

I gripped the other and massaged it between my fingers as she writhed, pressing into me with a soft moan. “Faruhar, do you want me?”

“Yes,” she whispered, and I kissed harder at that. She rolled her hips to meet me. “I want you so much you should hate me for that alone.”

“Tried hating you already. I’m terrible at it.” I massaged those perfect little breasts one more time before I let go. My cock pulsed against my Chaeten leather pants, aching to be free. I stripped off my shirt, oblivious to the cold.