Page 18 of Shadows and Flames (Twin Blades #2)

My queen… Meline. She watched me as if we were the only two in the room.

As if she felt the pull to me as I felt it toward her.

I wanted to hold her in my arms. To take the plump flesh of her lip between my teeth.

To give her all of my words, my tears, and beg her to let me in.

To sink my fangs into her throat and claim her inside and out.

But, as I took another step closer, as I skirted around another group of wealthy partygoers, drunk and cackling as if they were not in the way of my salvation, Meline… ran.

Or, it was a breaking of a trance. Wherein my getting closer brought to reality the moment. She shook, fang biting lip, and set down her glass of wine beside the others. Her fingers twitched at her sides, and she fled .

For a moment, as I watched her push past guests much more roughly than I had, I was stunned. My lungs threatened to crack, and my Fire roared to the surface, burning the inside of my throat until?—

Until, she glanced over her shoulder. As if she could not bear the searing of my stare on the back of her neck. Watching her walk away this time.

And there, there I saw many things. Desire, twinkling and singing.

Frustration in the flare of her nostrils and deepening of color on her cheeks.

Goddess, her freckles even spoke to me, and when she whipped back around, shoving through a door leading to the kitchens, a deep, predatory rumble started at the base of my chest.

My queen would learn that there was no more running from me. From us, from this . I was hers, and she was mine.

MELINE

I ducked through the drunken partygoers, more rich folk without a care in the world while my own had long ago crumbled.

The contract was to be my beacon. Something, at least for now, to focus on instead of the memories. The mistakes and sins that were a series of black marks on my soul until the whole thing was just a sludgy gray.

We were getting closer, and Tana was relying on me to keep my fucking head on, but I—I just needed a moment. Space to breathe .

Because he was here.

How was I supposed to think when those fire eyes kept finding me? When the flame and cinnamon scent was a steady rhythm in the air?

How could I resist going to him and falling into his arms?

I shoved my way into a back room, the fabric of my disguise shifting against my heaving breaths. The tight bodice and airy skirt now felt like vises. Cutting off my air.

My gloved hands shuddered against the wood of the countertop, my feet kicked against the odds and ends shoved in this forgotten space as laughter and music filtered through the walls.

The silence of death and my own screams, apricot eyes that wouldn’t open. Tana’s emerald ones, watery with tears.

Words I didn’t understand. A song of hushed, somber microtones. I hummed, rubbing the heel of my hand against my racing, bruised heart. I’d no idea where it came from, but it was a reassurance that worked like a calming spell for upset babes. A bone-deep recognition that transcended language.

“Meline.”

I whipped around, and the song stopped. The melody quieted, and I snapped my mask in place. I backed up, pressing against the counter to put as much space between me and him.

“Stop. Whatever you’re going to say, just stop. ”

But he ignored me, advancing forward and bringing heat with him.

Elián.

Gone were the Shadow leathers and shades of black. I didn’t miss them.

A fine jacket of violet and gold wrapped around his body. His hair, the color of raven’s feathers, was half-up and swimming in elegant waves down his back. The gold rings running up and down his ears glinted with the same spark swirling in his irises.

I swallowed a moan, and he came closer. Eyes narrowed and lips set in a determined line, my former Shadow prowled closer until there was no option. Nowhere to go.

I could’ve escaped. Of course I could have. But, because I was weak, I remained where I was. Underneath my gloves, my power was swirling in giddy anticipation.

Elián—the bastard—closed his hand around my throat. A rival assassin had me alone and cornered, but his touch was far from a threat. Those mango eyes held frustration, rage, finality. Longing.

He bared his fangs at me, curling over my slighter frame until I was bathed in only him.

“You will listen to me, Meline. This ends. Now.”

“Fuck you,” I whispered. What could I say? Old habits and all that. “We’re not handing over the contract to you. Can’t handle a little competition?”

Elián smirked, but the expression held not a whiff of mirth. “No.” He tightened his hand on my skin, and a puff of air gusted out of my nostrils. “You running from me is ending now.”

My fingers tightened on the counter. Hadn’t we been in this position before?

“I’m not running.” Wasn’t I? But that was only recently. My argument, that the past three years were filled with wanting him more than almost anything, died before it even made its way to my tongue.

He did not consider my refusal. “No more running. No more denying this.”

I swallowed and shifted in his hold. I moved against him, not quite struggling but pushing against him all the same.

“Elián, there’s nothing to talk about. You’d better get back out there unless you want to give us the upper hand.

” I chuckled darkly at the thought of winning this contract. That was something I could cling to.

My laughter immediately died as Elián snarled, bringing his fangs, his heat, and those eyes closer.

He used his hand on my throat to lift me in the air, and I let him.

He didn’t release me when I plopped onto the counter, nor did he when he hiked my skirts up so that he could stand between my parted thighs.

I let him.

My darkness, the slithering Death, wound up my arm all the way to my throat, where Elián’s fire touch was. It remained on my skin, not yet reaching out, but the contact was enough.

He bent to growl in my ear, “No. More.”

Ah, yes. We had been here before. When Elián was still my Shadow and had silenced my tantrum in Rhaestras by commanding me onto a table and tasting me.

Unlike then, I moved my fingers from gripping the surface he hoisted me onto and fisted the front of his jacket. Felt his heart hammering against his chest.

Elián’s soft hair brushed against my cheek while his words were rough. His grip tightened on my throat, and my Death rejoiced. “You are not going to run. You are not going to run from me.” Air whistled in and out of my nose like a fierce wind. “Do you know why?”

I opened my mouth to answer, but it shut with a click at the first bite of Elián’s fangs.

His hand on my throat shifted just before the pain, enough to leave room for him to close his mouth over my flesh. My eyes rolled back in my head, and my legs opened wider for him to settle between them. His chest vibrated under my fingers.

Elián didn’t drink from me, but after he released his fangs, he dragged his tongue through my blood. It was erotically presumptuous, giving me such a claiming bite.

I craned my neck as much as I could.

Hot breath at my ear, he licked my lobe. “I am yours. And you are my queen. Mine .” He reached under my skirts, finding the undergarment—expensive aeran silk, might I add—and tore it away.

The moan that’d been building within me, like the churning of dark clouds, finally escaped. And again with the telltale clink of a belt. The rustling of fabric.

“I will not leave, and neither will you. We will talk. We will listen. And you will not. Run.” The words out of his mouth cut like stained glass, and they looped with an accent. The lilts of his Zonoran tongue that left me nodding.

Nodding while he descended into grumbling words in a language I couldn’t translate but understood anyway. That he was taking the decision out of my broken hands. That with the press of his cock at my entrance, that he would accept nothing less than me yielding to him.

Goddess, it was enough to bring sweet tears to my eyes.

I pulled at his jacket, back arching as a whimper tore through my lips. Elián’s hand moved to hold the back of my neck, his other to my hip.

And my body welcomed him, stretched for him. He was no longer choking me, but it was now when I felt as though I could barely breathe. My heart fluttered, my skin electrified, and I twined my arms around his shoulders while he thrust into me. Took me.

Elián hovered his lips over mine, halting his descent to whisper, “We belong to each other, and no distance, no amount of time will change that.” And his hips pushed him the last few inches into me.

I groaned in his face, wordlessly begging for him to keep moving.

But he didn’t. “Do you understand, Meline?”

I glared, facing the swimming fire in his eyes.

“ Do ,” thrust, “ you ,” thrust, “ understand ?” Was he still speaking in his native tongue? Or was I imagining that?

Either way, I nodded frantically, clamping my legs around his waist and crossing my ankles over the small of his back.

He still wasn’t unleashing. I knew it, felt it. “ Say it ,” he demanded.

At this point, how could I deny him? Despite my past actions, I never wanted to hurt him. There was enough pain in both of our immortal lives.

“I…I’m yours. I— fuck —no more running. No leaving you. Ever.” He hadn’t said that part, but the assertion left my mouth anyway.

And he growled in triumph as he bit the other side of my throat and came for my soul.

All parts of me yielded to him in a relieved exhale. Elián drank, now, and the whole bloody realm ceased to exist. The pleasure of him inside of me, hitting a spot that undid every one of my shields.

He could’ve drained me in that moment, fucking me into true death, and I would’ve thanked him with my last breath.

Instead, he clamped a hand over my mouth and gave me something to scream into.

Sink my teeth into while the ecstasy built, spilled over, and coursed again in an incapacitating cycle.

I became undone on Elián’s fat cock as it pistoned in and out of me, hips stroking sinfully.

More tears fell from my eyes as he told me who I belonged to.

And his final shudder became my own. I came again as he spilled his seed inside of me. Something I should’ve fought. But it was an undeniable stamp on his claim, taking and giving and destroying.

We still held onto each other, as our hearts gradually steadied. Until he brought his lips to mine in a bloody kiss. One that tasted of me and him.

Elián’s tongue slipped against mine, his teeth bit at my lips with no attempt at gentleness.

But wasn’t that what this was? Him withdrawing his gentle handling of me for a firm one so I couldn’t twist and slither away.

“Wherever you go, I will find you. Whatever words you have, I will listen. Whatever tears you have, I will wipe away.”

And there they went, falling and testing his promise after all of two breaths. He brushed them away, not with his thumbs but with his tongue.

In these three years, I had enough tears for him to never grow thirsty.

“Meline,” he exhaled.

Those eyes, now calmed to smoldering embers, swallowed mine again. I didn’t glare. I didn’t break his stare as my gloved fingers still strangled the front of his jacket.

“I am—I’m broken , El.”

He didn’t even hesitate. “As am I.” I gasped, guilt churning. “So, we will rebuild. Together.”