Page 69 of Shadows and Flames (Twin Blades #2)
Chapter Forty-One
MELINE
“ E l?” I called out but made no further advance into the dark room, bathed in blues and grays.
The end of this long day left my eyes and heart heavy.
We were back in a familiar place, at one point somewhere I’d called home.
Francie was finally back with Whitley, and even Cera’s sneers were comforting.
But I’d no idea where I stood with my cousin anymore, and the demon of my past who nearly dragged me to hell with him was back.
This time coming for the family El held so dear.
I’d suspected the King of Krisla had no idea his desire for having the assassin’s guild under his control brought him closer to his son, but all it would take was one look, one inhale of the air between them, and he would know.
With his red curls and green eyes, Marco was the spitting image of the female who’d whispered to me the name she chose for her babe as she begged me to take him away from the shadow of Krisla.
Marco was kindhearted, more like Francie, Whitley, and Lydia than he would ever be like Cal.
But when he was observing, focusing, his lips would settle in a determined line that threatened to send me careening back in time. When I’d delight in Cal’s scheming.
A punch of air left my lungs when my back thudded against the wall. My view of fluttering curtains and moonlight traded for that of El’s eyes, the flow of his loose hair.
After delivering food to my cousin and Cera, they’d woken Tom for him to put what little he could bear into his stomach.
While I’d been sent out to procure more ingredients for the healers—peppermint, chamomile, glass jars, rags, and matches—Elián stayed behind to calmly explain to Tomás what would be happening next.
I’d slipped out, fists balling, while the two of them were arguing in El’s mother tongue.
Now, Elián descended upon me, mouth taking mine in a rough, passionate attack of his lips.
His body pressed against mine, and I wanted to swallow him whole, direct my frustration and desire to possess him and only him.
I wanted to take El into me until we ceased to be apart, and I kissed him with such force. Feeling.
He sunk his teeth into my lower lip, groaning and winding his hips against my belly. With him, everything flooded in. Colors, taste. Now would we have that? No longer on opposite sides of a contract, no longer plagued by the mystery of Francie’s whereabouts. She was safe, with her mate and healing.
Now, could I heal? Did I deserve it?
I clung to El as we kissed, sinking into the embrace of the male I loved as he lifted me into his arms. I couldn’t see where he was headed, nor could I bring myself to care.
With the softness under my body, I assumed he brought me to the bed. And in the tenderness with which he deposited me onto the blankets, I dared believe that I deserved to heal. Even after our quarreling.
“Mm,” I moaned against his lips as he loomed over me. “El—” I gasped as he bit my lip hard enough to break the skin. I bled onto his tongue and darted mine out to meet his. “I’m sorry for earlier, I?—”
He cut off my words by clamping his hand over my mouth. With the other, Elián palmed between my legs, pressing in a way that had me groaning out into his skin.
“Na,” he growled, light in his eyes flaring.
To my hazy mind, his fangs appeared even more deadly.
Some of my blood was smeared on one of the tips, and the sight made me groan and move my hips against where touched me.
“I know that you are weary and anxious, but you will remember that we are not adversaries.”
Instead of waiting for my response to that sharp condemnation, I nodded frantically.
His feelings on the matter deserved true consideration, I was just—the thought of him leaving without me, possibly straight into more danger, this time at the hands of those who were supposed to protect him, was too much.
Then he’d pressed on the same nerve my argument with Tana had already frayed, and I—I’d snipped at him.
And not in the bantering way we could manage without truly hurting one another.
El pulled back, denying me the reassurance of his body against mine, and when I scrambled to brace my hands behind me, I was met with his hard glare. Him, standing at the foot of the bed.
“Take your clothes off.” My pulse leapt even higher, and though my gloved fingers were fumbling with the laces at my trousers, I was apparently not moving fast enough. “Faster,” Elián demanded, and I risked a glance at him.
My fingers slipped again, and my throat went dry. I swallowed as I shoved my trousers and undergarment down my legs while Elián watched, a dragon in the darkness. With the window at his back, his height and broad shoulders formed a sizable shadow while the fire in his stare glowed as he watched me.
The tunic was far easier to shed, and my toes curled as I lay there, spread naked.
But Elián still hadn’t moved. His tunic was sleeveless and loosely tied at the front, and it was unfair how handsome it made him.
I eyed what bits of his flesh I could see in the dark, trembling with how much I wanted to touch.
He crossed his arms, bulging the muscles and flexing the serpent winding up his shoulder.
“Your gloves, too, Meline.” I obeyed, freeing myself of the last barrier between me and the rest of the world, and flung it to the floor.
“Put your first two fingers in your mouth.” I shivered, eyelids lowering as Elián’s command simultaneously lit something within me and smoothed the edges I’d sharpened over the past few hours.
Once my lips met the last knuckles of my fingers, El instructed, voice low and rough, “Suck.”
Of their own accord, my legs parted, and I laved my tongue against my own fingers. The sensation electrified my senses, leaving me grinding my hips on the mattress.
“Enough.” His brow lowered, as did his chin as he watched me. “Touch yourself.”
“Goddess,” I cursed hoarsely. Would he—would he keep on without gracing me with his body against mine?
I leaned back, heels of my feet and hand planted on the bed, exposing myself for his visual devouring.
Warmth bloomed across my cheeks, but I pushed through the shyness trying to creep in.
The lust was much stronger. “You mean to punish me?” I whimpered at the first tap of my wet fingers.
A pulse of ecstasy flashed up to my lungs, and I watched Elián watch me.
My hips wound forward, intensifying the pleasure wrought from my fingers lightly swirling above where I dripped for him.
Elián’s tongue swiped at his bottom lip, attention between my legs.
“I am not punishing.” He paused, witnessing me coming apart at his command, before he muttered, “Fuck yourself with them.”
Slowly, I did as he said, now groaning openly, wantonly, as I sank the tips of my fingers into myself. The pleasure doubled as I thrusted my fingers back and forth while keeping pressure on the outside with the edge of my palm.
“Harder.”
I was leaning on my elbow, now, sprawled and fucking myself as the slick sounds of my ministrations filled the room. I lost sight of Elián before me, the prominent impression of his cock hard against his thick thigh. My back arched while I writhed, imagining it was him spearing into me.
I reopened the wound on my lip, trying and failing to hold my release at bay.
The dual sensation as I crooked my fingers to massage deep within me and grind against the friction my palm provided was more than enough to take me away.
My mouth opened, slack, as I grunted through the race to the end. Where the pleasure would break.
But my hand was ripped away, as was the other, sending me onto my back once again. A choking scream burned my throat as my climax slipped away. My body shook, and tears trailed down my face and onto the mattress.
“This is me putting you in your place, your highness,” El whispered and flipped me onto my front.
He trapped my wrists in the cage of his hand, and the sudden pressure of my weight against the bed made me cry out.
Under his hold, I rubbed my nipples against the blanket, the added stimulation of my piercings making my eyes roll back in my skull.
El moved behind me, over me, as I disintegrated even more and cursed his name into the bed. “What the fuck is my place then?” I spat while tilting my ass in the air, presenting myself for him to give me my release.
Elián hummed as he brought my wrists behind my back, as Death and Fire brushed together and sent another shiver down my spine. He ignored my question, instead directing, “Hold them.”
And my power responded, becoming corporeal ivy that kept my hands where he wanted them as he moved to grab my ass.
Well, he more so smacked it, sending sharp reverberations through both cheeks.
While they burned, something hard and long rubbed along the crease, and I let loose a muffled mewl, squirming against Elián’s naked cock.
I struggled to part my legs, to open myself up again and take him inside of me, but a force yanked my ankles together. Then my calves while El held my hips steady for him to rut against.
I twisted as much as I could, trying to see what—that was not me, that was?—
“Your place, my queen,” El spanked me again, making me whimper and press back on him, “is with me. Just as I am with you.”
The restraint holding my legs together moved, shifting until my knees were bound as well, and from the edge of my peripheries, from the telltale sensation on my skin, the realization released more tears from my eyes. More anticipation clouded my mind.
He was using the twining of our power, like we’d done before, but this time, both tendrils listened to him .