Page 58 of Song of the Hell Witch

Twenty-Nine

A heartbeat. Her mind, a kaleidoscope of color. Reality crushed in as he grunted in pain and set her down again. Between one breath and another, she thought he was going to cut and run, realize this was nothing but the raw emotion of the last few days pushing them together.

“Your arm,” she sighed.

He shook his head. “It’s fine.”

And then he picked her up again, hoisting her higher. Her body thrummed as his lips glided over hers. She lifted her skirt up to give herself room, then wrapped her legs around his waist, wanting all of him at once.

He spun her through the room, and caution, hesitation, second thoughts flew away from her. She laughed, and the haze washed over her again. She was drunk on his scent, his breath on her neck, the weight of him against her.

A single thought flickered through her mind as he pressed her to the wall, as she leaned her head back so he could kiss her neck, slide his tongue along the groove of her collarbone: More.

“Puck.”

“Bed?” The word was warm in her ear. Speech eluded her, but she nodded, and he carried her over to the four-poster.

She tugged his coat loose as he guided her onto the mattress, unfastening each button of his shirt.

Her hands traced the scar on his chest, explored the paths cut by the muscles in his abdomen, his shoulders.

The worrisome tendrils from before still stretched out from the knife wound, but his fingers were in her hair, his tongue twining with hers, and she forgot her concern and surrendered to her want.

She unfastened his trousers, and he began the work on the back of her dress, patient and careful as he worked the buttons loose.

When the corset finally let go, he pulled the gown off slowly, planting kisses along each part of her body until she was crazed with the desire to feel him inside her.

The bloomers came off, and she trembled, exposed.

But he was there, stitching his fingers through hers, fitting against her, and she was a broken thing made whole again.

“Please,” she begged.

Holding her tight, he rolled, pulling her with him. His hands rippled over the curves of her hips, the sway of her back. In her grip, he hardened, and when he said her name, when he slung his head back against the pillows, his entire body pleading, she took him inside her.

The first time, they’d been a chaos of limbs, elbows and knees knocking together in ways that hadn’t fit. In some far corner of her mind, she recalled grass tangling in her hair, his constant, “Are you okay? Are you sure?”

But that was then, when neither of them knew what it meant, when they didn’t know how little it could matter—or how much.

This was something new.

For a second, she feared she’d forgotten him, but then she kissed the soft patch of skin beneath his jaw, drew an S along the side of his neck with her tongue, and he moaned, grasping her hips tighter.

And she realized she knew his body like she knew her own, that his rhythm had always been—would always be—her rhythm too.

He thrust deeper, and a wave crested over her, heat and pleasure and something else.

Something like being remade into the woman she wanted to be, as free and wild as the thief she was, as poised and confident as the duchess she would never be again.

The heat intensified, the pleasure transforming into a pulsing tingle that threaded between her legs, wove through every part of her.

Her wings ignited, shifting with the desire to be set free.

She gave in, and they unfurled from her back, barely missing one of the bedposts. Puck gasped as they beat at the air.

She was enthralled by the ecstasy webbing between her legs and up her spine, weaving through her soul. White stars burst behind her eyes as the feeling exploded, spiraling into her toes, her fingertips, becoming her.

After, he held her like he was afraid she might disappear if he let go. Her fingers played in the small swirl of hair at his breastbone. Eventually, once she managed to tuck her wings away, they settled onto the pillows, still entwined around each other. They didn’t speak. They didn’t have to.

Years of lost time, an ocean of unspoken words, ebbed and flowed between them in the wash of quiet. She pressed her calves against his shins, fit the backs of her knees to his, melting into him. She couldn’t get close enough. He kissed the nape of her neck, burrowed into her hair.

She wanted to stay there forever, floating inside the echoes of an ecstasy she’d never imagined before. But she could see from the creases of worry on his face and tension in his shoulders that she was floating alone.

And she couldn’t let him spiral on his own.

“What are you thinking over there?” she asked, brushing a gentle finger down his crooked nose. She wondered which fight or job had knocked it so wonky. Probably one you missed.

He took a deep breath, her hand cresting in time with his chest. “It’s hard to explain.”

She propped herself up on her elbow, holding her head in her hand. “Try me.”

“See, but if I say it, you’ll get scared. And if you get scared, it’s gonna ruin this.” He turned onto his side, tucking one arm beneath the pillow so he could look at her. The cornflower of his eyes shone bright, even in the dimness of the torchlight. “And I don’t want to ruin this.”

“All right, now you have to tell me.”

Any whisper of contentment or joy fled his face, and the shadows darkened around his eyes. “Something’s wrong. With me.”

“Oh, plenty’s wrong with you.” She wanted it to be a joke, a piece of banter he could shirk off so they could stay here, at least a little while longer.

But he didn’t laugh. “I mean it. Ever since Paris stabbed me, something’s felt …

rotten inside me. And it’s not just the crawling under my skin.

There’s these thoughts too. Thoughts that I shouldn’t be here , with you, Mari, Bea, and the Ladies.

Worse, there are these bursts of anger that sneak up on me, and before I know it, I’m ready to hit something.

And there’s this weird ringing in my head.

Or maybe it’s not ringing, maybe it’s buzzing.

Whatever it is, I can feel it in my fucking teeth, and it’s making me crazy. ”

He was right. She was scared. Terrified, to be exact.

But there are plenty of explanations for it. Plenty of things it could be aside from blood poisoning or gangrene or some other grave infection eating its way through him.

“Puck, you’re exhausted. More exhausted than you’ve ever been.” She took his free hand in hers.

“That’s true.”

“We’ve been through more in the last few days than most people go through in years.

We’ve lost our homes. We’ve nearly lost our lives, and several times at that.

” Believe it as much as you need him to believe it, Pru.

“Not to mention you’re watching your country go to shit and you , Mr. Thief Lord of Talonsbury, have never liked problems you can’t solve. ”

That seemed to at least push his mind onto a different track. “You think Leora’s just now going to shit? Do we need to reminisce about the good old thieving days, refresh your memory?”

“You know what I mean.”

Her mind wandered to all the things she’d witnessed—and done —in Silk society this past year. Hosting extravagant balls while beggars and their children starved on the streets. Granting ridiculous requests to lower a seamstress’s prices so Countess Cockpuss could order the latest Vivichan design.

And then there were the quarterly meetings Frederick had attended at the House of Lords, only to come home and tell her the old, fat men had voted to keep everything absolutely the same.

Not to mention the influence the Apostles and their toxic Lightbringer had over it all.

But at least in the Leora that belonged to the Silks and the Apostles, things felt like they could move forward one day. This new Leora that Hale and Paris and their ilk wanted to build—there was no moving forward from that. Or coming back, for that matter.

Puck didn’t need to hear that at the moment, though. What he needed was for her to kiss him again and to know, with absolute certainty, that his organs weren’t putrefying inside him.

“You can’t have something wrong with you.” She stuck her nose up in the air as she slipped seamlessly into her old Silk role. “Your duchess forbids it.”

A hint of a smile, at least. “Oh, she forbids it, does she?”

“Yes.” Blood thundered in her ears. Her heart skipped two beats. And it was out before she could pull it back. “Because I love you. I’ve loved you since the second I met you, and I’ll love you until the day I die, and therefore nothing, absolutely nothing, is wrong with you.”

She didn’t look away when she said it. She held his gaze, didn’t blink. She wanted the words to write themselves onto his bones, push out whatever it was making him feel so wrong, if only for one night.

Another heartbeat, and he was pulling her into another kiss, harder, more desperate, like he was determined to make up all of their lost time in a single moment.

He barely pulled away, leaving only a breath of space between them. “I love you too. But you have to know—”

“Bea comes first. I know. And I’m all right with that. I swear to you.” She brushed a curl out of his face and kissed the tip of his nose. “She’s a hell of a kid.”

“Mmm. That’s because she had a hell of a mother. And … what was that word you used? An extraordinary father?”

“Mm. I might have embellished a little.”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure extraordinary people can exaggerate other’s extraordinariness.”

“Okay, now you’re being ridiculous.”