Page 73 of The Ever King

Iwas pressed between the wall and the hard planes of the Ever King’s body, and I could not recall anywhere I’d wanted to be more. I ought to run, to claw at him, to curse him for stealing me away, but I leaned into him like reaching for a flame in the darkness.

An enemy to my people, and still I thought I might collapse if he removed his hands.

Erik speared his fingers through my hair, gripping the braids at the roots, and tilting my head. My lips parted, and his tongue slid against mine in slow, masterful strokes. He tasted like the cool sea air and a bite of smooth ale.

I shouldn’t want him, but wanting him was the least of my worries—I craved him. When Erik left, I noticed. There was a missing piece of me, and I didn’t understand it.

He pulled back, breaths heavy and tangled with my own. “Because you’re bonded with the Ever. You took the place as my mantle, and I took you. Iwonyou. That is what you’re feeling.”

I blinked. “How . . . how did you know what I was thinking?”

His thumb ran over the rune on my arm. “You have it, too, a pull to me, maybe even the ability to sense things about me. Open yourself to this connection, and I suspect you could feel my thoughts the way I feel yours. A dangerous bond for a king to have, love. You might learn exactly how to break me.”

All gods. I’dabsorbedthe magic from the Ever King’s talisman. I didn’t understand it all, but the truth of it burned in my breast—I was his mantle, the amplified power of the Ever.

A groove of disappointment furrowed between his brows, and he took a step back. “That’s what this is, Songbird. This pull is nothing but an unwitting bond.”

He took another step from me. I glared at him, annoyed. Bond be damned, nothing felt so perfectly in place as his hands on me, and I should scream and curse the gods for such a twist of my fate. Every kiss, every touch, every moment of longing was a knife in the backs of my friends, my family.

Erik dragged his fingers through his thick hair. He was leaving. It turned my stomach in sick.

From the first moment I laid eyes on the boy king, kneeling and defeated before the sea folk were locked away, I wanted to know him. Before the mantle. Before the rune mark. Before it all, I’d wanted to knowhim.

I was a traitor to my own people because I still wanted him. All of him. I reached for the king, curling a hand on the back of his neck.

A grin twisted the corner of his mouth. “Careful what lines you cross, Songbird.”

“Those lines will change nothing.”

“Still detest me then?”

“Still plan to keep me captive?”

Erik slid his hands along the curve of my waist, and he dipped his face alongside my cheek. “I have many plans for you in my head right now.”

“Then let me hate youandwant you, and let us get back to it.”

I kissed him with all I had. The lies from my tongue rolled onto his. I wanted him andtriedto hate him. The differences were potent, but I demanded my mind to cease its whirling. I wanted to do nothing but feel.

My hands gripped his tunic and drew him closer. The clack of teeth and frenzy of lips caused a moan to slide from my throat.

His leg spread my thighs, and the pressure of him against my core pooled heat between my legs. I groaned, unashamed. Erik pressed his hips against me. A short gasp slid from the back of my throat when the hardness of his length added friction to the ache.

It was as if his kiss unleashed a dormant creature inside me. I could not get close enough. I could not touch him enough.

Erik scraped his teeth down my throat, his tongue ran over the pulse point. One palm slid up the curve of my ribs. He touched each divot with his fingertips, almost as if giving me time to turn away.

My breaths came heavy when his palm teased the underside of one breast. I arched my back, my nipples pebbling, desperate for his touch. Erik lifted his head for a moment, a gleam in his gaze I wanted to capture in my mind forever. The look of a man who wanted a woman; a man who’d do anything to have her.

He took my lips the same instant his hand covered my breast. I arched my back, arms around his neck, holding him closer. He tormented me as he pinched and flicked and kneaded my skin. His touch became a new obsession. Perhaps I was a traitor to my people, but in this moment, I didn’t care; I wanted all of him.

Erik walked me back until my legs hit the soft edge of the bed. I fumbled into sitting without breaking the kiss. With a nudge to my shoulder, he urged my back onto the mattress. My feet were still planted on the ground as he reared over me, his palms flat beside my head.

I wrapped my legs around his waist, shuddering when his hand glided down the bare skin of my thigh.

He kissed me deeper, sucking my tongue into his mouth, as greedy for me as I was for him. Sharp desire to touch his body the way his clever fingers teased my sensitive flesh boiled in my brain. I tugged on the top of his belt and captured the heat of his moan on my tongue.

Erik pulled back, eyes dark, and slid his rough palms beneath the gown clinging to my thighs. Pain burdened one of his legs. I’d witnessed the way he grimaced, the limp, but he didn’t wince when he lowered to his knees.