Page 43 of The Heart of Nym (The Twisted Roots Duology #1)

Aziel's gaze sharpened. "You think that I want to sleep in this bed with you? I'd rather sleep out back with the pigs."

She shot up onto her elbows at the exact time that he did. "What's stopping you?" She hummed.

There was a disappointing beat of silence as Aziel's eyes shifted to the door of their room. The loud thumping of boots made her brow furrow. "Someone is coming." He whispered.

There was only one person in that tavern that would have known who she was, if only by her eyes, alone. That thought made it harder for her to breathe—made her body feel as if it was being slowly consumed by ice. She swallowed. "Aziel—"

Nymiria went still when his hand fell over her mouth and upon realizing, he immediately pulled away and held a finger up to his own lips before slipping out of the bed.

She was right behind him, both of them moving to the door and pressing their ears against it to get a better idea of what was happening outside.

"I'm telling you. It's her. I saw her eyes and I would never fucking forget those eyes." An angry voice seethed.

Neither of them had to guess about who the man was talking about.

There hadn't been many women in the tavern with eyes that rare.

Nymiria felt her blood run cold, but it was quickly halted by that warm feeling spreading over her again.

She looked up at Aziel, assessing the hard lines of his face to try and get an idea of what he was thinking.

After Nymiria had been forced to take the throne and she made her horrible and reckless decision to seek help from their enemy, there was a group of men in the kingdom that hadn't taken too kindly to her inexperience. They wanted her dead. And Nymiria would never, ever forget those faces.

She wondered what Aziel thought this was about—if he knew they were searching for her, the princess who betrayed them, or if he believed them to be Huntsmen looking for any straggling Mystics left out in the wild.

"Siobhan said they were on this floor. She said the girl should be alone." Nymiria flinched at the sound of one of the doors at the end of the hall busting open, but Aziel was already hauling her away from the door, hissing curses to himself as he looked for… something.

"We can go out the window." She suggested.

"They'll more than likely have someone outside." Aziel shook his head, his eyes darting around the room before landing on her. "Can you do another glamour?" He asked.

"I only know three." She almost whined, her fear and Aziel's magic warring with one another inside her body—quickly shifting back and forth from fear to that blanketed calm.

"Just three?"

She shrugged, forcing herself to ignore the bewildered look in his eyes as she began shifting.

Aziel shifted, too. His shoulders broadened, his hair turned a few shades darker, and the blue of his eyes melted away.

He blinked at her with dark green eyes, giving a nod of approval at the jet-black waves that were now falling over her shoulders.

The only thing that couldn't be masked were the silver vines and flowers that were crawling up her body.

Just as Aziel suspected, they were definitely going to be a problem.

He needed them to look as human as possible and those shiny little moonflowers were going to give them away.

But the sounds of doors being kicked in were growing closer.

With each harsh sound of wood crunching and locks breaking, Nymiria flinched, looking to Aziel with wide eyes until the door directly next to theirs crashed open.

Of all times, he picked now to freeze up? She scoffed, moving back towards him and shoving him into the wall. Aziel was murmuring something to himself, his eyes giving a glazed look that had her hesitating.

She hissed under her breath. "Aziel, we're running out of time."

His eyes suddenly focused, his nostrils flaring as the men in the next room began throwing around furniture.

The light seemed to dim for a moment, the world around them flickering with darkness when Aziel grabbed Nymiria’s hand and pulled her to his chest. “That’s our cue, moonflower.

Now kiss me like you love me.” She opened her mouth to speak, to claim that there had to be another way, but every word she’d prepared died on the tip of her tongue the moment his lips pressed against hers.

There was a silent hum of a sensation that crept across the flowers adorning her chest, a tingle that pierced through the silver and made her flowers glow brighter.

She gasped against his mouth, lips parting as he spun her and pressed her body up against the wall, shielding her from anyone who might come through the door.

The stone scraped against her skin, but the sensation was not one that brought her pain.

Pleasure. She shuddered underneath him, her body going lax as his hands fell to her waist.

“Is it alright if I touch you?” His breath was hot against her lips, the feeling of his teeth brushing against them sent chills coursing over her sensitive flesh.

She nodded, breathless. The sound of footsteps drawing nearer seemed to be a driving force within her.

When she heard the rattling of the doorknob, she dove in once again, grunting against the force at which Aziel kissed her.

His tongue was hot against her own, the sweet taste of him clouding her senses.

His hands began tugging at her, pulling her closer as he hooked his hands just below her ass and lifted her off the ground. She wrapped her legs around his waist and moaned.

Goddess above, she should have been humiliated.

She should have felt disgusted with herself, but all she wanted was that touch—that feeling that made the hairs on her arms raise and her breath catch in her throat.

She chased the high, chased the swirling of her stomach and the throb between her legs that begged for immediate friction.

Pleasure bloomed through her being when the buttons of his breeches pressed into her sex.

Her body responded immediately, her hips angling and searching for that feeling again and Aziel seemed to notice.

He rolled his hips into hers, cursing under his breath when his hand came up to squeeze her breast through her shirt.

His thumb was rough against the fabric, pausing just before it crested the sensitive peaks.

Her hips moved against him on their own, grinding down on the beginnings of a hardness that had her pulse roaring in her ears.

Nymiria broke away from the kiss, tilting her head to the side.

Aziel wasted no time in finding the nearly translucent skin on her throat, his lips rough and unrelenting against her.

She lifted her lashes, mouth open and brow crumpled, and her gaze immediately landed on the man watching them at the door.

Aziel, seemingly just as dazed as she was, pulled away, shouting something to the men that she couldn't hear over the humming in her ears.

She tried to distract herself from the danger that was now barreling through their room.

Closing her eyes and shielding herself. Her mind drifted to the swollen pout of his lips, the hooded and dazed look in his eyes…

her stomach flipped. It was a farce. She knew it.

This was all just an act and Aziel was incredibly good at acting, but the thought did nothing to console her pounding heart, nor did it snuff the fire that burned through her system.

This was an awful idea. Horrible.

More light spilled into the room when the door was pushed open even more, the sound of heavy boots stomping across the floor drawing her attention from Aziel's face.

"Our apologies," one of the men said with a laugh.

"We're looking for someone. There's a pretty little Mystic running around here somewhere. "

"Well, they aren't here." Aziel growled. "Get the fuck out."

The man's eyes darted from Aziel to Nymiria. Though her head and body were angled away from the doorway, she could feel them watching her, trying their best to crane around Aziel to get a good look at her. "Let us talk to your girl for a moment. Perhaps she can offer some insight."

"You don't have any authority to speak to anyone here."

"And you do? We were sent by the king to find her—"

Aziel sneered. "I highly doubt that." He looked from man to man—past the man with the red and scraggly beard, to the man in the back that was so large that he filled the doorway. "Leave. Now."

"Or what?" The big one asked. "You think that you are a match for all four of us? You aren't leaving this room, let alone this inn without us getting a good look at your bitch."

The man turned to his friends, all of them exchanging laughs that made Nymiria want to scream. She wanted to drive daggers into their eyes, their throats… she wanted to dig a white-hot iron into their stomachs and—

"Have you ever heard the story of the Demon of the Forest?

" Aziel asked. "How he can make the earth swallow someone whole?

How their bodies slowly get dragged directly into the hellscape down below, layer by layer?

By the time they reach the realms of hell, the earth has stripped the skin from their bones. "

The man with the red beard looked to the blond that'd broken down the door, both of them rolling their eyes. "The king's assassin? A fucking myth." The man snorted. "Enough stalling, let us see the whore—"

The moment one of the men tried to reach around Aziel to grab her, the smell of rotted earth filled the air.

Her senses returned immediately, an awareness unlike anything she'd ever felt coming to life deep in her chest. The primal rage she'd felt all those weeks ago had returned, her eyes narrowing and teeth clenching.

But before she could relent to the desires inside of her, Aziel had unleashed himself upon the men in the room.

Within moments, the floorboards were breaking apart, giving way to black roots like those that belonged to trees.

They were curling around the men, unforgiving and relentlessly digging into flesh.

They screamed, crying out in agony as the roots tore through them.

Sharpened points plunged through eye sockets, only to reappear again in mouth or noses.

Each screaming body was devoured by Aziel's roots, his eyes brimming with black veins as he watched them consume.

His skin was brilliant and white, glowing as the roots took every last body and retreated in the floorboards. Surely to be swallowed by the earth.

Nymiria couldn't find it in herself to be horrified or the slightest bit disgusted.

When their room and the rest of the inn was finally silent, Aziel turned to her. And she saw him.

Hair black at the roots, black veins pulsing under glowing blue eyes, and the markings on him in the shape of a tree.

The branches extended across his torso, spreading out onto his shoulders.

The image of him before her looking just as he had in her dream the night before.

"Those markings on you—" She whispered, hands immediately touching the skin on her wrist where her moonflowers were now glowing.

He drew in a ragged breath, carding one hand through his hair.

"It's a story for another time." He whispered.

He searched her eyes, his brow furrowed and his lips a thin line.

Like he was trying to find something. "I've been wanting to kill those bastards for a very long time.

" He said, his voice so low that it seemed as if those words had been meant for himself.

"W-we should probably leave, shouldn't we?

" Nymiria did her best to look away from him, to break herself of whatever trance she was in.

Her body was still hot, her heart still pounding.

She looked down at the broken floorboards, at the gaping holes that made a path from their floor, all the way to the foundation of dirt beneath the structure of the inn.

Aziel peered down into the hole with her, wincing at the sight of Siobhan's lifeless eyes staring up at him, a large piece of splintered floorboard plunged through her chest. "Might be a good idea."