Page 110 of The Path of Blood and Betrayals

The magic that doesn’t stir when he’s near because it trusts him. He’s not a threat to me.

Brows furrowing, I shake my head. “I can’t. I don’t hear you.”

“Try,” he stresses, pressing my nails into his chest.

At his insistence, I do. I try to focus the magic on his blood, locate his heart.

The image is very fuzzy in my head, as if it doesn’t want to intrude. Ironic that the one person my magic shouldn’t trust, it does.

Traitor.

“It’s not working.”

Reaching for my dagger, he swiftly slices into his chest, a long line of red beading up behind the blade. I wince at the sudden streak.

“Now try.”

“Are you insane?” I push up on my forearms, watching the blood fall. “What if your beast freaks out?”

“I’ve never been as in control as I am with you.” Black eyes plead with me, begging me to understand what he’s saying. And I do.

I feel the same with him. His nearness relaxes my magic, allows my control to fasten. I don’t hear the pumping around him, I don’t fold under the weight of my magic. He is peace,my peace, in a sea of chaos.

Against my lips, he whispers, “Try, Max. Please.”

Carefully, I focus my magic on his blood. Without the barrier of his skin, I’m able to hone in on the drops though it’s difficult, and pull it toward me with bent fingers.

It hovers in front of us and he smiles wide. “Fucking beautiful.”

My cheeks redden with his praise. His bald admiration for magic swells inside of me.

Bringing the blood up, I paint his chin and lips and then run what’s left between my breasts, marked in depravity just for him.

“You look fearsome covered in blood, kitten,” he says reverently. “You’d make a formidable enemy on the battlefield.”

“Good thing we’re not enemies.”

Kadenfists my hair, tugging me back to the floor, as his cock nudges as my entrance, only entering enough to cause me to gasp.

“We’re not, are we?” he murmurs, mouth nibbling on my bottom lip. “You have me completely at your mercy. The Crowned Prince, Heir to the Shadowlands, and I would willingly submit to you for just another taste of your mouth.”

I reach for him, but he uses his shadows to pin my hands over my head. Laughing, I tilt my head. “Who is at whose mercy now, heir?”

Bracing above me, he swipes blood from my body and coats his shaft, mixing it with his precum, before lining up to my center.

“With those eyes? Me.” Sliding in, I gasp at the delicious friction. He pauses, retreating before slamming back in. “I’m wholly at your mercy.”

Moaning, I cling to him as he pumps into me.Home. He feels like home. Something I’ve been missing.

“Fuck,” he groans, as the shadows pull on my wrists, reacting to our emotions. He drives into me, my body being used and worshiped at once, begging for more of his darkness.

“You feel amazing.”

I moan. “You should feel it from my end.”

Stealing another kiss, his picks up his speed, and I meet him for every thrust. Greedily, I take whatever he’ll give me aswe scrape across the fur rug. Burns cover my back, but I don’t care, I only want him.

Sweat drips off his brow, smearing against me. He smells like burnt pine and copper blood, like devious dreams and sin. Struggling against the bindings, my arousal deepens and he laughs.