Page 27 of The Princesses of Ruin (The Princesses of Ruin #5)

Chapter twenty-five

Emillia

I drop to my hands and scream as the world collapses down to the man between my legs and the feeling he’s giving me. He grabs my ass and groans out heavy pants through his pinned nose. His cold fingers dig into me, anchoring me to his face when I try to pull away.

Just as the first orgasm ebbs, the second crashes down on me. I suck down a desperate gulp of air, and Adrik’s tune changes. The white groans of his bliss turn blindingly hot. His hips thrust into the air behind me, and he whimpers into my pussy as his eyes roll back.

He’s coming purely from pleasuring me.

Another wave of ecstasy smashes through my consciousness, reducing my thoughts to shattered shipwrecks. My body tightens and I know I can take no more. I throw myself off him and curl my legs into my chest.

Adrik gasps deeply and shudders. I stare at the canopy, watching the curls of white desire spiral toward me. Even his expelled breath craves nearness to me.

He said he wouldn’t get attached. He promised. A lump swells in my throat, stifling anything I could say. What would I even say?

“That was…” He trails off, and I know how it’s going to end .

Because I feel it too. It was the most incredible sexual experience I’ve ever had, and I’ve had many . I turn my head to look at him. His eyes are closed, an expression of bliss smoothing the lines of his weary face.

“Very good,” he finishes and the dingy gray of his lie weaves through the two words.

I swallow my pounding heart. I can’t tell him the truth. It would only embolden him, give a port for his wayward infatuation.

“Yeah. Thanks.”

His head flops to the side and he opens his eyes, giving me a lopsided grin. “You’re welcome.”

His big, hopeful eyes are too much to bear. I turn away, exhaling a shaky breath.

He clears his throat, and I hear him sit up. “I believe dinner is ready.”

“Still hungry, eh?” My voice tries to crack. I don’t let it. I bite that stupid crack and shove it down like I shoved down his big eyes, and the knowledge that there’s cum in his pants from just the taste of me.

He chuckles. “I could still eat.”

I jump at the gentle drag of his finger over my exposed shin and my eyes snap open.

“Pants,” I say, my voice forced as I stare at his playful expression.

He pulls in a sharp breath. A pregnant pause stretches out between us, and then he blinks as understanding dawns on him. Eating my pussy the best it’s ever been eaten does not give him special privileges or renege his oath. He won’t get attached, and if he does, it’s his problem, not mine.

He attempts a casual smile that’s full of heartbreak, then reaches for my trousers. “Yes, Captain. ”

I get dressed and he turns the rabbits. They’re burned, but it doesn’t matter. I eat mechanically, scooping up mouthfuls of tubers to offset the char of the hare. The food sears my throat, cutting off that damned lump from growing back.

Adrik pulls out a purple tincture before bed and offers it to me.

“For sleep,” he says when I don’t immediately take it.

I shake my head. “I need to be vigilant.”

He nods. “Then I will be, too.”

We cover the firepit with dirt, letting the buried embers warm our tent without fear of them killing us in the night.

And then, we stare at the backs of our eyelids.

I know he’s not asleep. I can hear his pounding heart and the way he swallows back things he wants to say.

The pitch of the storm creates a loud enough ambiance to block him out, and finally I fall into a fitful sleep.

I want to make a joke about cleaning the crusty cum from his pants when we wake in the morning but…I can’t. It would either be too cruel, or too inviting. It’s best if we just pretend this never happened. He seems to come to that same conclusion and we pack in silence.

Our snares have caught another two arctic rabbits and a shrew that I tie to my bag. They’re frozen stiff, so I’ll need to warm them up before they can be gutted and skinned.

We trudge deeper into the forest, the minimal light getting even thinner with the growing size of the trees. The oppressive darkness of the pines gives us shelter from the wind, though, and that is a blessing. I can hear farther, and I know where to start looking for the wolves I heard last night.

It takes us several breaks, but we get to a clearing in the thicket where we can make camp. With very little conversation, we get the tent set up and then tend to our separate tasks. I set snares, he digs for tubers, and we meet back at the tent.

Adrik gasps when he sees me, then points above my head. Greens and pinks splatter the snowcapped mountains beyond the trees, and I realize it’s not colorful noise, but an aurora. The sky is alive with soundless light and glittering stars.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen one of these,” I murmur.

“How long?” he asks.

“When I was eleven, my father took me farther north than most Wols dare to go. He had an explorer’s heart, something he passed on to me…”

Fuck, what am I doing?

“It’s been nearly twenty years,” he whispers.

I turn and look at him. His gaze is pinned on the sky, unwavering and enamored. I shouldn’t ask him more. I shouldn’t let him spill his guts to me.

But I want to know. I want to know him.

“Why did you leave?”

His jaw tightens and he tears his eyes away from the aurora. “We should get in and start dinner.”

Without another word, or even a backward glance at me or the sky, he heads inside. The possible answer to my question tickles my brain all night. And all the next morning. Why did he leave Seter? He’s an accomplished alchemist. Fuck, even a goddess said so.

But it was nearly twenty years he’d been gone.

He would’ve been in his early teens, and not an accomplished alchemist yet.

Why would a young man be leaving his home?

Seter is a harsh place, but it’s not without its boons.

There are several renowned magical schools, incredible tutoring programs, and more .

We begin our hike with these thoughts roiling through my head, creating enough noise for me to not miss his voice so much. The forest turns treacherous as we make the hilly climb toward the base of the mountain. We break much more frequently until finally, I spot it.

My heart hammers as I spread my hand and compare it to the wolf track. The track is bigger by a good two inches. The beast must be at least five hundred pounds.

Over my shoulder, Adrik goes on a long string of whispered curses in Seterian.

I never doubted my ability to track the wolf, but to hunt it…

“Let’s head back down a mile or so,” I whisper.

It won’t get us out of the wolves’ territory, but it’ll give us the space to not be scented right away.

“We need to cover our tracks,” he says as he pulls a potion from his side satchel.

The wind kicks snow over the tracks, and Adrik sprays his black potion into the swirling gale. The perfume-like applicator makes it easy to spread the scent, though I’m not certain what it is. It covers the snow in black and settles, soaking it through.

We trek down the hill and Adrik sprays the solution several times in our tracks. We move single file to make it easier, and I keep my hand on the butt of my pistol. There’s no sign of the wolf that my magus ability can detect, but if it’s hunting us , there’s wouldn’t be.

It would observe us from a distance, sneaking through the trees at a great enough distance that we couldn’t scent it. The wolf doesn’t know our feeble noses can’t detect much at all, so it’ll follow instinct.

We find a very cramped copse of trees to set camp for the night, and get it erected quickly .

“I need two of the hares,” Adrik says when we’ve finished rolling out our beds.

I throw him the coneys and he snaps open his alchemist bag. Inside is a protected vial of silvery liquid. He grabs a syringe and pulls some of the tincture in with the plunger.

“What is it?”

He rubs one of the rabbits on the neck, getting the skin pliant. “Asmoranthia.”

“You’re going to poison it?” I ask, feeling indignance flare in my chest.

He doesn’t look away from his task. “You saw the tracks. We would not survive an encounter with that beast, let alone two or three of them.”

Of course, it makes sense, but it just… “Feels wrong.”

“I don’t care how it feels to you, Captain Alejandra. This is the way we’re going to do it.”

My chest tightens and heat floods my face. Is this because I won’t let any relationship blossom between us? Is he being rude to spite me?

He injects the first rabbit carefully, his lithe hand moving in practiced motions. I reevaluate what just happened. He used my title and my surname. He told me he didn’t care how it—the method of hunting the beast—felt to me. Perhaps it was a snipe, but he’s being pragmatic.

And I’m overreacting.

This man has me feeling like a hot-headed teen, all lust and fury.

He sets the needle into a secured panel in his pack. “Be careful not to touch any of it. Even a small amount is devastating to us.”

“What does it do?”

I know it’s a poison, but beyond that, I’m in the dark .

“When ingested, it will cause serious hemorrhaging of the stomach and intestines in moments. Within five minutes, the subject will lose control of their motor functions and enter a catatonic state. Death usually follows not long after.”

My palms get sweaty at just the thought of accidentally pricking myself on the needle. “When injected?”

He looks at me gravely. “Acute subdural hematoma.”

“What…is that?”

“A very swift, unstoppable death.”

I swallow and rub my hands on my leathers.

He rolls over his crossed legs and stands. “We need to find a place to lie in wait.”

He wants to hunt it now .

Fair enough.

I gain my feet. “There’s a good location not far from here where I laid snares. The wolves likely hunt here.”

“We’ll spill the good one’s blood, and cover the tainted one to hide the scent,” he says.

I raise an eyebrow. “You don’t think the wolf will wonder where the free meal came from?”

He cocks his head. “Blood will draw it in. If it doesn’t take the bait, you have a blunderbuss, do you not?”

“I do, but I don’t know if it’ll kill the beast. My slugs are powerful enough to pierce bear hide and fat, but this wolf will be muscular, and dense, more so than a bear.”

“If the gun fails, I have sleep grenades,” he says, tapping the satchel hanging off his belt.

It’s crazy, and it’s certainly not the way my father would’ve wanted me to hunt, but it’s going to work.

I grin. “Let’s hunt a wolf.”