Page 43 of Blood Oath
“Dead.”
He winces. “I meant before they…you know.”
“I don’t remember. I was a baby when they passed.” Which is a mild term for what happened to my parents, or so I’ve been told.
His voice is softer than I’ve ever heard it. “That’s really shitty that you didn’t even get to know them. Who raised you, then?”
I hesitate momentarily before deciding it’s probably better to get this over with. “I was adopted by a strict man who wanted a family but never got the chance until he found me.”
“Was he a good father to you, at least?”
Gods. I don’t even know where to start with that question.
“There’s far worse out there. He did his best. And now you’re out of questions.”
We’re approaching the door that will let out to the training grounds. He slows and drops his voice to a whisper.
“Wait—one more. And please, please, please answer this one. Because I know it’s invasive, intimate, and borderline rude to ask, but my inner dragon has been hell to put up with for the last couple of weeks since I first scented you, and I just need to know.”
“Know what?”
Baelfire stops, prompting me to pause, too. He leans close until his lips nearly brush my ear. The heat from his body wraps around me, along with a pleasant musky scent like singed cedar wood.
“Are you a virgin?”
Why does his voice have to be so gravelly and sensual? Its raw hunger sends warmth tingling over my skin, settling low in my belly. Instinctively, I press my legs together in an attempt to keep Bael from scenting what he just did with his heightened shifter senses, but when I hear his soft groan, I know he can smell the arousal I’m trying to hide.
“Damn it, Maven, it’ll be so embarrassing to walk out there with this raging boner,” he rasps.
It’s difficult to steady my voice. “Then go attend one of your classes.”
“No. I want an answer. Do I get to be the first to worship and spoil the fuck out of your sweet pussy? Or do I get to put anyone who tried to please you in the past to absolute shame? I won’t touch you until you tell me to, but I want to know how to fantasize about fucking you when I jack myself raw later. Gentle and sweet for a virgin or rough and hard for my mate?”
Oh gods.
I was not prepared for dirty talk first thing in the morning.
My pulse is pounding, and against everything I know I should say or do to push away Baelfire—because he is absolutely overstepping with this question—I dare to look up into the scorching intensity of his full, hungry focus. He’s leaning down, so our faces are too close together. If I lifted on my tiptoes, our lips would brush. I’d be kissing someone for the first time in five years.
I’m supposed to be nothing but deadly calm. I’m supposed to feel nothing.
Because gods, if I let myself feel this, just for a moment…
Stop wanting him. You can’t do this to them.
“Aren’t you going to answer him, darling?” Crypt asks, materializing right beside us.
I’m ashamed to say I gasp and startle away, but at least Baelfire’s string of obscenities mostly drowns it out as he whirls on the Nightmare Prince with a murderous expression.
“Get your own damn time with Maven,” he snaps, muttering something about a cockblock.
“All my time is Maven time,” Crypt says jovially, offering me a hand. I notice the tattoos circling his wrist curl inward to splay across his palm, a display of swirling symbols and stars that twist around each of his fingers, as well. “Did you enjoy the chocolates, darling?”
It takes a moment to register that he must have left the ones Silas stepped on. Did he do that because of the whole fake period thing? That’s...
Whatever. At least he broke me out of what was almost a huge mistake. Composing myself, I brush past him and ignore Baelfire’s protests as they both catch up with me. Unfortunately, I run into another one of my matches before I can even step outside.
Silas straightens from where he was leaning against the wall by the vaulted exit. His scarlet irises brush over every inch of me before hardening into a sharp, warning glare as he glances over my shoulder at the others.
