Page 67 of The Half King
As she nodded slowly at him, realization struck. Had she experienced avision?Had she finally received the Sight?
What about her strange “dream” involving the Reverend Mother? Had that been a vision, too?
Where were all the oracles when she needed one?
“How?” the king asked in a barely audible whisper. “How is it possible? No one has ever followed me into the darkness. You were solid—flesh and bone. I felt you.”
If she’d been solid, then it couldn’t have been a vision. Her searing hope turned to confusion. “I was actually with you in that place? It happened in real time?”
Was there a Sight like that?
“How?” he repeated, but then he immediately shook his head as if he didn’t care anymore. His storm-cloud eyes locked on to her, and he delivered a look so raw and primal, so full of hunger that it stilled her lungs.
She froze like prey in the thrall of a predator. He crawled over her and took her face roughly in one hand, much like he had done in the stone room. She lay flat between her blankets as she peered up at him and splayed both hands by her side. A rush of anticipation flooded her senses, but she couldn’t forget her purpose. She pressed a palm against his chest to stop him.
It was the hardest thing she’d ever done.
“We can’t,” she told him.
He removed his hand from her face, but he drew nearer to her, lowering himself onto one elbow until she could feel the heat of his naked flesh radiating through the blanket that covered her legs.
“I’m sorry I was cold to you,” he whispered. “What I said in that place…I meant it. My spirit doesn’t belong to me anymore. It belongs to the girl with too much love inside her, the girl whose light scatters the darkness. My spirit wants the patron saint of ugly pups, toxic frogs, and foolish half kings.” His gaze moved over her face, burning her everywhere it landed. “I want you, Cerise. I’m sorry I gave you any reason to doubt that.”
He reached for her again, but now with deliberate slowness, as if seeking her permission. This time, she didn’t have the strength to turn him away. She took his hand and placed it on her cheek, holding it there.
“Kian,” she began, but before she could finish her thought, he lowered his mouth to hers and wiped her mind clean.
This was no dream, no strange vision. The king was kissing her…if she could call it that, because the way he used his mouth redefined the act of kissing as she had known it.
This was more than two pairs of lips pressed together. His every move was lethal, each tender sweep and teasing nibble touching her in the places his hands didn’t wander. She opened to him, tasting his mouth, stroking his tongue with hers, probing deeper and deeper and never getting her fill of him. With her pulse thrumming in her ears, she tugged him closer, pulling his chest on top of hers, needing to feel more of his weight for fear that her body might float away if he didn’t anchor her to the ground.
He moved his lips to her ear, where he whispered her name in an urgent breath that raised chills on her skin. She bared her neck to him and squirmed as he kissed a trail from her ear to her collar. Tugging aside her shirt, he bit the top of her shoulder and sent her eyes rolling back in her head. Then he used a knee to part her linen-clad thighs. She didn’t know what to expect next, and she wasn’t ready for the rush of sensation that followed when he rocked against her. Pleasure bloomed between her thighs, so hot and so intense that she couldn’t stop a groan from rising in her throat.
At that moment, Blue burst through the tent flaps. He must have thought her moans were of pain, because he delivered an earnest nip to the king’s backside.
Kian flinched away, hissing a curse. As he rolled aside to inspect his bottom, he gave her a view of Blue, who had dropped a lifeless jackrabbit on the tent floor.
Cerise clenched her jaw and exhaled a long, calming breath through her nose. All the blood in her body seemed to have pooled between her legs, creating a new, throbbing pulse point that ached for more of Kian’s touch. She tried to will away the sensation. She had to get control of herself; she’d already let things go too far.
Kian rubbed his backside and cast a glare at Blue. “I think someone’s jealous.”
Blue lay down and rested his head next to her pillow, seemingly confident that the threat to her safety was over. Cerise blew out another breath. Her body still fought her, but at least she was coming to her senses. She snuck a peek at the king’s rear end, finding his skin unbroken. Thank the goddess Blue had interrupted them.
Kian leaned down. “Now where were we?”
She placed a palm against his chest. “We can’t.”
“What’s wrong?” He pulled back to look at her, his eyes heavily lidded with desire. “Are you afraid that someone will hear?”
“No,” she said. “Well, yes, but that’s not why we have to stop.”
When he raised an eyebrow in question, she told him her worries surrounding the act of love—how the Order had claimed it would dim the Sight or prevent her from receiving it in the first place.
“And that’s not all,” she whispered. “Mother Strout’s journal said the sunset runes would only give themselves to a worshipper of pure faith.”
“You have the purest faith of anyone I’ve ever met.”
She shook her head. Faith of the heart wasn’t enough. “The Order says I have to give myself completely to the goddess, in body and in soul.”
