Page 159 of A Touch of Poison
Even as I drove her to a third and fourth, I knew—knewthis was a prelude to doing it for real, with my body and not only with my shadows.
I’d known since first spotting her in that maze, her skin flushed in the darkness, her body taut with fixed attention. I’d known that I needed to have her and one night would.
Just not this false night, with the curtains drawn and the sun outside.
After the fifth shuddering time I broke her apart, she sagged completely, putting no resistance against the bindings or my hold, and I knew she’d taken enough.
“There,” I murmured against her ear, taking in the sight of her sweat-slicked body and rosy cheeks. I caught her as the bindings faded out of existence, leaving pink marks on her soft skin.
I held her to my chest until she stirred.
“Am I dead?” Her eyelids fluttered as she touched her cheek. “Not complaining if I am, just… want to be sure.”
I caught her fingers—her unmarked fingers—and kissed the tips, even if it did break my own rules. “Not dead. And look.” I held out her hand—only her nails were purple.
She huffed a soft laugh, turning her hand over. “You’ve exhausted even my magic.”
Chuckling, I rose and carried her to the bathroom, then to bed. My shadows brought over her discarded nightgown, and I tried not to watch as she slipped it back on. Tried and failed.
“Any…” She swallowed and licked her lips as I pulled off my shirt.
The trousers were staying on. I didn’t havethatmuch self-control.
She cleared her throat and started again. “Any regrets?”
I stroked her hair to see if my instincts pulled away. But even that voice that called me an oathbreaker was silent. Perhaps it approved of me skirting the rules.
The candles winked out one by one, smothered by my shadows, but before the last of the light faded, I gave her a smile. “No regrets.”
60
Kat
Iwoke at some odd twilight hour feeling full and heavy and light and free all at once. Bastian pulled me close and insisted we had more time before we needed to ride out. I wasn’t about to argue.
Taking advantage of the comfortable bed and the fact he’d wrung me into such delicious exhaustion, I sank back into a sleep free of nightmares.
The Lady of the Lake might’ve called my desire for safety impossible, but in those hours, Ifeltsafe.
We rode out before dawn, and Bastian explained that the Asharan Forest wasn’t too far away—if we took a different route back to Tenebris, we could explore the palace ruins above it and find our answers.
As we took a mountain pass inland, I couldn’t help my furtive glances at him and the shadows ghosting around his thighs. Just as I’d learned to read people’s body language, I felt like I had an idea of what the movements of his shadows meant too. Now they drifted, slow and hazy as if caught on the breeze. I took that as contentment.
Was he thinking about what he’d done with those shadows? How I’d ridden them?
I shifted in the saddle, thighs clenching as the echo of his touch bit into my wrists and waist.
Histouch. Not his shadows.
Yes, they had destroyed me beautifully, but… It was him I wanted.
This—whatever “this” was—it was only temporary. Eventually I would be free of Robin, right?
Right?
What if I wasn’t? And what if Bastian was never ready to break that contract?
Not that I could ask him to. Not now I understood. I’d begged him not to kill Uncle Rufus, despite all he’d done, because he was family—because that was a line I wouldn’t cross. This was the same for him. A blot on his soul he couldn’t take.
