Chapter 89

Arik

I had thought it was just the roseblood, but I burned for Jessalyn.

I craved the scalding lick of her, my mouth pressing harder, my tongue delving deeper, as my hand collared her throat, pinning her to the wall. I couldn't even let her get an inch away from me, my grip tightening when she tried. The sounds of the others' discontent was background noise to the touch of her under me. Her bones felt as fine as a bird's when I slid my hands over her shoulders, tugging at the thin nightgown that revealed as much as it hid, needing to see, to feel the body hinted at beneath its cotton folds.

"Arik…"

I felt her moan vibrating in her throat as I kissed my way down it, my heart skipping a beat when her hands landed in my hair. The twist of the strands close to the scalp, the prickle of pain was a welcome feeling. I couldn't get enough of it, the pleasure and pain of her, and when she pulled away, I saw the echo there of my feeling. She frowned slightly, just staring into my eyes as she caught her breath, and I longed to smooth that thin line between her brows away, right up until Silas stepped in to do just that.

I had her by the throat but his thumb smoothed across her brow, his gaze almost conciliatory, until his focus dropped down. He took in her full lips, now bruised and swollen from my rough treatment of her before shaking his head slowly.

"You shouldn't have asked us in here." She raised an eyebrow in silent question. "Shouldn't ask my sister all those questions about our welfare." He smiled, but it quickly faltered. "Shouldn't make it seem like you care about a single one of us."

"You fear discovery by the king?" she rasped out, that husky little voice playing across my skin like her fingertips soon would.

"No." The shake of his head was sharp. "Not that fucking monster, but… it makes a man start thinking about things he shouldn't."

She reached out to trace the line of his jaw and I watched every movement of her hands with a strange kind of envy, my thumb swiping over her pulse point so I felt the moment her heart rate picked up.

"Such as…?" she asked.

"Hope, Jessalyn." He moved in closer, unable to keep himself free of her orbit, his mouth finding hers like steel to a lodestone. "It makes me feel hopeful, the most dangerous thing a man can feel in Khean."

"That's what you're calling this now?" she said in barely a whisper. Her head moved and so did his, like two dancers waltzing slowly across an endless ballroom floor. "Hope?'

"Need, desire, a pain that claws at my guts every moment I'm away from you, but it just hurts more when I'm close. I can't make myself walk away, though." His eyes found hers, holding them as they froze, a hair's breadth away from a kiss. "I can't, you know that now, don't you? I can't stop my brain churning, trying to find a way closer to you."

"But you're right here," she said, peering at him quizzically.

"Am I?" My brother stared at her then. "Am I, Jessalyn? It feels like there's a million other things in the room beside us, getting in the way, but—"

Her fingers pressed against his lips, first to silence him, but then as she stared, I was willing to bet it was because she was just as drawn to him as we were her.

"What happened before." I stiffened as she said those words, imagining for a second that she saw straight into me, seeing all my sins stacked up together, but it was only the ones we created with each other that she saw now. "Lying to me. Tricking me. Making me feel like you were escorting me to my death."

He nodded, real pain in his eyes.

"Every hurt we caused when we had no business doing such a thing." He pulled back and clasped her wrist in his, almost marvelling at the slender length of it, but I was willing to bet it was easier tracing the swirl of her veins up and down her arm than it was to look into her eyes and say this. "To admit what we know is true." His eyes flicked up to meet hers. "We could bring you the head of the king and we still wouldn't be worthy of you."

She straightened, no longer the girl whose pulse fluttered under my grip, but a princess. No, a queen. "Perhaps you should do that first and let me decide whether you're worthy of me or not."

"Tomorrow?" Roan was a massive figure on her left, but his voice had something of his nephew's tone to it right then. "Gods, lass, I promise if I get a good night's sleep, I'll slay all your enemies. A good night's sleep and this…"

He tilted her head his way, but her grip on Silas didn't loosen, just as mine didn't on her. We were all perfectly attuned in that moment, almost able to feel her kiss on our lips as Roan pressed his mouth against hers.

No, not perfectly attuned.

Creed's absence was part of the pain we described. Nothing would bring my brother down, I had to believe that, but it was hard. With every day he was away, that ache grew, which was perhaps why we drew closer now. Watching Roan plunder Jessalyn's mouth slowly, as if he wanted to learn every quirk of it, a pack of hungry boys waiting for their taste. Something she noted when she pulled away, her eyes sparkling as she gazed up at each one of us.

That was the girl I remembered from the stews in Stormare. One who had decidedly tossed aside everything she'd been taught and just wanted to grab what life had to offer with both hands. A hunger that was a perfect match for our own, her hands sliding into Silas' hair before she kissed him again, my heart clawing its way into my throat when she turned to me.

But would she keep turning towards me when she knew…?

My past, Fallspire, and all the hell I'd been through threatened to shoulder forward, shoving the two of us apart, but I resisted that pull. Here, I wanted to be here. Feeling her body pressed against mine, her fingers so tiny as I forced my own between them, and when I closed my hand around hers, she gripped me right back. A small wince ruined the moment, resulting in me snatching my hand back, all three of us cradling her palm in ours.

"You opened that cut again, brother," Roan told me with a dark look.

"And how did you cut yourself in the first place?" Silas' voice was cool, his inspection of the wound almost clinical. "I taught you the correct grip."

"Which works very well if you're focused on what you're doing." Jessalyn drew her hand towards her chest, but we couldn't seem to allow that. Our hands went to her shoulders, her arms, stroking her like we might a flighty horse. "I admit I had my eye on the door, not expecting anyone to come knocking at this time of night. I reached for the knife by feel rather than with my eyes and learned a lesson."

Silas' jaw tightened, the ticking of the muscle there the only indication of his response.

"Always keep your eye on your blade." He took on the tone of a weapons master, instructing a student. "Let it stay on the floor and step around it if you can't pay the correct attention to it. Practice is good." He glanced at the chopping board hanging on the back of the door. "Though that thing will ruin the point."

"So what should I be aiming my knife at?"

She asked that in a light enough tone, putting her injured hand on her hip as she sported an impudent smile, but all the colour drained from my brother's face. If any other woman asked, he'd have informed them of their options in cool tones, but he was never able to maintain his mask around Jessalyn for long. His Adam's apple bobbed furiously as he swallowed then blinked. I felt Roan stiffen and I was doing the same damn thing, my already racing pulse picking up.

Silas was right, there was so much in this room besides the four of us, not just the absence of Creed. My history, Roan's fears and impatience, and Silas'… Silas' true self that so very rarely was allowed to surface. It made sense that it would be now he would reveal it. Before it'd only been with playmates carefully vetted, the whole process a deliberately negotiated transaction, but Jessalyn… She looked like a princess, but really she was a siege engine, destroying our delicately constructed walls with no more thought than we each gave breathing.

"Me," he said finally, his smile full of sadness. "You should turn your blade on me."