Chapter Nineteen

Lying an arm’s length away, Surina studied the slow rhythm of Ezra’s breathing, and the way his irises carefully grazed the pages before him. Propped up against the dark wood of the headboard, the king sat quietly, every turned page inciting a new burst of impatience within her.

After Ezra brought her back to his suite, apparently not wanting to leave her alone after what he just witnessed, she stripped out of her gear to bathe. Surina had never been in his bathing chambers before, and where she thought her tub was grand, his was like a miniature pond. She was practically swimming in it when a knock sounded at the door—Ezra asking when she would be done so he could wrap her injury.

Because her gear was being laundered, she had to temporarily wear one of his silken blouses—a pearl tinted shirt that barely covered her rear, the fabric cutting off mid-thigh. He could have just had someone bring her new clothes from her room, but she was fairly certain this was a sly endeavor to keep her from leaving—removing any potential of her mentioning what happened.

She’d been hiding beneath the blankets ever since, wondering how, in just a matter of days, Surina’s perception of him had reverted back to before their falling out. Right before, when she let herself imagine moments like these. When it was more than imagination, but a possibility.

Sensing her stares, Ezra angled the book to block his view of her, like he was just going to pretend she wasn’t there.

An impossible task, really.

She inched a little closer, until her head was at the edge of the pillow, and she trailed her fingers along the spine of the leathered text.

He sighed, dropping the book into his lap to meet her impish grin. “You should be resting, Surina. That had to have expended a lot of energy.”

Really, she didn’t feel like she’d expended any energy at all, which was strange, considering what happened. And after the initial shock of animating an actual twig , Surina’s inquisitive fascination set in, but Ezra cut off every attempt she made at bringing it up. With the wandering ears of the keep, he didn’t want to risk someone hearing.

She understood his hesitation for others to know, but it was just too incredible of an act to push to the side—minus the magical freak-out beforehand. Only Eira and Seros had the power to create life. None of them could deny it. Small as it might be, that thing was alive, and it was Surina who made it so.

“How did I do that? How is that even possible?” she asked, propping her head on a fist.

“Now’s not the time to speak of it,” he muttered, moving to open the book back up.

She slapped her hand down to stop it—her injured one, she realized, a little too late.

With a hiss, she turned it over to inspect. “When is the time then, because I’m pretty sure I just brought something to li—”

Her words were replaced by a cool hand, muffling any sound that tried to escape.

“When I say it is, Surina. Don’t fight me on this.”

Not in a hurry to remove the obstruction, Ezra tossed the book onto the cozy spread of blankets surrounding them, shifting onto his side to grab her bandaged hand. He frowned alongside her, finding the blood had begun to seep into the ivory cloth again. “You opened it back up.” He exhaled, leaning onto an elbow to reach over her, to where a bowl of clean water and bandages waited on a bedside table.

Curling her fingers in, she winced at the movement, though her words said otherwise. “It’s fine.”

Once he pulled the tray onto his lap, he stared her down. “Sit up. I’ll need to replace it.”

She didn’t move, instead dragging a finger along the scarlet trail, until his irritability arose in the form of untempered taps against the porcelain bowl.

Now she sighed, shoving up from the plush mound of pillows. In the midst of her annoyance, the blanket fell from her chest. She yelped when she peered down to see that her breasts were practically on full display with the deep cut of the blouse.

Cinching the fabric closed, she noted the faint smile playing at his lips. Heat washed her cheeks and ears. “You better not have looked.”

Taking her hand in his, he began to carefully untie the cloth wrap. “What kind of male do you think I am?”

“The kind that would look,” she grumbled aloud, and the light laughter that came afterwards warmed her heart, though it might as well have been an admission of his guilt.

Completely unfastening the bandages, his humor fell to the side as it parted from her flesh. His nostrils flared, seeming to take in the smell of her blood. He tried to amend his features into some sort of impassiveness, but too late. She’d already seen the intrigue.

With her gaze dancing between Ezra and the bloody opening, she lowered her voice. “What does it smell like?”

Releasing her hand, he dipped the washcloth into the bowl, wringing out the excess water. The way the muscles strained along his fingers and forearms, she thought he might rip the cloth in two. “All blood has a different scent.”

“And mine? What does mine smell like?”

Ezra finally looked at her, his eyes meeting her dead on. Those pupils dilated and constricted at least three times before he spoke. “Like you.”

She scoffed at that, though a shiver coursed her body when the wintry feel of him returned to her hand. “That’s not really a description,” she mumbled through the shudder.

When she sucked in air at the initial dab he made at the cut, he apologized, bringing it back down far more tenderly the next time. “It smells sweet, like vanilla, but also…” Ezra shook his head. “I don’t know. It’s hard to put into words. It’s potent, though, whatever it is. Unlike anything I’ve smelled before.”

He said that the other night, too, and she thought it was just the mind-swirling lust they’d been caught up in. But now she was beginning to wonder if he actually believed it. That her blood was different, somehow.

“Would it taste the same as it smells?”

The grip around her wrist tightened then, and when she looked back up, the muscles along his jaw were terse. “Possibly.”

Recalling what she could of a fae’s bite—all that she really knew from chance conversations she’d overheard from her chambermaids—Surina found the courage to ask, “Is it true that a fae’s bite can help you heal faster?”

He started back up with the cleaning, sweeping a thumb along her wrist as he did so. “And who told you that?”

Since he asked it so casually, she was inclined to spill the truth, but she saw through the cool guise. Information like that wasn’t permitted for discussion in the palace, or anywhere in Thesia, really. She wouldn’t be the reason her maids get banished from the keep. Or worse .

“Does it matter? Shouldn’t I know these things if I’m to be changed too?”

“You know why we keep parts of ourselves hidden. It protects us from those who don’t understand.” Tossing the washcloth back into the bowl, he repeated the steps from earlier, streaks of her blood tainting the clear water.

Even Surina, who was fae herself, was kept from the knowledge of what happened to a fae’s body beyond immortality, at least until she was in transition. That’s why the Awakening was such a grand spectacle. A way to formally invite changed fae into a society that was shrouded from the public eye.

The secrecy was meant to protect mortals just as much as the fae—at least that’s what she was always told. So mortals didn’t have to fear them more than they already did. Which made her wonder exactly what they needed to be protected from . And could hiding the truth really be considered protection? Surina didn’t think so.

“Shouldn’t I know now? Because of—”

Because of us , she wanted to say, though she couldn’t bring herself to phrase it quite like that. “You’re changed and I’m not. I don’t think it’s fair to leave me in the dark about who you are.” That wasn’t just a dig at his immortality, either, but a line she wanted to cast out, in hopes that he would pick up on it, and share more of his past—the very one Cyril was insisting she learn of.

Considering her words, he appeared to wrestle with what she said.

Good. She hoped he wrestled with far more than just the truth of a fae’s capabilities.

“It’s not the bite that aids in healing,” he began. “It’s our saliva. It has properties that can induce blood clotting. To keep someone from losing more blood than necessary.”

“So… like magic?” She supposed the entirety of the curse was magic, so why would saliva that clots blood be any less?

“I’d hardly call stealing someone’s life force magical ,” he countered, reaching for the fresh bandages.

“It’s not stealing if it’s offered willingly,” she challenged, running a finger down the swollen pink skin around the cut.

He swatted away her wandering touch, protecting the freshly cleaned surface. “With hastened healing comes other properties. When the saliva enters your bloodstream, there’s also a drugging effect. A way to hinder our pr— A way to make those we feed from more at ease in our presence.”

“And if it gets into my blood, it would, what? Make me tired?” Her brows furrowed as she tried to imagine how feeders could get addicted to a sensation like that .

“Saliva in a cut wouldn’t be as strong as a bite, though you’d definitely still feel it. And it’s not necessarily a drowsiness. More like… it relaxes you.”

Though she wouldn’t say it aloud, that kind of reminded her of a spider’s bite. The way it lulls its victims into a numbing surrender.

Unrolling the cloth, he leaned forward to press it into her cut, but she avoided his reach.

“Would you try it? My blood, I mean.”

For a moment, she thought he’d stopped breathing entirely.

“You don’t know what you’re asking,” he replied gruffly, features roughening into a brutal scowl. “You’ve had a long, crazy morning and you need to rest. I don’t want to hear anything else about—”

Surina released the hold she had at her chest so she could place that hand on his arm, and while her shirt didn’t fall open immediately, shifting forward probably showed him a lot more than earlier. She didn’t care, though. He wasn’t looking anywhere below her gaze anyway.

“I want to know if it’s something I need to be afraid of. If not from you, then from what I’ll eventually become.”

A brooding sorrow filled his eyes. “You have nothing to fear from me. And you’re not going to become anything.” Ezra lifted a hand to cup her face, sliding a thumb across the peak of her cheekbone. “You’ll be just as you are now.”

“Then show me.”

With his back still angled towards the headboard, Surina carefully slid the tray from his lap. He didn’t stop her, seated in a hesitant silence as she climbed between his legs, perched on her knees before him. Her body sweltered beneath the gaze that eventually swept down, and not a single word was spoken as she let him survey whatever wasn’t covered by the ill-fitting blouse. The curves of her breasts, the flesh of her thighs. His nostrils flared as she brought her hand between them. The blood had already begun to seep out again.

Though he didn’t voice it, he lifted his chin high, eyes narrowing into a clear challenge, intent on refusing her. So she slid a finger along the stinging gash, bringing the scarlet offering to his lips.

Ezra claimed her wrist with such a forceful speed, she gasped. It wasn’t enough to hurt, but with a hardened glare of steel transfixed on her, she wondered if she might have gone too far.

“ Don’t ,” he growled, a fierce warning.

A mistake, on his part, because she could hear the doubt in his conviction—he wanted to. Hell, he needed to. She could see as much in his eyes.

“I’m asking you to, Ezra,” Surina whispered.

Those lashes lowered with her pleas, to the deep red of the glistening droplet sliding down her finger, just within his reach. After that, he was enthralled, looking her over with one last search for approval, which she answered with a nod, almost eagerly.

In spite of the usual nausea that accompanied thoughts of fae feeding from someone, she was completely hypnotized by the act in the moment. This was a natural occurrence to him, she knew, but when his lips closed over the top of it—eyelids quivering shut as his fingers trembled around her—she couldn’t help the rising hope that this was special to him.

“Does it taste as it smells?” she asked quietly, with a genuine curiosity. Though it was more than her curiosity that yearned for his approval of her blood. There was a physical need that was dependent upon it.

“No,” he said hoarsely, and her disappointment must have been obvious, because the arm that reached around her waist seemed to know she was about to pull away. He held her in. “It’s heavenly. An indescribable pleasure that I have no right to.”

She wasn’t sure why, but relief poured from her heart, a wry grin curving the ends of her mouth up. Now, she gave her injured palm another chance. “To help it heal faster?” she asked.

They both knew this wasn’t about her injury anymore. Maybe a little bit for Ezra, if only to give him an excuse for what he did next.

He spun her around, pulling her against the sculpted frame of his chest. Against the entire front of him.

Having seized her injured hand and her hips in the process, she couldn’t wriggle her way out—not that she wanted to. And all she could do now was stare in awe as he lifted the cut over her shoulder, and right to his mouth. Before his lips could part, the hold transferred from her hips to grasp the underside of her jaw, forcing her head forward so she couldn’t see. It was a firm, but tender, hold that summoned a sense of urgency in her blood, as if it knew what was coming.

“I can’t have you learning all of our secrets.”

Air lodged in her throat when those cool breaths tickled the aching laceration, and the moment that arctic tongue met her skin, it set her blood on fire . With that one lick, a heat blossomed, spreading the entirety of her veins.

As if the one taste was some unspoken agreement between them, his head fell back against the headboard, and she rose and fell along with the rapid heaves of his chest.

“That’s all you want?” she asked, the words coming out in a weak rasp. The heat hadn’t stopped with the singular stroke, and instead, grew into something more—something carnal that eventually rested in a molten pool between her legs.

“That’s all it takes,” he returned flatly, seeming just as disappointed in his withdrawal as herself. “It should start healing in a couple minutes.”

“I’m curious,” she whispered.

“About?”

“This feeling. You said it was drugging, but I don’t feel relaxed, not really. I just feel… hot .” Surina shifted her hips then, trying to twist around in his arms so she could use his flesh to cool the rising temperature of her body. He wouldn’t loosen the hold at her throat, though, and she only managed to rile a hum from his chest.

A breathy laugh chilled her hair. “You’re killing me, Surina.”

“How?” She dragged her fingertips along the breeches of one of the legs he had her tucked between.

“You know exactly how.” There was definitely a smile behind those words, and he sounded just as bewitched by the moment as herself.

She couldn’t help but giggle at that, partly from how her heart churned inside, but also because she knew exactly what she was doing, especially when she shifted around a second time, searching for, and finding, the same results.

“Now I’m curious,” he purred, the deep tremor of his voice vibrating against her back.

A lax smile slowly took over. “About?”

“The other night, when you thought I couldn’t hear the way you defiled yourself in the other room, is this what you imagined?”

Bolts of cold shock washed through the heat of her blood.

When she actually put effort into getting out of his hold this time, she was shoved right back down by her waist.

The night he spoke of… she knew it was when he took her back to her room after finding Frasier.

“Were you listening to me then?” Surina tried to sound stern, but it just came out all shaky. How could it not, when his fingers meandered from her waist to the inner bareness of her thigh.

“You weren’t exactly trying to be quiet. I assumed you wanted me to hear,” he confessed, much too playfully.

She was trying to be quiet, though, and he knew that, but with their damned hearing, fae loved any opportunity to listen in on what didn’t involve them.

Didn’t it, though…involve him? After all, it was Ezra she envisioned that night, and many nights before then.

Gripping the meat of her thigh, he slowly spread her apart, draping her leg over his—splaying her open. The fabric of the blouse wasn’t covering what it should have been, not after she’d shifted her hips in an attempt to taunt him, all the while bunching the material up above her waist.

He could see it all, and it was spectacularly criminal.

“Show me what you did to yourself,” he commanded, dark and heated against her temple.

That made her heart leap into a full gallop. But indignation from his admission that he’d been snooping made her all the more defiant.

Snorting a laugh, she tapped a finger along his leg, where her hand rested, refusing to do as he asked.

He moved instead, and in one languid stroke, slipped into the slickness already gathered there.

A gasp parted her lips as she bucked against his glacial touch, bowing from his chest. In that movement was a discovery, of sorts, when the thickened length of him ground against her back. That incited a fervid growl from his lips, and an arousing thrill at her center.

“ Fuck ,” he gritted out between the tight clench of his teeth. He pulled from her then, releasing his hold at her throat to allow her to glimpse where a dampened gleam collected on his fingertips. “The way your body responds to mine… gods , look at how stunning you are, Surina. How you glisten on me— for me .”

Her labored breathing manifested into shallow pants as Ezra returned to her. The chilling nature of him between her legs was just as she imagined—no, it was far, far better.

“If you won’t show me, I’ll have to figure it out myself.”

She doubted it would take him any time at all, and based on the disturbingly pleasant way he circled the bundled nerves, she didn’t think he needed any bit of her help.

“Fine,” he droned, and without warning, plunged two wondrous fingers inside.

Her fingernails dug into the fabric of his breeches as a moan escaped her lips—the ecstasy it brought as he slid in and out of her, the friction of his palm working all the right places.

A low, throaty laugh came from him when her hips jerked against every decadent plunge, raising in sweet compliance. “You act like you’ve never done this before.”

In a way, it felt like she hadn’t, because nothing had ever felt like this . This was something new, transcending any pleasure other males had given her—even the pleasure she’d given herself.

The muscles of his forearm tightened around her squirming body, pinning her down against the tautness of him. “Did you think of me?” he whispered coolly, allowing his free hand to wander into the opening of her blouse, where he gripped her breast. Like he knew exactly where she pined for his touch.

Of course she thought of him. For almost two years, she had been captivated by him. Those words couldn’t form on her tongue, though, not while the soft kneading at her chest consumed the parts of her mind that weren’t already claimed by the tension building at her center. Coiling and coiling, like a serpent readied to strike.

He curled his fingers inside of her, stilling his plunges until that promise of release swept away, the ardent haze of completion sizzling out. “I want to hear you say it, Surina.”

Normally, she’d find any reason not to give him what he asked for, especially when he dangled something over her head, but right now, she was a wretched mess of want. Whether it was the saliva singing in her blood, or the longing for him at her core, her body would do just about anything to bring that hope of release back.

So she gave in, simply speaking the truth in its entirety. “I thought of you, Ezra. So many times, I’ve thought of you.” The words came out in pleading pants.

“That wasn’t so hard, now was it?” he murmured against her temple.

Before she could snap at him for his obvious enjoyment of this torture, her other leg was being hoisted aside, and where she thought she was splayed before… this was ungodly—nefarious even.

She’d never felt more at someone’s mercy than she did in that moment. He gave her what was promised, though, returning to those earlier strokes, gradually working back up to the pace of before. Matching the stampede of her heart, every pass over that knotted bliss was like striking chords on a harp—each pluck threatened to break, resonating through her body.

“I thought of you, when I returned to my room that night. I thought of how tight you would be around my fingers. Around me . How sweet you would taste on my lips.”

My gods , he had no idea what those words unleashed.

She laced an arm behind his head just to feel more of him, and to hold her steady as she moved against the broad imprint of his cock, and the tantalizing stretch of his fingers. She was lost to it all, the fog drifting from his flesh, the silken strands of his hair, and even the way he toyed with the aching peak of her nipple.

One breathy growl from Ezra and she was fracturing—bursting into a thousand beautiful pieces. Her whimpering cries were winded, and he wrung out the climax to its fullest. She writhed in the exquisite hum of her blood, her eyes sealing shut, only to open when a frosted kiss was pressed to her throat. It was an appalling, but pleasant, contrast to the pure fire of her skin.

Ezra removed the tight hold on her breast as he slid out of her.

She watched with widened eyes as he brought those sinful fingers just above her shoulder, to his vile lips, sucking her from them.

A rumble came from deep within his chest. “Just as I imagined you’d taste. Better even.”

Now that he no longer held her in place, she could finally face him. Completely boneless, she managed to bring her legs in, twisting over to rest her forearms on his chest.

Those blue-green eyes were radiant when they met hers, and his lips—they glistened with the aftermath of her. She couldn’t take it, bringing her mouth to his and tasting herself on them. The thrum of her heart rekindled. He brought an arm around her waist to pull her against him, and the cock that was still hard beneath her.

What she imagined was the work of the saliva in her veins made her movements slow as she made to unfasten the buttons of his breeches.

But a wintry hand closed over hers.

He smiled between their mouths. “Another time.” Ezra chuckled against her lips, reluctantly ending the kiss. “Thank you, for letting me do that for you. For trusting me.”

She assumed he meant trusting him with her blood, though he wouldn’t say it. As if he didn’t think he deserved it to any degree. After all of that, though, he deserved much more than a few teasing droplets. It should be her thanking him .

Ezra cupped her cheek, bringing one last peck to her lips. “Get some rest,” he said so quietly, the deep lull of his voice like some form of compulsion. Even her eyes drooped a little with the command.

Surina nodded, far too listless now to argue. Climbing beneath the blankets he tore out of the way for her, she curled into the crook of his arm.

A few inhales of pine and mint and she was gone—dragged beneath the splendid serenity his presence offered.