I ’d never dressed so quickly. Even still, my shirt was disheveled, my trousers half laced, and Livia kept snickering at my back trying to keep
her dress from falling down those perfect breasts. This was dangerous, doubtless a horrible idea, but I’d damn us both for more of her.
When we reached the palace, I crushed Livia against me, hand on her face, and kissed her briefly. She kept her eyes closed when I pulled away. By the hells, I wanted to memorize every edge, every curve of her features with my mouth, my hands, everything.
“Serpent.” Livia’s breath heated my lips. “Is this as far as we’re going?
Because I’m not complaining, I—”
“No.” I cupped her cheek and smiled. Unstrained, unburdened. “But we need to be quiet.”
“A king sneaking into his own chambers?”
“My face gets seen and all at once people decide they have need of me.”
She slipped her fingers through mine, biting back a laugh as I eased one of the lower doors near the terraced gardens open and led us inside. In the distance, chatter echoed through the corridors from the revel.
Livia clung to my arm, keeping pace with my stride, even accounting for the catch of my limp. The sound of heavy boots had us leaping into an alcove, bodies close, foreheads together, laughing softly as a pair of guards strode down the corridor on their patrols.
“Hurry.” I tugged her up one flight of steps, taking them two at a time. Livia cursed and squeaked trying to hold in a laugh when her damp gown caught under her feet.
“I am the one that has a crooked leg,” I said, scooping her up under her arms. “Must I teach you to walk?”
She covered her mouth, face red. “Go back to sneers and cutting words and I might stop laughing.” She paused. “Never mind. You do this growl in your throat when you try to be rough, and—” Livia blew out a breath and locked a heated gaze on me. “Quicken your steps, Bloodsinger.”
“Gods, woman, I’m not the one falling.” I tightened my grip on her hand and finished the climb to the third level before I parted a hidden panel in the wall. “This way.”
“I saw Celine use one of these. Never told me you had secret corridors.” “Livia.” I drew her mouth close to mine. “I have secret corridors.”
She kissed me. A burning kiss, one that bruised my lips, threatened to draw out poison blood. I’d sing her back to health until I drew my final breath if she kept kissing me this way.
The corridor led to my chamber, and the instant we emerged, Livia used her slight body and pinned my back to the wall. She roved her hands down my stomach, drawing out a guttural sound from my chest when her fingertips teased the top of my belt.
I wouldn’t survive the night. No mistake, Livia Ferus was unraveling every thread of my being kiss by kiss.
A rough breath slid out of my throat when her sly fingers slid into my trousers and curled around my cock. In the gleam of her eye was something villainous, as though my captive knew she’d gained all the control, she knew she was the one in command.
“Love.” I gripped the roots of her hair, trying to find purchase to keep upright. “Shit, I’m going to come all over your hand.”
“Then you’ve found out my plan.” She purred and dragged her teeth over my neck. “I want to see you unravel the way you’ve destroyed me.”
Livia tugged my trousers down a little more until she had a firm grip on my hard shaft. Her eyes widened with curiosity and heady want as she dragged her thumb over the smooth skin and explored from root to tip.
“Show me,” she whispered. I barely heard; my head was too lost in a fog. “Show me how to do it.”
Her fingers were silk. They’d brought me to the point of pain if I didn’t release soon. Still, the innocent sincerity in her blue eyes brought my hand around hers. I squeezed until her palm added more pressure. I covered her hand as I guided her in slow, long strokes to the tip.
Her thumb brushed over the sensitive crown and I had to brace on the wall when my leg threatened to give out. “Dammit. There, right there. Gods.”
“If I cry your name,” she whispered against my lips. “Then you better shout mine, you bastard.”
This woman.
I bit down on her shoulder. Livia sucked in a sharp breath when the point of my tooth snagged her skin. I licked away the droplet of blood and she repaid me by adding her other hand to create an endless stroke on my stiff cock.
“Livia,” I let her name slide over my tongue like liquid gold. Heat gathered too low. “I’m . . . shit!”
Hot, white ropes spilled onto her fingers when the release claimed me from the back of my skull to the pit of my gut. My head fell back against the wall as she stroked and pumped the last drops without a hint of shame.
The rich blue of her eyes was black when she pulled away, gaze locked on mine. The smallest curl of a grin played at her mouth. I couldn’t catch a breath before Livia lifted her coated fingers to her mouth, then licked what was left of me off her skin.
My mouth parted. I knew she had little experience, but I’d never seen anything more intoxicating, more seductive.
I curled a palm behind her neck, pulling her close. “Get in my bed.”
Livia grinned like she’d won some grand victory and backstepped toward the bedchamber.
A knock came to the door. “Highness, are you in there?” “Leave,” I barked.
“My King—”
I was going to murder whoever was outside my door. “Leave. Now.” “Forgive me, My King, but you’ve received a missive. We believe it to
be from another house lord.”
Dammit. It could be from Gavyn. He was readying to barricade Livia’s people from ever finding her, and all I could think about was pressing her body against mine and having those beautiful legs wrapped around my waist. I was a bastard.
“Go.” I pressed a kiss to her knuckles. “I’ll get rid of them. I did warn you this happens the moment I enter the palace.”
“Yes.” She folded her arms over her chest. “And I told you I was willing to get sand up my ass.”
Without a word, she spun around and closed the door to the bedchamber.
I knew little about love. Distant memories of a beautiful mother who told me she loved me each day, but everyone else looked at me with fear or disdain. I had a blackened heart, one driven by power and restoring a shattered kingdom, but in this moment, whatever jagged pieces I had to give, I wanted them to be Livia’s.
Bring my destruction. Ruin the kingdom from my weakness, but perhaps this was the emotion Livia mentioned—where empires and worlds didn’t matter so long as she lived. Preferably in my arms.
Mutely, I tucked my half-hard cock back into my trousers and practically ripped the door open. “What the hells do—”
A steel bolt flew through the air. Trained to be swift and always on guard, I was ready for an attack. Blade in hand in an instant, I charged into the corridor as a man in black scrambled to escape through a window.
In the next breath, my blade was driven through his shoulder. He howled in pain as I ripped away the black fabric covering his face. Young, strong, with eyes like a storm ready to burst.
“Not the cleverest attempt at assassination,” I sneered, twisting the dagger’s hilt. He gritted his teeth, exhaling sharply to stifle his cries of pain. “I can make this quick if you talk. Stay silent, and I have countless ways to drag this out. What are you after?”
The bastard laughed. “What will you be without your pet, Bloodsinger?”
It happened too quickly. He maneuvered a slender bit of steel from his sleeve, hand-shaved into a point, and rammed it into the side of his neck.
“Dammit.” I covered the fountain of blood, but already, he coughed and spluttered. I readied to give him my own blood and sing him back to health when from behind the door of my bedchamber I heard Livia’s distant screams.
