N o guards stood outside his doors. Erik no longer trusted anyone close to me, and instead, three bulky men from the Ever Crew kept a distance
from the doors, blades in sight.
They grunted a greeting when we reached the door. Blood pacts kept the Ever Crew loyal. They were brisk and had no propriety, but they’d fight for their king like they’d fight for anyone on their crew.
When the lock clicked, I wheeled on him. “You’ve saved more of my people than you’ve killed.”
“I wouldn’t say that. I did plenty of killing during the war.”
“You’re infuriating,” I said, pressing my chest to his. “Why did you lie to me about what happened to you?”
“I never lied,” he said. “I told you land fae drained me for their use.
They did.”
“You let me think my family—my parents—were the ones responsible.” Erik hesitated. “An omission that wasn’t supposed to matter. You were never supposed to matter, but you do. You ruined everything, and I don’t
care. Ruin me. Destroy me. As long as I have you.” Wretched, beautiful man.
I kissed him. Hard. Erik groaned and wrapped me in his arms, crushing me to his chest. His muscles relaxed, like my touch was a surge of peace that could finally bring his anger, his pain, to rest.
Still in his arms, Erik walked me backward until my back struck the wall.
My palms slid down the planes of his stomach and reached his belt. He released me and flattened his palms on the wall beside my head.
“Songbird.”
“Serpent.” My voice was rough like I’d swallowed sand and freed the buckle on his belt.
“Don’t do this because you feel a debt from what you heard today.”
Vulnerability on the Ever King was a new cracked edge in his hardened shell. I wanted to slip through and never leave. There was meaning in his words. Hesitation, hope, and fear. He thought I wanted him out of obligation. He thought I was giving myself to him because he’d saved my uncle.
I flattened his palm over my heart. “This has always been yours. Before any bond, you pulled me to you in that cell, and you never stopped. Don’t doubt me, for I tried to do this at the cove and you went and got stabbed.”
He chuckled, then dropped his head to my shoulder. “My warning still stands. Do this and I’ll never give you back.”
I cupped one side of his face. “Be sure before you do this, Serpent. Do this, and I claim you.”
His eyes flared in a dangerous kind of desire. One heartbeat, and Erik had his mouth on mine again. Desperate, heated, and lined in a touch of anger for pushing him so far, the king claimed my mouth as though it might be the last time.
His tongue slid against mine. He gripped my hair and pressed all his weight on my body. Trapped against the wall, unable to flee, I’d never felt so safe.
Erik’s mouth abandoned my lips and roved down the slope of my throat. The scrape of his teeth, the nip beneath my ear, drew out a soft moan. He bit harder and a collision of pain and desire flooded my veins. My core throbbed when I arched against him, searching, needing more.
He grinned against my skin, then with one hand gripped my wrists and pinned them over my head. Heated kisses down my neck, over my chest, pulsed shocking waves through my body. His teeth and tongue marked me. They bleeding claimed me all over again.
Erik lifted his head for a heated breath, then scooped me under my thighs, and hooked my legs around his waist. He carried me toward the bedchamber. If the limp to his step caused him any pain, he didn’t show it, only dug his fingertips deeper into my skin when I kissed him.
I sucked his tongue. He moaned and quickened his pace.
A shriek of surprise sliced through the kiss when Erik flopped me onto my back onto the bed. He reared over the top of me, propped onto his elbows, careful not to crush me into the bed, but I didn’t want careful. This moment—hells—it felt like I’d been waiting for this, for him, all my life.
I clawed at his shirt until it was stripped off his shoulders. His scars were bare and open, but Erik didn’t flinch, he didn’t shy away. The wound on his side was bandaged and stitched, but it could split. With his palm against my face, Erik guided my gaze back to his. He shook his head, mutely telling me to focus elsewhere, then gingerly started unthreading the laces of my bodice until my mind could hardly conjure up a thought.
“Bloodsinger,” I said. “I’ve seen your hands draw a blade much, much
faster than this.”
He pressed a kiss to the hinge of my jaw, grinning. “Patience, Songbird.”
“Patience was spent at the cove. Hurry your hand, or I will do it myself.”
A low growl rumbled from his chest. Erik reached into his boot and removed a knife. A. Knife.
The bastard grinned with a twisted pleasure when my eyes widened in surprise. “Careful what challenges you level against me.”
Without another word, Erik sliced the tip through the bodice, cutting it off my body. He leveraged to his knees, straddling me, and worked the knife through the whole of my dress. The blade landed on the floor with a clatter, and the king spread the shredded dress off my shoulders.
“Damn you.” He devoured me with his eyes until his gaze reached my legs. Rage soaked his features as he took in the gashes left by the assassin. His voice went dark. “Which one of those bastards did this?”
I swallowed past a knot, staying quiet.
Erik cupped the back of my neck, drawing our faces close. “Doesn’t matter which one. They’re dead. Their blood will spill at your feet.”
The harrowing way his voice tilted to something dark sent an unnerving thrill through my blood. Erik had his darkness, but I was learning mine. I kissed him for a long moment before he pulled away again and rid the bed of the remnants of my dress.
I always imagined being exposed in such a way might cause me to curl away, to hide and recount all the physical flaws I found on my body. With the Ever King, the way he looked at me like something precious, something
so stunning he might get on the ground and worship me, I embraced every searing glance.
“Touch me,” I said, bringing his palm to the skin of my stomach.
Erik dragged his fingertips over my ribs, caressing the side of my breast. “You are my destruction. Do you know that? I will never have enough of you.”
For a few breaths, Erik studied me as though he were searching for a storm, for a glimpse of hesitation. When he didn’t find it, he palmed one breast.
His touch was chaos. Beautiful, intoxicating chaos. Gentle and rough, fast and tender. I might’ve been his destruction, but he was my ruin. I would break into a thousand pieces if it meant Erik was the one to piece them back together with his touch.
He ran his thumbs across my nipples. The cool air combined with his touch pebbled them into hard peaks. I gasped. He moaned again and pressed his hips into mine, the strain of his length clear in his trousers.
My head fell back as he pinched and flicked, drawing me toward a delirious madness. Erik dropped his head. I was captivated by his touch, but I didn’t expect the shock of pleasure when the heat of his tongue wrapped around the soft skin and sucked.
“Erik.” I cupped the back of his head, holding his mouth against me, unable to catch a deep enough breath. My head was swimming, but I wanted to fall into Erik’s touch, his kiss, his body.
I wanted to make him feel the same and slid my fingertips down the front of his trousers until I found the tip of his hard length. One brush of my thumb over the head, and Erik shuddered.
“Gods, woman,” he rasped. “You can kill a man.”
Dark heat sparked in his eyes. One corner of his jaw pulsed in tension as he pulled back, standing at the foot of the bed. A ferocious tangle of need, and want, and reverence burned in his gaze, and the slightest tremble in his fingers was clear when he hooked his thumbs into the waist of his trousers. With a quick tug, his cock sprang out, so strained and taut, it looked damn near painful.
I raked my gaze over the planes of his chest, the healing wound on his side, the carved angles of his hips.
“I will never get my fill of you either, Serpent,” I said, voice hoarse.
Erik tossed his pants aside, and came back to the bed, his body hovering over the top of me.
I brought his head down and kissed him for all the turns I’d thought of my serpent beneath the waves; I kissed him for the turns I wanted to spend in the safety of his embrace. Every divot, every scar earned my attention. A soft caress as I memorized the body of my captor, of the man who’d stolen his way into my heart.
Erik roamed one hand between my thighs. Gaze on me, he slid one finger inside my core. “Gods, you’re so ready for me, aren’t you, love?”
Any reply dried up on my tongue. My hips bucked through the slickness pooling between us. He pumped his hand slowly at first, then with each heartbeat added more friction.
“Erik.” I moaned and bit the edge of his bottom lip. “Blood, love. No blood.”
By the hells, I almost didn’t care. His hand, his lips, all of it had me writhing as ruthless shocks of heat pooled in my stomach. “Don’t . . . don’t stop.”
Erik added a second finger. I let my knees fall to the sides and shuddered when he reached a new depth, stretching me gently. He curled his fingers. His lips kissed my throat.
I whimpered, desperate for release. “Erik, oh gods . . .”
“Say you’re mine, Songbird,” he growled against my neck. “Say it.” “Yours. I’m yours.”
His fingers quickened in pace and pressure until I could not conjure a clear thought. I dug my fingernails into his skin as I stiffened, reveling in the delirious wave of heat dancing through my blood. My head fell back, baring my throat, and I let out a rough, quivering gasp as Erik’s touch slowed enough to bring me back from the beautiful haze.
When I opened my eyes, the king was gazing at me with a tenderness strong enough to knot emotion in the back of my throat.
He settled his hips between my thighs, gripped his length, and aligned it with my center. When he paused, I hooked my legs around his waist and held his face in my hands. “Don’t you dare ask if I’m sure.”
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he whispered. “You’ll take me slow, but you’ll take all of me.”
There was something indescribably safe and beautiful about the way Erik looked at me. His hands held my legs, gently positioning me in a way
that was comfortable. He kneaded my skin, caressed over the flutter of my pulse, and held his gaze steady as he pushed inside, just the tip.
I touched the bottom curve of Erik’s lip. He was not without sharp edges, but to my soul I knew Erik Bloodsinger was a light in my darkness. He was the beautiful monster I would always want. I’d always love.
Truth be told, I’d been falling for the Ever King since I saw his sunset eyes in the dim light of that barred cell.
We both watched as Erik slowly slid deeper inside me. He paused and kissed me tenderly when I winced from a bite of pain. I drew in a few slow breaths and relaxed. Erik dropped his forehead, breathing heavily, and held my gaze as he went deeper.
My fingernails dug into his hips. Pain was there, but it dulled once he filled every part of me. When he was seated inside to the hilt, Erik paused. For a dozen heartbeats we were still, lips parted, swallowing each other’s breath.
Erik threaded one hand with mine, the other he kept pressed on the bed, holding his body up just enough he didn’t bury me into the mattress. He kissed the swell of my breast again, his tongue swirling around the peak as he started to move.
The burn of an ember ignited between my legs. A slow, steady warmth unfurled like spilled, liquid fire. Each slow thrust rolled against the sensitive bundle of nerves until my body was alight in heat and pressure.
I gripped his hair, gasping. His eyes closed as a soft moan slid from his throat from the mounting pleasure.
“You feel so good wrapped around me,” Erik gritted out between thrusts. “You were made for me, Livia.”
I rolled my hips, unable to stop reaching for more, like I wanted Erik to crack me in half. He set a rhythm that had me writhing and whimpering. Not too fierce that I’d be in constant pain, but not too slow that I didn’t feel every plunge of his hips.
Heat gathered between our bodies, sweat dripped off his cheek onto my chest. I breathed all of it in, the sweet hint of leather and sea in his hair, the mosswood soap on his skin, the lingering blood from healing Alek.
There were answers I still needed. To understand him, nothing more. Whatever darkness remained to discover, I wanted it all. I wanted to greedily take it.
I wrapped my ankles around Erik’s back, feeling the intensity in his gaze as his eyes burned with a deep red fire. His breathing became ragged and uneven, and a wave of tension surged through me, pulling me to the edge of a longing I knew would never fade after this.
Erik’s thrusts became more urgent and intense, driving deeper with each movement. The tension inside me unraveled into a sweet, all-encompassing pleasure that radiated from my head to my drenched core. When the climax hit, I cried out his name, my body tightening around him. He held me close, his face buried in my neck, his breath a mix of pants and curses as he continued to move through the exquisite agony of my release, until he reached his own.
I felt his release inside me, warm streams filling every part of me. The sensation of him marking me from the inside was a mix of pleasure, affection, and love—something I knew I could never get enough of.
We stayed like that for a long moment, wrapped in each other’s arms, our breaths heavy. Erik didn’t meet my eyes but tightened his hold on me, keeping us connected as one. His gentle hands stroked my skin, and I realized that perhaps the Ever King found as much safety in the intimacy of my embrace as I did in his.
After a while, he pulled away and reached for a soft linen. His face darkened with concern as he drew back, noticing a bit of blood on the cloth and the bedding.
“Are you all right?” he asked, almost angry. Not directed at me, it seemed he was frustrated at himself.
I touched his lips. “I’m indescribably all right.”
Erik’s tension faded. He finished caring for me, then slowly brought one hand to my face and brushed some of my wild hair from my eyes. “Don’t regret me, Songbird.”
I stroked his cheek, grinning. “I never will, Serpent.”
