Page 30 of The Blood Queen

A prodding, an offering.

A mewl half-predatory, half-worshipful tears from the pit of my soul, and I kiss her back like a starving man. I can’t pretend to be anything but possessed utterly, enraptured with every palpitation of her lips against mine, the honeyed sweetness of her tongue in my mouth. I cage her face in my hands and hold her captive, giving her everything I’ve got, everything I can put into this act.

We both pull back to pant for breath, the fire hot at our sides, or maybe it’s just us now. Excruciatingly heated.

“Let me stay here,” I whisper, our foreheads pressed together. “I’ll sleep on the floor. I just don’t want to be away from you. Not yet.” Alyth’s eyes are shut. I know because I can’t not look at her. Can’t not soak up every bit of her alive and healing—that tincture’s doing rapid wonders. Most of the smaller wounds have closed. She’ll have scars though.

So will the High Blade.

Alyth nods, pulling me from any gruesome revenge dreams, and my chest goes air light.

There’s a small wash closet and sets of bed shirts and gowns. We both take turns scraping the grime of the past few days from our bodies, and when I come out of the wash closet last, Alyth’s tucked into the bed already.

I start for the fireplace, intending to curl up right in front of it; I can see the bed and door from there if I need to intervene.

But Alyth sits up. “Samson?”

I stop. The long linen nightshirt brushes my calves, a finer weave than I’ve ever worn, soft as velvet, smelling faintly of lavender.

Alyth picks at something on the mossy bedding. “Sleep with me?”

My shoulders cramp, hope bordering on shock. “Yeah?”

She nods, looks up at me, a pretty pink blush on her cheeks.

This girl isn’t meek. She’s a hundred different things, but never meek.

Until now.

I nod rapidly. “Yeah,” I repeat. “Yeah, ’course.”

She settles back in the pillows as I round the bed and slip in on the other side.

We lie there, staring up at the canopy, the firelight dancing orange and yellow over the white fabric.

I’m hyperaware of the inches separating us. Of the grate and gush of her breathing. Is she asleep already? Christ, will I be able to sleep, knowing she’s here, feeling the warmth wavering off her body so close to mine?

“For feck’s sake,” Alyth grumbles, half to herself, and then she’s scrambling around, scooting closer, and draping herself over my body, her head resting on my chest, her arm thrown across my hips.

I don’t move a damn muscle.

“Oh” is all I can manage.

Against me, Alyth chuckles. I go stratospheric at the sensation of it rippling through me.

“Go to sleep, Samson,” she murmurs and snuggles in deeper, adjusting to get comfortable.

My arm comes up, wraps around her shoulders, and when I turn my face, I can press my nose against her hair.

Each breath she takes rolls against my side, and if I focus, I can clock her heartbeats.

She’s safe. Alive. Healing.

My eyelids drift shut, and I sleep.

8 Alyth

I wake to his scent.