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His voice softens into something more dangerous than anger. ‘Do you have something to confess?’
The words slice straight through the room.
Bride’s Mercy turns to ice. My tongue presses against the back of my teeth. The name is there. Lyra. Buried. Burning. Impossible. I shake my head.
For a moment his face is unreadable.
Then he smiles. Slowly. As if I’ve just offered him a game and he likes the rules. ‘This little hunt you are playing with me,’ he murmurs, ‘is beginning to amuse me.’
My stomach flips. ‘That’s a very creepy thing to say.’
‘Creepy or not, you will lose.’
My helpless gaze drops to the cock that still stands at rigid attention despite the climax I can feel dripping down my thighs. ‘There’s the arrogance. I was worried blood loss had improved your personality.’
He comes closer, each step unhurried, all that restored power wrapped in naked skin and impossible control.
‘But because I am feeling generous,’ he says, ‘and because I require Rowan to tell me which spell will tear you apart if I force too much truth from you too quickly, I will give you until I summon her to come clean.’
Fuck. So he does know something.
‘That’s it? You’re not going to pin me to a wall and choke whatever answers you think I’m hiding out of me?’ Yeah, fear has definitely made me stupid.
His smile deepens, and it’s so wickedly beautiful I genuinely resent him for it. ‘Oh, there will be pinning and choking.’ His gaze drops to my mouth. ‘But only when I am buried deep inside that cunt again and you are begging me not to stop.’
My brain goes completely blank. ‘What the hell is happening?’
His head tilts, as if he’s taking inventory. ‘I am improving.’
‘That’s one word for it.’
His cock is still hard. Apparently near death, curse shock and mysterious blood-drinking sex have only made him more insufferably virile.
‘How are you feeling? Really?’ I ask, because the question matters more than the heat clawing up my spine.
His eyes gleam as he glances down at himself, then back at me. ‘Take a wild guess, little hunter.’
He reaches for me… just as hard knocks strike the Vault doors.
Irritation crosses Valentin’s face, royal and so normal I nearly laugh. Then I remember he sealed the room. His Twelve can’t reach him through the bond. They have no idea what happened in here.
Or what’s about to walk out.
He moves to the doors, an apex predator in his visceral prime.
Still naked.
‘Valentin.’
He glances back. ‘What?’
‘You’re naked.’
‘I am aware.’
I roll my eyes. ‘That was my subtle suggestion to do something about it.’
‘I dislike subtlety.’
