He was asleep?
I blinked, my jaw unhinging. Another sweep of the room revealed that the others had disappeared—likely banished by Fjor again. For several minutes, I didn’t dare move. I was riveted to the slow rise and fall of Fjor’s chest. I was noticing things about him I never had before—like the long diamond of his face. His chin had an indentation, right in the middle, his facial hair inching past stubble, a very precise shadow angling along his sharp jawline. His hair was impossibly thick, long enough that he could draw half of it back—as he had today—but short enough that the wavy strands around his face had unravelled.
I crept forward, my breath sounding too loud in my ears. I was drawn to him, now that the threat gleaming from his fathomless eyes had been shuttered. He was a fount of power, brimming to overflowing, laid out for me to explore. His secrets whispered to me from within, cradling my hand as it lifted to the piercings along his brow. He had thick, sharply angled brows, creating a fierce but strangely regal countenance. The piercings began at the arch and were studded right into the middle of his brow, ending at the edge. They were tiny, which made me wonder why my eye was always drawn to them. I touched one just as long fingers wrapped my wrist, pulling my hand away.
His eyes cracked open, his chest still rising and falling in that gentle, misleading rhythm.
“Why are you still here?” I asked.
He maintained his grip on my wrist, one of his fingers tapping my pulse absently.
“Why did you come in the first place?” I pressed when he didn’t answer my first question.
He stared at me, his finger still tapping, his eyes velvety and endless, beckoning me forward and urging me to trip, to fall into his snare.
“Why just you?” I inched closer, my eyes narrowing, realising he wasn’t enjoying my questions in the slightest. “If this was important enough for you to come and witness, why didn’t you tell the others?”
“What you’re doing is child’s play,” he finally responded. “It’s not important.”
“Then why—”
He tipped forward, his regard narrowing to a glare as he suddenly loomed over me.
“Because I can win.” His words were a breath, a bare warning, soft and ominous. “I’ve decided it’s worth the risk.”
“What risk?”
His eyes dropped over my face. “What will you trade for my secrets?”
“I don’t know.” The words tumbled out of me, unchecked. “I’m not used to this. You’re not threatening me, or hurting me, or trying to trick something out of me.”
“I’m trying harder than you know.” For once, Fjor’s voice wasn’t smooth and silky. His words were clipped, his long fingers flexing and tightening around my wrist. He pulled my arm, drawing me forward, until I had to tip my head back to still see him.
“A kiss. Agree to it.” It was a demand.
“I don’t want to kiss you.”
“I’m not Helki,” he whispered. “You’ll change your mind, and it won’t be because of the soul mark.” The words hung above my lips, a death sentence stamped onto my skin.
The Vold in me reared up at the challenge, a spark of anger flickering in my eyes.
“You have a deal.” My words were as much a challenge as his had been. “Tell me your secrets.”
He bared his teeth—almost a smile. “We could continue as we are.” He dropped my wrist, his hand dragging up the back of my arm. “The five of us would endure, if you died, if this world ended. Or one of us could join you on the eternal throne, with the power of all three worlds at our fingertips.”
“What will happen to the rest of you?” I asked, sensing something behind his words.
He cupped my shoulder, his grip changing, his fingers flexed as he dragged his palm along the line of my shoulder to my neck.
“We will die.”
“That makes no sense—” I began, but his hand rose, a finger pressed to my lips.
“One kiss for one secret.”
I scowled, pushing his finger away. I tipped forward, barely brushing his cheek with my lips, his stubble tickling me before I pulled back. He caught me by the neck before I could retreat, dragging me forward again.
“Don’t play with me, Skayld,” he demanded roughly.
“I gave you what I promised.”
“No, you didn’t … but you will.” He bent over me, pulling my mouth up to his, but he paused a breath away, releasing the back of my neck.
His hand brushed up, across the back of my skull, until my head was nestled firmly in his palm. He dragged his fingers back down again as his lips whispered to mine, barely a kiss, barely a touch.
“What will you taste like?” he asked against my mouth, as his fingers clawed, catching in the strands of my hair.
He tugged hard, and I gasped in pain, and that was when he kissed me, his tongue pushing straight into my mouth, his power thrusting through my skin in the same moment.
He was invading me everywhere, his fingers softening immediately to play against my skull, his tongue silky against mine, his power rustling through me. It crept into the dark places of my mind and toyed with the uneven beat of my heart, exposing that secret place where my power was hidden away.
I didn’t return his kiss, but he explored me thoroughly, the pressure of his mouth so soft and velvety, his fingers following the flow of his magic as it passed through me. As it trickled down my throat, his fingers trailed a line in the same direction. Whenever my body involuntarily reacted—with a shiver of fear, or a twitch of wariness—he paused, pressing harder, almost reassuringly. My lip began to prickle, emotion leaking into my chest in a slow roll of liquid fire, but he quickly muttered a word against my mouth, and the sensation stopped immediately.
He had stopped the soul mark from activating.
My confusion over the moment must have broken my concentration, because I accidentally pulled my hand up, chasing the incantation he had spoken over me. My fingers brushed his chest, my tongue flicking out to taste him, somehow believing I would get a better sense of him if I did.
My instinct was right.
As soon as I reached for him, I found myself doused in his energy. It was soft. Something between the brush of a breeze and the caress of silk. A sensation impossible to put to words. I crawled toward him, unsure, confused, but needing to be closer to that incredible source of power. He muttered something else—not an incantation this time, but something rough and unintentional, laced with masculine approval. He hauled me up, his hands almost touching as he gripped my hips, setting me on the edge of the bed.
I reached for him, chasing that feeling again as it swept away from me, and he shoved aside a pillow, dragging me to the edge, my hips pressed tight to his as he allowed me to draw his mouth back to mine. I felt suddenly hot, my breaths stuttering as his hands dragged up my sides and then down again, wrapping around my thighs. He was pulling me against the hardness in his pants, hitching one of my legs up higher, his kiss changing. It was no longer a slow, lustrous kiss. It had ragged edges. His teeth scraped my skin, his nails digging into my thighs.
“You’re not as skinny as you seem,” he growled, pulling me off the edge of the bed so that I fell over him, my knees either side of his hips.
His hands cupped my ass, squeezing my flesh as something like a confused, unwilling groan ripped out of him. He tore his face away from mine with a hiss, and I felt him swelling against the junction of my thighs. I caught sight of his eyes before his lids lowered, hiding the inferno within the usually fathomless depths. He released me, only to suddenly shove me to my back. He crushed me there, his eyes mere slits as he gave me all of his punishing weight, breathing hard.