“Oh, that’s rich,” she snarled. “You don’t get to be mad.” Tempest stabbed her finger toward the door. “Get out!”
“You had no right to interfere. Mal said—”
“Don’t you dare!” she hissed, moving toward her chair by the fire. She had to sit down, or her ankle would give out. Tempest plopped down on the arm of the chair and glared at the Jester. “I can’t believe you. Do you have any idea what your right-hand man was up to? Or did you sanction it?”
Pyre’s golden eyes glittered dangerously. He paced to the end of her bed, around her chair, and back to the door, circling the room like a caged tiger. “Of course I knew. Do you think anything in this place happens without my say so?”
Trembles ran up her arms. “How could you?” she cried, flinging her uninjured arm out. “How can you hurt people under your command? Are you so heartless and depraved, Pyre? Do you enjoy their pain like young, damned henchman Mal?”
“It is because I have a damned heart that I do it!” he fired back, rushing toward the chair.
He reached for her arm again, but Tempest pulled away. Winter’s bite, her arm hurt, but at least it had stopped bleeding.
“Explain how that works,” she sneered. “Tell me how having a heart justifies torturing two men half to death.”
“Because they touched you.”
His words were so fierce that it robbed the breath from her lungs. She couldn’t believe what she heard. Her eyes narrowed. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me the first time,” he replied, fox ears flat against his skull. Pyre growled, flashing his long incisors. “They touched you. They hurt you. Nobody is allowed to touch what’s mine.”
Mine. The word echoed through her mind. She didn’t belong to anyone, let alone the Jester.
She held up a finger. “First of all, I am not yours.”
“You’re under my protection, are you not?”
“I don’t need it,” she gritted out.
“Is that so?” he purred. Pyre moved in closer.
Something in his expression had her heart racing. She clumsily stood and put the chair between them. The kitsune laughed softly and brushed a finger over the top of her hand. Her jaw clenched, and she skittered around the chair as he slowly stalked her. He ran his burnished fingers along the top of the wingback chair, a smirk playing about his mouth.
“So fiery, and yet, so delicate,” the kitsune whispered.
Tempest bristled. She was not delicate. Pyre blurred, and she inhaled sharply as he pressed her against the back of the chair. She hardly dared to breathe. His fingers skimmed her neck and cheeks softly, emotion flickering through his eyes too quickly for her to discern. He was like fire. One moment, warm and comforting, the next, so hot she’d been burned.
“Such fragile skin,” he whispered, tracing Tempest’s cheekbone. She pulled her blade from her hip, the soft hiss filling the air, but he didn’t move away and neither did she.
“I am not as fragile as you think,” Tempest said, her voice just as quiet as Pyre’s whisper had been.
His finger drifted to her throat, and he lightly caressed her. “I keep coming back to you,” he murmured. He leaned closer, his breath whispering over her forehead. The throb of his pulse picked up speed at the base of his throat, and she licked her lips. He watched the movement, and a thrill raced through her.
You’re a fool. Fight. Do something. Don’t you dare give in.
He smiled—a genuine, gentle smile, rather than a mischievous grin or a sarcastic, knowing smirk—and then his mouth drifted closer. Lips brushed against lips, and as Tempest took a breath, he stole hers.
Pyre pressed closer, his mouth opening over hers, tasting her, a soft flicking of his tongue over her mouth. Wicked hell. Her eyes snapped open, and she felt the press of his chest against her palms, her blade sandwiched between her right hand and his chest as she held him at bay. But it was all an illusion. If the Jester wanted to take more, he could, but the kitsune didn’t.
Her fingers flexed against his torso, and she gasped as the muscles of his chest contracted beneath her palms. An odd sound rose in her throat. A damn sigh. She was kissing him, allowing him to kiss her.
As though he sensed her distance, Pyre drew back, his amber eyes scanning her face. His brows slashed together before his eyes narrowed. He caught her face in his hands, and then his mouth swooped down over hers. It was a claiming. The first full sweep of his tongue was a shock, and she tensed as he pressed her harder into the chair, his lips hungrily devouring her own.
Too much. Too far. He had to stop.
You’re losing yourself.
Seventeen
Tempest
Tempest broke the kiss and slapped him. Her palm stung when she pulled it away, revealing that Pyre’s cheek was angry and red. Tempest glared at him, even though she was angrier at herself than anything. He’d played her, and she’d fallen right into his hands.
“How dare you—”
“How dare I?” he cut in heatedly. “Don’t act like I’m the villain here.”
Tempest’s palm tingled. Stars, she wanted to slap him again. “You’re the one who pinned me. I didn’t ask for your unwanted attentions.”
“Unwanted attentions?”
His arrogance sluffed away, and his lovely eyes went blank as he stared at her. Her pulse pounded as he remained silent. She had expected him to be reproachful or sarcastic or laugh at her ‘over-reaction.’ Him doing nothing at all was a hundred times worse. Slowly, Pyre held up his hands and then turned tail. She gaped at his back as he yanked open the door and slammed it so hard the paintings on the walls rattled. Stunned, Tempest was frozen to the spot. She could still taste him on her lips. Her anger gathered along with adrenaline. How dare he storm away like that!
“This is your fault!” she screamed at her door. Any normal human being couldn’t have heard her, but she was betting the Jester’s ears picked up her bellows. “Your fault…” she yelled again, limping over to her bed. She fell backward and slumped against the pillows as the adrenaline left her system just as quickly as it had appeared. Her arm stung like hell. Tempest lifted it up and stared at the raw flesh where Mal’s whip had cut it. That was going to need some mimkia, otherwise it would take weeks to heal. But part of her didn’t want to go near the drug ever again. Her shoulder, leg, and ankle would be fully healed over the next day or so because of the plant, as if the injuries had never been inflicted in the first place.
Like she’d never been attacked. Like the shifters hadn’t attacked her.
More and more, it felt as if her actions were tiny in the face of everything happening. If she did nothing, then things, of course, could only get worse, but when she actually did something to bring about change, it seemed as if that made her situation worse.
“Damn you, Pyre,” she whispered, turning onto her side and clutching her aching arm to her chest. It took her far too long to realize the wetness on her face meant that she was crying.
For three days, Tempest avoided Pyre like the plague, though it wasn’t difficult. The kitsune had scarcely been around in the first place. She huffed. So much for a partnership. She’d been there for weeks and done nothing of consequence. If only she could get rid of Mal so easily. He’d been a thorn in her side since she’d challenged him in front of all the shifters. His presence only served to further distance herself from Pyre. The fact that Pyre had such an amoral person working for him as his right-hand man only lent further credit to her suspicion that the Pyre she met months before no longer existed, if he had existed at all, even then. The worst part was that she missed that man—the fun, playful fox with sparkling eyes and a wicked sense of humor.