“We’ll find her.”
Effie scrubbed at her face, hiding behind the palms of her hands.
“Hey,” Lucian murmured, tugging gently on her wrist. “Don’t hide from me.”
“How can you even stand to look at me after what I did?”
“You think what you did today compares to the worst of what I’ve done in my lifetime? You want to talk about darkness, Effie, I can promise you my soul is blacker than yours will ever be.”
Effie shook her head, her expression fierce. “Not possible.”
“How can you be so sure?” he asked, lifting his brow.
She rested her hand over his chest. “I see who you are, Lucian. There might be darkness, but it is eclipsed by all that is good and honorable within you.”
Her words gutted him. “Effie, if you can be certain, so can I,” he finally managed.
She opened her mouth to argue, and he pressed a finger against her lips.
“Do you trust me?”
“With my life,” she answered, without hesitation.
“Then believe me when I say, nothing you could do would ever change what I see when I look at you.”
Her pulse fluttered in her neck, and then they were crashing together, their lips and tongues tangling in their desperation to get closer.
Earlier promises forgotten, Lucian ran his hands along the sides of her leather-clad body, pulling her more solidly astride him. The leather vest she wore over her tunic was water-logged, the fabric swollen and difficult to manipulate. Lucian quickly gave up bothering with the buckles, feeling little guilt about tapping into his power to deal with removing it. If ever there was a time to take advantage of the ability to transform matter, surely it was now.
Effie let out a soft chuckle as the garment fell free. Grasping a side of her vest, he flung it across the room, smiling when its wet slap caused her to laugh harder.
“Neat trick,” she murmured, her thumbs feathering over his neck as she wove her hands into his hair and leaned in to kiss him.
“I’m full of them,” he murmured against her mouth, biting down on her plump bottom lip.
Effie whimpered and shifted her weight above him.
“Am I hurting you?” Lucian asked, sliding his hands under her tunic and up her back, pulling the wet fabric with him.
“I’m going to hurt you if you stop,” she hissed, trailing hot kisses along his jaw, before sitting back so that Lucian could pull off her tunic.
All that was left was a transparent scrap of fabric that left little to the imagination. But it was still a barrier between them, and he wanted none. Running his finger down the center of her chest, Lucian hooked it down into the flimsy band and pulled, the soft scrap giving way.
Effie peered at him shyly, her cheeks flushed and lips swollen from their kisses.
Lucian swallowed, his blood roaring in his ears as he tried to find the words to tell her how beautiful she was in that moment. Drops of water cascaded down her creamy skin, her wheat-colored hair looking like burnished gold where it clung to her neck. Her thick lashes were dark spikes framing glowing blue eyes.
Running his eyes down the column of her throat, Lucian paused in his exploration to brush his thumb over the raised, silvery crescent of her scar. The scar itself was horrific, thick and jagged, and running from the base of her neck to halfway across the top of her shoulder. But for Lucian, it was a testament to her fearless spirit. She’d earned it saving his life.
Leaning forward, he reverently pressed his lips to the mark.
Effie shivered, her head falling back as she moaned his name. “Lucian.”
Letting his eyes dip down lower, he watched the rapid rise and fall of her chest as the rosy peaks pebbled, begging for him to take them in his mouth.
Her breath caught as she waited for his next move. “Touch me,” she begged.
Curling his arm around her, Lucian pulled her closer until her breasts brushed against his chest.
She fit against him like a dream, her body built like it was made for him. Sliding his hands from her waist and down over her rounded ass, he flexed his hips up into her center.
Effie gasped and ground down on him, increasing the friction until Lucian was the one groaning.
He dipped his head, raining kisses along her velvety soft skin. She arched up into him, fisting her hands in his hair when he finally took one of her nipples into his mouth, sucking hard, palming her other breast with his free hand.
“Finally,” she groaned.
Lucian scraped his teeth along the sensitive flesh and pulled back to look at her. “We’re just getting started.”
Effie let out a strangled breath, dropping her forehead to his. “Who said you could stop?”
Suddenly she froze in his arms, letting out a hiss that had nothing to do with pleasure and everything to do with pain.
“Effie?” Lucian asked, worried that he might have accidentally touched one of her injuries.
“Lucian . . .” His name was a strangled gasp, confusion and fear permeating the word.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, his hands hovering over her skin, afraid to touch her.
“I—” she broke off with another cry, curling her right arm into her body. “Mother’s tits, that hurts.”
“What? What’s going on?” Lucian was trying to keep his panic in check, not certain what was happening except that Effie was in a lot of pain. “Is it your ankle?”
Effie shook her head; the feverish desire he’d seen in her eyes only seconds before replaced with tears. “It’s . . . agony,” she hissed, her back arching as her thighs spasmed around him.
The veins in her neck jutted out, the muscles in her neck rigid. She gritted her teeth and dug her fingers into her arms as another tremor racked her body. It looked like she was having some kind of convulsion, almost like a slow-motioned imitation of what happened to her when she had a vision.
Lucian tried to take her in his arms, but Effie let out a low, keening wail as if his touch only caused greater pain.
He dropped his hands as if she burned him.
She cried out again, the sound burying itself inside of his chest. She was in pain, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. He couldn’t even hold her.
Not knowing what other option was left to him, Lucian threw back his head and roared.
“KAEL!”
Chapter 25
Embarrassed, frustrated, and more than a little scared, Effie pulled the blanket tighter around her bare shoulders, not ready to face the hooded gazes surrounding her.
What more could she tell them? It wasn’t like she understood why her body felt like someone had shoved a white-hot rod straight into her bones. One second she’d been blissfully lost to the feel of Lucian’s mouth on her, and the next it felt like she was being melted from the inside out. And not in a good way.
She’d been too overwhelmed by the searing pain working its way through her to pay much attention, but Kael had come tearing into Lucian’s bathing chamber, only to take one look at them huddled on the floor of the shower to spin back out again.
By the time her fit had passed, two robed figures and a healer were waiting for her in Lucian’s room.
The healer had taken care of the worst of her injuries, but there was little he could do about the deep ache in Effie’s muscles. She’d likely be sore for a couple of days.