I threw down the glove, resigned to my own foolishness. But I itched for a fight, for him to do something evil so I could bolster my internal defenses.
“Let you go?” he mused, reeling me back against his body. “When I find you so delightful?”
I kept reminding my body that this was not a potential lover, because my libido wasn't getting the memo. Not with his fingers caressing my skin, the warmth of his breath on my face and the need in his eyes communicating a desire to slake his anger in a particular way.
“It’s delightful to toy with a female who doesn’t want you?”
“Oh, I doubt that, Aerinne.” His gaze darkened, his voice both cutting and sensual. “I doubt that very much. Shall we test the truth of your claim? Shall I plunder you for your screams?”
He would show no mercy, his hands clamped on my thighs as his body claimed mine, as his mouth devoured.
“No! No, just. . .”
But Nora had been clear. Everything in me was furious at the thought that I had no choice but to play this game. I was almost willing to cut off my nose to spite my face to prove that there was no such damn thing as no choice.
“If you have to play games with me, I’d rather the screaming be from torture. Not—not. . .” I realized I couldn’t form the last word. It was a lie.
Renaud stared down at me, his grip on my arms unyielding. Then he sighed, the exhalation so soft I barely heard it. “So young. So little imagination. My halfling, I yield your blood and screams to no one. No other will have you in this manner.” He paused a beat, his hands sliding down my arms to grip my hips. “If you wish me to court your passion through fear, give me leave. I will take your body, claim your blood, cleanse my empty anguish in your screams.”
There was nothing seductive, nothing romantic about the serrated words. The twisted promise of pain and subjugation. Everything warned me not to dance with this side of him. Not to let him taste any part of me, to stoke the spark that could unravel into binding ribbons I would never escape.
“I—”
“Silence. I think Iwillteach you the true meaning of caution tonight. I had not planned to do so, but. . .”
Fear slashed a jagged cut across my heart. Something in the slight shift of his shoulders, the slight paling of his eyes, a hint of frost in the air that hadn't been present just a moment before. . .all of this warned every instinct in me that I had pushed him a hair too far. And I would rather bear his temper than his icy retribution.
Renaud banded an arm around my back, holding me immobile while he pulled my neck to the side. A blinding second later teeth sank into my throat, breaking skin.
I cried out, more in shock than in pain, as he suckled hard at the tiny wound. It would leave the kind of bruise that, especially in this dress, would project my humiliation to anyone who saw it.
It was a warning at best, a brand of my submission to him at worst.No onewould imagine he had not done more to me than the bruise indicated.
Even though his punishment could have been so much worse, I twisted in his arms, curling my fingers into claws and slashing at his face.
“Youbastard.”
I slammed my stiletto heel onto his foot as I aimed the meat of my palm towards his nose. Quick and dirty should get me enough of a head start if I pulled on my Skill.
He laughed, evading my blow, and the hair on the back of my neck rose. Wild laughter, full of unspeakable things, a call to the Wild Hunt of ancient times. “Fight if you must, but I will be forced to bring you to ground, wildling.”
Belatedly I recalled our battle and how he'd seemed to anticipate my moves even while invisible. I refused to accept I had no defense against this male.
My control snapped, fear spurring the need to flee. I couldn't let him take me. Couldn't let him bring me to heel until my spirit was crushed and I was nothing more than a plaything forgetting the honor of my House, even the bittersweet remembrance of vengeance I had already begun to reluctantly set aside.
I clawed for a dagger that was no longer there, cursing this stupid dress and these neck-breaking shoes as he wrestled me to the ground so easily that I was more ashamed than afraid—then infuriated by my own shame. Especially because of what that shame truly cloaked.
He slammed my wrists above my head as he straddled me, his hair falling over his shoulders and into my face.
“Your spirit reminds me of the untamed vastness of the dark forests in my homeland. Of the blooms that lure the stupid with their sweet scent only to take their heads.”
I spat his hair out of my mouth, hissing at him as I strained against his hold. “Let me go.”
“Make me.”
It would have been a juvenile response had he not meant it. Delight and something a hair more twisted shimmered in his eyes. “I want you to make me,” he said in a soft purring tone. “I want you to have the strength to shove me off you and punish me for the insult.”
My snarl started deep in my chest, an offended feline rumble. “I am inno mood, Prince of Everenne. If you want me to play with you at all, you'll let me go now. Or I will bend my entire will to becoming the most boring toy you could imagine.” I reared up. “You want flames? I'll give you a slimy, dead slug.”
