Evermine: Daughters of Askara, Book 2 Read online

  Swallowing my own self-loathing, I dismissed my glamour. Every blemish, every scar, everything I had, I gave him in return. I hated the lavender adornments inked into my skin. They were lovely, in a cruel way, but I didn’t want to be judged by them, either.

  He sucked in a sharp breath. “You don’t have to do that.”

  “Yes, I do.” I grabbed his pants, tugging at the top button until it popped off and pinged against the wall. His laces frustrated me. My claws took care of them. I pulled off his boots, his socks, so when he stood, his clothing fell away. I gasped as he stepped from the pile of fabric.

  Leather wings snapped in frustration. The room was too small to hold them, and they ruffled in displeasure at the confinement. The filmy skin shone pure crimson. Each flutter seduced. Every twitch enticed. I stared, captivated and immobile while he chuckled darkly.

  The sight of him naked etched my retinas with his perfection. His muscular shoulders called to my claws, begging them to sink into the meaty flesh there. His hard chest led to harder abs that rippled as he breathed. Working in the mines had been kind to his body, and I salivated.

  We stood at an impasse. In order for him to get into the tub, I had to move. I couldn’t feel my legs. They were weak, useless. Part of me wanted to drink in the sight of him. The other part wanted to lure him closer, so I could taste his semihard interest before he rose to full attention.

  His bold step toward me sang of shared inspiration.

  “Come here.” I knelt on the bench seat, which put me eye level with his knees. I patted the edge of the tub, and he sat on the floor, flinching when cold tile met his bare ass. I grinned, spreading his legs so they encased either side of my rib cage. My claws lengthened, and I scratched at the thick hairs covering his legs. Then I teased the ticklish creases behind them.

  Lowering my face, I nuzzled his abdomen, licked at his navel. For a moment, I buried my face in his side and inhaled. Mouth watering for a taste, I took it, trailing my lips downward and nibbling at his hipbone. He groaned, tilting his hips up in a guttural plea I couldn’t resist.

  My heart clamored, suspended on the edge of a precipice where I’d never stood before.

  I hadn’t touched him, yet. Not there. Oh, I wanted to, but once I had, we could never go back. We could never be friends who loved one another but missed their connection again.

  “This feels permanent, doesn’t it?” he asked. The same thoughts must have rattled him.

  “I think it’s supposed to.” I hadn’t mentioned my plans in case I lost my nerve.

  He angled my head back and gazed into my eyes. My heart blossomed under his stare.

  “I’m tired of waiting,” he admitted. “I’ve waited so long, if I don’t have you soon, I think I’ll starve from wanting you.” He made the first move, palming one of my breasts. His thumb flicked across my nipple, and it drew so tight only his lips could ever suck out the sting.

  Cupping his jaw in my hands, I arched my back and dragged his head toward that pain. His lips closed over the tight bud, and his teeth scraped the tip. His mouth was as hot and wet as I was. His hand sank beneath the water, and I caught his wrist as his fingers traced the seam of my sex.

  I shoved at his shoulder before he touched me where I wanted to feel him most. He fought me, growling deep in his throat. His hand clamped onto my hip, so possessive I melted. My demon was eager, but so was I. One stroke of his finger on my clit and I would explode into pieces too small to reassemble. This Emma, the guilt-ridden and broken one, would shatter.

  I wouldn’t miss her, but if I didn’t rally, I would miss her shatter Harper first.

  Rubbing my chin against his cheek, I said, “I want to taste you.” I dipped my tongue in his ear so he got the hint, and he stiffened. This time, when I shoved at his shoulder, he went.

  I steadied my breath, closing my eyes for a moment. When they opened, I drank him in.

  The trail of hairs I’d followed earlier ended at the base of his thick erection. His cock jutted away from his body, straining toward his navel. I licked my lips and thought I heard him groan. I lowered my head, pressed a kiss to the flushed crown, and I finally tasted him.

  His hands tangled in my hair, pulling me down as his hips writhed. I let him guide me.

  “Emma.” He rocked into my mouth and sighed. His grip tightened, and I thought…but his fisted hands used my hair and tilted my head back. “Enough.” His lips locked on mine. Our tongues tangled. He broke the kiss and a hungry edge crept into his tone. “I want more.”

  Forgetting the stairs, he braced his palms on the floor and lowered himself into the tub. Water sloshed over the edges. His feet didn’t reach the bottom before I was smoothing my hands across his shoulders, shoving him down before me. He hit the seat with a grunt, splashing water onto the floor behind him. I didn’t care. I crawled onto his lap, a knee to either side of his hips.

  His lashes fluttered when my sex slid over his. I dipped my hips, teasing. His wings sliced through water, enfolding me. They were fever hot and blood red, heating the lukewarm water. They slid like silk across my back. The clawed hands tangled in my hair, jerking my head back so Harper could reclaim my mouth. He bit my lip, and it hurt until he nursed away the sting.

  I rose, finding my balance. He lifted his hips, unwilling to lose that intimate contact where our bodies ached. Bracing on his shoulders, I let his mouth slide over my nipple without purchase. His erection nudged my entrance, needing no guidance to find the center of me.

  “Now,” he said on a pained breath, his face cradled between my breasts. “I need you.”

  I sat, hard, strangling as I cried out his name. I’d driven him all the way inside of me, and I had to catch my breath. My muscles stretched around him. I almost came without moving.

  He gripped my hips. “Not without me.” He must have sensed how close I was. I wanted to lay my forehead on his shoulder and stay connected like this forever. Then he thrust, and my flesh came alive around him. Afraid of hurting him, I gripped the tub lip instead of his shoulders. Nerve endings fired as his sex overfilled mine, caressing all my secret places as no one ever had.

  The harder he pushed, the higher I flew until pleasure exploded behind my eyes. Metal groaned distantly. My scream drowned out everything else. His lips feathered across my throat, forming Demonish words that soothed. I shook in his arms. Without his support, I would have slumped into the water and drowned.

  An eternity later, when I drifted back down into myself, Harper was still inside of me, and he was still hard. I rose up a fraction, and tingles shot straight to my sex. Amazing what I thought completed me seconds earlier faded to a pinpricked memory.

  Harper linked his arms at my spine, ducking his head to reclaim the same nipple. I let him play while my limbs regained sensation, then I shoved his back to the wall and his wings around the edge. I braced on the rim. My fingers fit in familiar grooves as I held on and worked myself up and over him. The bench gave me leverage, and every downward thrust of my hips made him groan. His head fell back, lips parted on hard pants. He tried for my hips, but I slapped his hand away. I wanted him to come my way. Pleasure and pain filled his expression. He was close.

  I bobbed on his lap, sending waves pouring over the sides of the tub. He touched my hip again, but before I could pry away his hand, he cupped my sex. I froze, so tender the brush of his thumb over my clit wracked shudders through me. My mouth opened—and his sealed it shut.

  His other hand molded to my hip while the one between my legs worked the sensitive nub until I sobbed into his mouth and bliss speared through me. My muscles clenched around his hard length, dragging him tumbling into orgasm behind me. He growled my name, gripped my hips and sank to the hilt inside of me, filling me, overfilling me, completing me, finally.

  Our lips parted on a mutual gasp. I wrapped my arms around his neck, making him an Emma necklace. His arms and wings held me. Every part of my body was surrounded by his.

  Happiness and contentment filled my stomac
h like the best meal I’d ever had.

  I rested my head on my arm, burying my face in his neck. “I—”

  “—love you,” he finished.

  But there was more. I wanted to claim him. How did I claim him? Did I tell him he was mine? Ask if he wanted to be mine? Why had I never thought to ask? I slumped against him, boneless and conflicted. I wished I’d asked my sister how she claimed Clayton. Then again…

  Wrinkling my nose, I decided Harper was right. Some things really were best unknown.

  I could ask Dillon. Males knew these things. It was only Askaran females who were kept in the dark until their sexuality slapped them across the face. I swallowed the uneasy fear that despite the fact my sister had gone to her mate a virgin, she knew one trick I had yet to learn.

  Dillon wouldn’t return with Aldrich in the morning. Besides, anything he said would be suspect to me, since I doubted he wanted his friend’s life permanently intertwined with mine.

  That line of reasoning left me with one alternative—to ask Aldrich himself. I shivered.

  What could he know of love? I decided it didn’t matter. If he had answers, I wanted them.

  “You’re cold.” Harper withdrew from my body, and the moment flickered past, lost.

  I wasn’t, but I’d rather him think I was than know what troubled me.

  Rubbing circles against his hip, I grinned. “Let’s go to bed.”

  He all but purred with renewed interest.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Harper woke to the sound of Emma’s snores. Cramped as this space was, he’d slept on his stomach with one wing trailing the floor while the other covered her like a blanket. He pushed his pillow aside for a better view of her soft lips moving in sleep. She curled against his side, their faces separated by inches he longed to close.

  He should wake her. Aldrich waited for them farther out, past the city limits.

  They should get moving. Eat, dress and leave. Instead, he traced the ink swirling across her skin. She’d slept without glamour, or at least she’d tried to. Once in a while, he woke to find her curls twisting over ornate skin. Other times, her red lips were the only color on her. Hide too long and the illusion became as genuine as the reality. Maintaining it turned easy as breathing.

  Sleep eluded him most nights. Eliya haunted him. Nightmares plagued him. Watching Emma dream gave him more rest than he’d had in months. The sight of her lying beside him leveled his breaths and steadied his heart. His lips curved. Last night had been worth the wait.

  “You’re up early.” Emma burrowed deeper against him.

  “We told Aldrich sunrise, remember?” Yesterday seemed like a lifetime ago.

  She pulled his wing over her face. “What’s another hour?”

  “Sixty minutes longer than we’ve got.” He cupped the fullness of her breast. Her nipple spiked his palm, and his cock swelled. “We should go.”

  Her blue eyes sparkled from beneath her crimson cover. “I could convince you to stay.”

  “I know you could.” He didn’t doubt her power over him for a second. “But you won’t.”

  “You sound pretty sure of yourself.” She massaged his wing joints, and he groaned.

  “I’m in danger so close to the city.” He hooked her knee over his hip, fingers teasing the crease where the top of her thigh dissolved into soft curls. “Then again, safety is overrated.”

  “Thanks for the reminder.” She ducked from beneath his wing, rolling over him. Her feet slapped against the floor. “Do me a favor and bring the clothes from the bathroom? I’d like to leave this place clean.” She strode toward a small closet and rummaged through its contents.

  “Do you have spares in there?” His shirt had hung in stained tatters before she ripped it from him last night. His pants, she’d shredded. Her stolen outfit fared better, but not by much.

  “The last time I used this place was to hide a mated pair of Evanti. Their owner…well, it doesn’t matter. Helen and Joshua didn’t like it here. They chose to stay at the consulate.” The closet muffled her voice. “Anyway, they didn’t understand the clothing was a gift. They left it all here. I decided instead of sending Aaron for a pickup, I’d leave an emergency stash and let them shop for supplies in town.” She sighed. “I never imagined we would end up using them.”

  “I don’t care where they came from. If they fit, I’ll wear them. If they’re clean—that’s even better. I don’t think my laces survived last night, and I’m not keen on walking around with my pants glued on with hope and sweat.”

  Her laughter followed him into the bathroom.

  Balling their soggy clothing, he tucked the cold mess under his arm. He retrieved Emma’s stolen pants and tugged the belt from the loops in case her new pair fit worse. While he worked at the clasp, a folded paper worked from her pocket and sailed toward the floor. He plucked it from midair and shook it open. Frowning, he called, “I found something.”

  “I did too.” She came to him holding out a pair of leather pants and a workman’s shirt for his inspection. “I think these will fit where it counts. Joshua is broader in the shoulders than you, but it should work.” He noticed her curves stretched Helen’s clothes. “What’s that?” she asked.

  “A letter.” He forced his attention from the gaps between her shirt’s buttons. “It fell from your pants.” He offered it to her since his hands were damp. “I assume it was Roland’s.”

  Her eyes widened. “Let me see.” She plucked the letter from his fingers. “This is from Garrett, the courier—friend—whoever he was that met Roland.” She nibbled her bottom lip as she read. Harper focused on the bite of her teeth more than the note in her hand.

  “Interesting?” It must be. She’d chewed her lip ragged.

  “I’m not sure. You tell me.” She read aloud. “The Nisean mares completed seven days of a planned nine-day progesaline regimen. Supplementation was stopped when mares exhibited symptoms of progesaline overdose. The scheduled injection of prostaglandin was withheld.”

  “I was right.” She glanced up. “This proves why Garrett came to see Roland at the ball.” She clutched the paper as proof not all her memories were false.

  He knew how she felt. Aldrich’s prison had encaged his mind. To him, the bars were real. He’d reached out, touched them. Since the priest claimed Roland wielded the same knowledge, Emma was right to question how much of her recollections of him were real versus imagined.

  She read on. “Ovulation occurred within five days of the last dosage. The purity of the product requires a lower dosage, assuming the mares obtained no permanent damage from this trial. Is insemination advised? Or should their cycle be observed instead?” Lowering the paper, she turned it back to front in her hand. “There’s no mention of Nesvia anywhere.”

  “I doubt there would be.” Harper scratched his cheek. “The evidence would be damning.”

  “So…” She refolded the letter and slid it in her pocket. “What does all that mean?”

  He tossed the clothes into the disposal bin and faced Emma. “It sounds like they’re using progesaline to induce ovulation in their mares.” He shrugged. “It’s not unheard of for breeders to synchronize estrus so their livestock can be bred all at once.” He admitted, “Though I’ve never heard of progesaline being used. It’s too cost-prohibitive for most of the lower castes to afford, even with their females’ lives at stake. Anyone experimenting with it in a breeding program would have more money than sense.” He grimaced. “Sereians. I’ll never understand them.”

  “It can do that?” Emma’s face paled. “Trigger ovulation? What about in demons?”

  He wished he had a better answer for her. “I’m not sure.” He took her hands, and they trembled in his. Fear was too weak an emotion for his Emma. This was rage. “I’ve made it my job to learn all I can about salt, but I’ve studied less than a year. Only since learning the Feriana mine was workable. Everything I’ve learned so far is about mechanics: how to mine embolite safely and how to test for progesal
ine deposits. I haven’t had time to explore its uses, besides the obvious.”

  “You don’t understand.” Emma gripped him back. “Nesvia doesn’t cycle until next year. She said Rideal was anxious for an heir, but she refused him. Can they have used this same method and induced her heat sooner?” Claws sprung from the tips of her fingers. “What if that’s the reason she wasn’t in Rihos? The Bernhards are renowned breeders. They obviously knew the trick. What if they were waiting for a purer supply or positive results before trying it on Nesvia?”

  The implications of inducing the queen…breeding her…left a foul taste in his mouth.

  “Stay calm,” he said. “We’re not certain Nesvia is in any danger.”

  This potential disaster served as a sobering wake-up call. He wouldn’t be caught ignorant of his product a second time, even if it meant diverting resources to discover how the upper castes used their purified supply.

  Her glare cut him off at the knees. “She’s missing. Her consort is missing. Her consort’s brother is getting secret messages about losing a second Askaran queen. Did I miss anything?”

  Reeling her in, he tucked her against his chest. “All right. You’ve convinced me. We’re already in the city. Should we check her residence? Where was she seen last? What do we do?”

  She shoved something against his stomach. “We get you dressed and meet Aldrich.”

  He accepted the clothes with a frown. “We’re going to the colony?”

  “Yes.” She rolled onto the balls of her feet and stole a kiss. “I lost you once.” Her eyes darkened, turned haunted, and his ghost moved behind them. “You are my priority. I’ll worry about Nesvia once I know you’re back where you’re safe.”

  He caught her upper arms, holding her at his eye level. “And then what?”

  She picked at the fabric crushed between them, and he imagined it gave her seconds to form an answer other than Claim you and live in the colony. He released her, and she didn’t struggle. “Forget I asked. I’ll dress, then we’ll leave.” When she inched past the threshold, he shut the door with a soft snick.