Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 140780 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 704(@200wpm)___ 563(@250wpm)___ 469(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 140780 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 704(@200wpm)___ 563(@250wpm)___ 469(@300wpm)
Uncle Wen flung up his hands. “Ah, forget it. Shoo, both of you. Go to bed. I’ll tell Mei not to disturb you. When you wake, come find me and we’ll share a meal, okay?”
And just like that she diffused the head steward of Ashfall Cliff—a man who had a well-deserved reputation for being a dog with a bone.
“Sounds good.” Rook answered for me, tugging me—
“Oh, by the way.” Uncle Wen glanced at Whisper as the cat lashed his tail. “Is he safe? Mei told me last night that he was pretty aggressive when she went to deliver some things.”
“You have my word he won’t hurt anyone,” I said. “Just treat him like the strays we used to adopt when I was little.”
He didn’t look convinced, but nodded. “Fine. Fine. Away with you.” Turning around, he studied his destroyed bonsai. “Now, what in the heavens am I going to do with you?”
I knew what he could do with them.
If Rook and I combined our blood and watered each one...they’d be perfect come nightfall but...
Rook shook her head, following my thoughts.
Guilt filled me for accidentally killing them—especially considering they were Uncle Wen’s prized shrubbery that he’d been cultivating since before I was born. But...if they suddenly came back to life?
That would open far too many questions.
Chapter Fifty
I WAS IN HIS ARMS THE MOMENT the double doors of his pavilion were firmly locked.
I cried out as he scooped me up like a bride, kissing me just as fast.
“Lucien—”
He didn’t answer—just kissed me harder as he carried me toward his bed. Heat poured off him in volatile, violent waves. The lamplight warped.
“Help me.” His kiss turned sharp as he clung to me as if I was the only thing preventing him from losing control. “Help me stop burning.”
So that was what this was about.
Uncle Wen’s bonsai.
The fact he’d set them alight without meaning to.
My heart ached for him as I licked him back.
He stumbled and clutched me hard. “What if it hadn’t been the trees? What if I’d burned him instead?” The fire inside him pulsed erratically, flaring hot enough to make the rafters creak. “I need you. I need you to make it stop.”
“Then take me.”
His mouth smashed to mine.
I clung to him as snow drifted over us.
I still had no idea how I did it but the hotter he became, the colder the air swirled. Ice crackled across the windows, frosting them so no one could see in. Icicles hung like translucent daggers from the rafters and the mosquito nets on his bed glittered with icy diamonds.
“You’re the only thing that calms me. The only thing...” His mouth trailed from my lips to my jaw, to my throat. I threaded my fingers into his glossy thick hair and basked in the warmth there—the living fire beneath his scalp.
Heat poured from his chest as a cloud of smoke exploded from his back. Dark plumes unfurled like vast, shadowy wings, stretching wide enough to swallow us whole. Whatever power dwelled in me answered, letting loose a flurry of snow.
Whisper darted out of the way as Lucien carried me to bed.
And then, I was falling.
I cried out as he fell over me, silencing me with a hot kiss.
My world shrank to nothing but his lips and the thundering beat of his heart.
His fingers tore at the shirt I’d borrowed, ripping it open and sending buttons pinging everywhere. I wore nothing beneath and his mouth locked around my nipple, making my spine arch.
His tongue laved the sensitive peak, making other things tingle.
Skating his hand down my belly, he growled as he found me already wet. “I can’t control myself around you. I can’t control myself without you. You’re killing me.”
I moaned as he slipped two fingers inside me. With his mouth on my breast and his fingers inside me, I had nowhere to run, no way to stop the building, tangling orgasm that already begged to detonate.
Kissing his way up my throat, he locked his teeth around my neck.
He shuddered as I ran my nails down his back.
“Fuck.” He convulsed as I burrowed my hand between us and fisted his hot, hard erection.
The second I touched his bare, burning flesh, he kicked off his offending trousers, then pounced on me. The smoke from his back thickened until I couldn’t see a thing apart from him.
The tips of his hair smouldered. Tiny flames danced over his fingernails as he touched every inch of me. His scent of scorched cedar and caramelised sugar intoxicated me way better than the wine, and when he kissed me—plunging his tongue in time with his fingers—my mouth flooded with flavours of decadent toffee and molten rum.
With a savage curse, he mounted me so swiftly, so deeply, frost unravelled from my heart. It shot over my skin like lace as he completely corrupted me.