A Court Of Shadow and Blood

☆ To be Deceived ☆

Azriel gripped her arm and pulled her away, his face weeping no emotion but that of stone. Paneled walls passed, the sconces of faelight sending their shadows dancing across it in a way that almost made Eblis shiver.

She almost voiced her opposition before she sensed the full scale of his wrath. She had been caught eavesdropping.

Eblis’s felt as if her composure were crumbling, a panic setting in. She felt it in her chest like a noose being tightened around her throat.

She was led, like a pig to the slaughter, out of the hall and into the wide, sunny living room. But Azriel didn’t stop. Their feet treaded over rug and wood and stair until they reached the quiet darkness of another hall and her bedroom beyond. There, the male finally released her arm, and she rubbed the spot distractedly. She hadn’t realized it, but his grip had been hard enough to bruise.

Azriel didn’t pause, however, and instead made his way to the opposite side of her room, where he closed her window and then pulled the blinds shut. His shoulders rippled with muscle as he did so, hands dark and strong. Those tattoos across his chest taunted her as he turned and faced her.

His gaze was hot and burning with everything but passion or love or lust as he took her in. It was a look that sent shivers down her spine. Azriel stepped forward, and for all the intensity of his hazel eyes, she took a step back. He followed her until her back bumped against the wall, her heartbeat sharp and fast in her ribcage. Just moments earlier, it had been doing the same fast rhythm; but then, Azriel’s face was close, his lips warm and inviting. 

His hands went to her waist, cupping her entirely until she realized she could not move. Her own hands went instinctively to his wrists that bracketed her, holding her still. The touch would’ve almost been sensual except for how impossible it was to make those fingers budge. A thumb swept across the plane of her stomach. Once, twice—it sent her skin burning despite the circumstances.

Azriel’s hazel eyes never left hers as he bent down and kissed her.

Surprise had her hands drifting to his shoulders as if to push him, but he was still an immovable mountain. She melted under him and his scent, and the male withdrew. Her breathing had shallowed, but so had his. Then his mouth was on hers once more with a burning fury, his teeth nipping at her bottom lip until she gasped and his tongue swept in with a cold lash. They seemed to groan simultaneously, even as Eblis was utterly swept away by his taste and the feel of his body pressing against hers suddenly. She groaned at the feel of it; at the feel of him and his glorious muscles making them fit so perfectly.

Her senses went taut with desire, and her hands were in his hair.

The emotion swept over her so fast, she didn’t have time to think about the last time she’d been touched like this—held like this. It was a breaking and a healing at once, because she knew this couldn’t last.

Azriel twisted them, lips never breaking contact, until she was being lifted onto a desk she’d never used in her room. He settled between her thighs, a hot nudge of demand there that left her moaning and breathing heavily. Their mouths separated for but a second before Azriel was placing kisses along her jaw and neck and her collarbone. His lips brushed over the many many scars there from nails and teeth of not-so-gentle thieves who’d stolen her innocence. The male’s breath hushed against her skin until she arched into him, and he pulled away.

The heat and desire warring through her paused to a deathly stand-still as Azriel pressed a knife to her throat.

“Azriel?” she breathed, chin raised high to avoid the piercing blade. Her chest heaved, hands stilling in his hair until they drifted down and away from him. The hands that had held her now held a blade against her neck and gripped her wrist where she’d been reaching for something—anything—to help herself. Not that she would ever use it on him.