“Of course, not. Mortals have no need of that knowledge.” A couple of moments passed. “Not as scary as her father, is she?”

“No.” She was still happily vibrating. “She’s adorable.”

“I’ll remember you said that when she’s Nektas’s size.”

His teasing words sent my heart racing. She was several years away from Nektas’s size. And if I succeeded in my plans, neither of us would be here to see that.

“I assume you’re done with your breakfast?” Ash spoke, drawing me from my thoughts. I nodded. “Good. You and I need to talk, and I prefer to do that away from any potentially breakable items you may or may not want to throw.”

Chapter 27

Ash had taken Jadis as we stood, which was a good thing since I apparently wasn’t going to like anything he was about to say to me.

The small draken had immediately thrown herself over one of his shoulders, front and hind legs sprawled and wings lowered. I had to stop looking at her because she looked totally ridiculous and utterly adorable.

Saion was waiting for us in the hall. “Here,” Ash said to him and reached up, plucking Jadis off his shoulder. “We disturbed her morning nap, so she’s in need of another.”

The god’s forehead wrinkled as he took the limp draken. “And what am I supposed to do with her?” He held the draken the way I imagined one would hold a child that’d soiled itself.

Jadis squawked at him.

“Rock her to sleep,” Ash suggested, and I blinked. “She likes that.”

Saion stared at the Primal. “Rock her? To sleep? Seriously?”

“That’s what I do.” Ash shrugged. I was also gaping at him now. “It always works for me. If you don’t, she’ll resist falling asleep. Then she’ll get cranky, and you don’t want that. She’s been able to cough up sparks and some flames lately.”

“Great,” Saion muttered, draping the draken over one arm.

“Have fun.” Ash nodded at me to follow him, and it took me a moment to get my legs moving.

Glancing over my shoulder as we walked down the hall to our right, I saw Saion swinging his arms back and forth. “I don’t think he knows what rocking something to sleep means.”

Ash looked and laughed under his breath. “She’ll let him know soon enough.”

I dragged my gaze from what had to be one of the weirdest things I’d ever seen in my life.

“I thought this would be a good time to discuss your future here,” he said as we walked past the throne room.

“That sounds ominous.”

“Does it?”

“Yes.” I sighed. “Has anyone ever told you that you have a knack for decorating?”

“I’m a minimalist.”

That was an understatement.

I wondered what his private quarters looked like. Probably just the necessities. A nightstand. Wardrobe. Enormous bed. It felt like it went beyond minimalism, though. There were no paintings or sculptures, no banners or any other signs of life. The walls were as cold and hard as he was, so maybe that was just him.

Unnerved, I didn’t realize that Ash had stopped until I walked straight into his back. I gasped. “Sorry—”

Ash jerked, air hissing between his teeth. That sound. My gaze flew to his face. Tension bracketed his mouth—his eyes had darkened to a steel gray, and the white aura had brightened behind his pupils. Instinct urged that I take a step back because the sound he’d made reminded me of a wounded animal. Was he hurt?

 I reached for him out of a different kind of instinct, like I had when I’d come upon the kiyou wolf. Immediately, I thought of the Shades. “Are you okay?”

“Don’t,” he snapped.

I froze, my hand inches from him. Heat stung my cheeks as I pulled my hand back. The sting of embarrassment went deeper, sharpening into a bitter slice of rejection. It was a silly feeling. I told myself that. I didn’t care if he suddenly had no interest in my touch. I just needed him to want it, and there was a world of difference there.

 “I’m fine.” His jaw flexed as he turned his head to the side. “I should’ve known you wouldn’t be more aware of your surroundings.”

 “And I would’ve expected you to be less jumpy,” I retorted. “I can already tell it was wise of you to remove me from the dining hall. And very unwise to give me back my dagger.”

He arched a brow. “Why? Should I suddenly be worried about a sharp instrument being plunged into my chest?”

“Among other things,” I muttered.

His head tilted. I saw it as it happened, then—his eyes changing. It wasn’t so much the color as it was the shadows gathering behind them. They retracted until they became the color of a thundercloud. “I have to admit, I’m interested in the among other things part of your statement.”

A shivery wave of irritation and heat rippled through me, stirring that reckless, impulsive side of me that should have everything to do with my duty but instead felt as if it had very little to do with it. I met his stare as I stepped into him, close enough that I felt the chill of his body. “Well, you have no chance of ever finding out what those things are if you jump away from contact with me.”

A tendril of eather flickered across those eyes. His lashes then lowered to half-mast. “Now, I’m very interested.”

“Doubtful.”

Ash had become still again, like he had in the lake and when I’d risen from the tub. Nothing about him moved. Not even his chest. “You don’t think I am?” he asked quietly.

My skin tingled with a heightened sense of awareness. The urge to step back hit me again. It was the way he stared at me, like a predator that had sighted its prey. I knew I should keep my mouth shut, but the burn of his words still scalded my skin, and my mouth had an entirely different idea of what to do. “I think you’re a lot of talk. You seem to have no real interest in anything beyond touching me, no matter what you claim you do with your hand and—”

Ash moved as quick as a strike of lightning, blocking my path. “I want to make one thing clear.”

My eyes flew to his. The wisps of eather had seeped out into the irises. He took a step toward me. This time, I moved back.

One side of his lips curled up as his chin lowered. “Actually, I need to make one thing clear.”

“Okay?” I swallowed as he stalked forward. I didn’t realize I’d continued to move away from him until my back pressed into the cold stone of the bare wall behind me.

Lifting an arm, Ash placed his hand beside my head. He leaned in close enough that the air I breathed tasted of citrus. “My interest in you is the furthest thing from just talk.”

A tremor of energy coursed through me as the tips of his fingers grazed my cheek. My tongue became tied. He was so incredibly tall that when he stood this close, there was only him and nothing beyond.

“My interest in you is a very real, very potent need.” His fingers skimmed the curve of my jaw and then the line of my throat. They stopped over my wildly beating pulse. “It’s almost as if it’s become its own thing. A tangible entity. I find myself thinking about it at the most inconvenient moments,” he said, his breath dancing over my lips. Against my better judgement, anticipation sank into my muscles, tightening them. “I find myself recalling the taste of you on my fingers a little too frequently.”

I sucked in a heady breath as tiny shivers hit every part of me. My palms flattened against the wall.

“I try not to,” he continued, tilting his head as his voice lowered to barely above a whisper. “Things are already complicated enough between us, aren’t they?”

I said nothing, just remained there, heart thrumming and waiting.

“But when I’m around you, the last thing I want is to be uncomplicated.” Ash’s lips coasted over my cheek, dragging a ragged gasp from me as they neared my ear. “Or in control. Or decent,” he said, and I shuddered at the decadent, wet flick of his tongue across my skin. “What I want is your taste on my tongue again. What I want is to be so deep inside you that I forget my own fucking name.” His sharp teeth closed around my earlobe. My entire body jerked, and nothing about it was forced. “And I don’t even need to read your emotions to know how much you want that, too.”