Jessamine
A prickling sensation crawls up my neck, like unseeing fingers tracing my skin. My sleep-heavy eyelids fly open at the oppressive feeling and aura, and I gasp at the sight of Kier watching me, his shoulder leaning against the stone wall.
I don’t know why, but I hug myself instantly, like I have been laid bare and my privacy has been intruded upon. It is then I notice that I am no longer in chains, and there’s a cloak around my chest that smells like the winter breeze.
I want to ask him how long he’s been in here, why he got the chains off, why his cloak is shielding me from the brutal cold of this place, why he took so damn long to come see me, how he is, if…if he’s…alright, but I see his eyes, and all of my questions die. I see his fingers tighten around an unsheathed sword, until his knuckles turn white, and I know this isn’t merely a visit.
“Is that for me?” I ask, inclining my head towards the sword. “Come here to finish what your mother started?”
He pushes off the wall, walking towards me and when he peers down, his face is white with a fury too vast for me to bear. I buckle under the weight of it, leaning back in the chair to hide from it.
“What happened?” Kier says, his voice strained, and I’ve never seen him look so weary, so haggard, so…cold.
“I…” My voice breaks. “There was…” I’m breathing too fast, speaking too slowly. I swallow and begin again. “There was a bouquet and…and the note. And an invitation to the grove. Stargazing. It was in your writing. I…thought it was from you.”
The air between us grows taut, so tight, if he flicked his sword, he could cleave it in half. “My men have ransacked your room, Jessamine. All they found, to my fucking surprise, were letters to and from Atticus.”
I bite my bottom lip when it starts to shake. “That can’t be right. I burned the notes and only wrote to him once—”
He snarls at me. “You WHAT?!”
His rage slams into me, knocking me back into my seat and I flinch, raising my hands to cover my ears when he roars at me, a sound filled with fury, pain and betrayal. “I READ THEM! EVERY FUCKING LETTER! You were going to OPEN my gates to HIM! Have him murder my family out of spite!” He punches the wall behind me, and sand pours in from the ceiling, and then, a hoarse sound rumbles from deep in his throat. “You said you hated me.”
He hurls something at me and a roughened up note lands on my thigh. I stare at it and cold sweat breaks on my skin. “This is…I…” I thought I’d burned it in the hearth. It was a nasty draft I’d written and considered too dramatic and unbelievable. I crush the parchment. “This isn’t what it looks like. I was trying to help!”
“HOW BLOODY CONVENIENT! You make plans to kill me and rule by the enemy’s side, mate with the bastard whose men tried to rape you, and that’s supposed to fucking help me!” He is suddenly before me, lifting me by my collar and I kick at him when my feet come off the ground. “Tell me,” he whimpers, shaking me like a ragged doll. “Am I your pawn as well? Will you use me and discard me when you decide I’m no longer of use?”
When I don’t respond, because I need to get a breath down, he yells, “TELL ME!” and his voice is a boom in the chamber.
“Use you? When have I ever? You doubt me, but you couldn’t possibly think ill of your mother who poisoned you!”
He drops me abruptly, and I scramble back, putting as much distance as I can between us. My legs wobble under me, and I keep close to the wall to stay up as I tell him everything. Atticus’s offer, Renae’s notes, the poison, her threats, sneaking out to get the note to Atticus, my plan to deceive him into freeing Lloyd and how I planned to turn on him. I’m near tears when I’m done explaining, but I don’t think I have it in me to weep. My body feels foreign. Weak.
Though, it does nothing to stop the dipping motion I feel in my stomach when Kier stares at me, long and hard, and rather than accuse me of lying, he only asks quietly, almost tiredly, “Why didn’t you tell me? I asked you, and you told me you didn’t know. Why lie to me like that? You thought I couldn’t handle it?”
“Why?!” I echo, befuddled. I dare one step forward, and then another. “If I’d told you your mother poisoned you and was trying to actively kill you, you would have believed me? Imprisoned her? The same woman whose crime you hid from the world? From me? You have no right to point fingers at me. You tell me no harm will come to me. It sure did, and I defended myself. I lived and I do not regret it. If you want me dead for staying alive, then you know where to stick your sword.”
All I get is a cold stare. “How do I know you didn’t kill her for Atticus? For revenge? How am I to trust you after that?” He points at the letter. “You still reek of her blood and fear.”
“Trust?” I taste the word and spit it out with disgust. “I’ve never bet on you trusting me. I am sorry for your loss, Kier, and even sorrier my father didn’t get to do it himself—”
His sword flicks under my chin, awfully close to my throat, and Kier lifts my head higher to stare into his depthless eyes that seem to expand the more I peer into them. “Hold your tongue, Jessamine. My patience is worn too thin today.”
He says that with hot hostility, but his eyes are scanning my face and body for injuries. “And mine hasn’t?” I demand, refusing to be distracted or fooled by the illusion of his eyes lingering on my mouth. The mouth he seems to now hate very much. I lift my chin, staring pointedly at the sword. “Have you come here to kill me, Kier?”
His stare is so potent, it feels like a caress and something more savage. Chaotic. With unnerving calm, he lowers his sword from my chin. “No, never,” he breathes, and then, he swings his sword at me.
I bite my tongue to keep from screaming when the tip of the blade hacks down the front of my dress. It falls around me, leaving me in my undergarment. I hug my chest, furious, but Kier’s suddenly moving like a starved wolf, lunging for its prey, and I’m too stunned to dart out of the way when our lips collide.
Arousal, sharp, intense and burning floods through me, and my body reacts so strongly, my head spins. His arms are around me, strong, certain, safe, and tears spring to my eyes…and I don’t know why my fingers are fisting his black clothes, when all I want to do his bash his head against the wall.
I clutch his cheeks and he grips my waist. My lips slant over his frantically and I taste tears. He’s…crying, I realize, when he sighs softly into my mouth. And because I’m suddenly distracted by this, I barely notice the path his lips trail down my neck. His kisses to my cheek, my jaw, my throat grow deeper. Grow harder. Grow sharper.
It’s passionate and my insides are boiling.
And then, it starts to hurt. And hurt. And hurt. His teeth are deep in my neck, and his fingers are around my wrists, holding them against the wall. I cry out, knees failing me as something primal locks into place inside me. I thrash against him, clutching his shoulder to push him off, but all I do is hurl him closer and bare my neck further for him.
His hips rock into mine and his knee rubs against my heat. I hiss and pant, light bursting in the back of my closed eyes, and his teeth are around, his tongue caressing and lapping on the ache, until all are strings being pulled inside me. I sigh softly, collapsing in his arms as relief and climax takes me at once.
When I can stand, I fall back, staring at him wipe my blood off his mouth. “Why would you do that?!”
He sheaths his sword, his expression almost nonchalant, like he didn’t just mark me! “Eldris will escort you to your new chamber.”
I draw back, irked, angry. I point at my sore neck. “What am I supposed to do with this?!”
Kier shrugs. “Not my problem.” He actually turns away from me, and stops mid stride, throwing over his shoulder. “Oh, and Darrock’s here.”