For a moment, I just knelt there, pausing in admiration of the sweet curve, the soft blush of the skin, the thick upward slant. I kissed the side, and felt him leap. Slid my lips along his length and watched him swell behind my touch. Let my tongue glide over the silken head and reveled in the sound he made.
“Spread your legs,” I instructed softly, because he hadn’t moved, just kept looking at me with that same incredulous expression. But then the hard thighs moved apart, allowing me better access. And I took it, hands smoothing up tense legs to the taut muscles above, embracing him as I took him in.
And he felt good, God, so good. And warm, and solid and alive. I let my lips go where they wanted, giving to him freely what the fey would have taken by force. But I must have done something wrong, because he made a sound like pain when my mouth finally closed over him.
I looked up to see his head thrown back, his throat working convulsively. And yes, that looked like pain on his face. Or maybe not exactly pain, I thought, as he suddenly looked down, green eyes blazing into mine with an expression that made my stomach twist and my hands clench on his thighs.
His body was silently urging me to hurry, but I didn’t listen. Instead, I let my hands cup the velvety skin farther back, discovering globes so soft, so warm, almost hot, and so heavy, that it was impossible not to roll them between my palms. So I did, and felt him tremble.
I was, too, but I didn’t care this time. It was unimportant next to massaging the velvet of his body, gently at first, and then harder and rougher, feeling it tighten under my touch. Next to letting my tongue glide over the silken head, teasing the tender slit. Next to hearing him swear when I started to pull.
And there was something about that sound that drove me the rest of the way into madness. That had me grabbing the taut, sleek mounds behind him, pulling him hungrily against me. That had me suddenly trying to take in all of him, every silken inch.
It wasn’t remotely possible, but I found consolation when I pulled back, tasting the fullness of him, feeling him slide forever over my tongue. Until only the smooth head was still between my lips, allowing me to tease it, bathe it, suck it, suck it, suck it, until he was gripping my hair, was thrashing around, was staring down at me, wild-eyed and desperate, and very, very confused. As if he still had no idea what was happening.
Isn’t it obvious? I wondered, and swallowed him back down.
Electricity prickled over my skin, and the warm wind I’d been feeling abruptly increased, howling in my ears as something built in the background of my desire, something unexpected, something huge—
That didn’t matter, because nothing mattered, except the power to make him shiver and shake and cry out, except the desperate sounds he made as I pushed a little farther each time, taking more of him than I ever had, taking everything, eagerly, hungrily, so hungrily.
Until, finally, finally, I somehow held all of him, his complete length buried inside my warmth, my lips closing on the root of his body—
And God, the sound he made!
I looked up, meeting his eyes, and that electric tingle became a lightning burst, flashing across my vision. Something lifted my hair, tightened my body, sent goose bumps flooding over my skin. Something that was screaming toward us now, like a runaway train, or a tidal wave tearing toward a beach—
“She’s calling power!” someone said, just as Pritkin cried out, just as the wave broke over our heads, just as it came thundering and roaring and crashing—
And missing, because someone was dragging me away.
“No!” I screamed, kicking and fighting. “No! Let me go. Let me finish—”
But instead, the warm illusion shattered, disintegrating into a cold, cramped hallway, a guard’s arm around my waist, a snarling face in mine—
And an explosion that took out the door the fey had been guarding, wards and all. And sent it hurtling down the corridor, like it was made of flimsy plastic. Until it slammed into two more guards coming this way and threw them off their feet.
“You were right . . . about the fireball,” Pritkin said to me breathlessly. “Duck.”
“What?”
He pushed my head down and put a fist through the fey’s face behind me. At least, that was what it sounded like. I didn’t turn around to see, because I was being hauled through the door, but the restraining arm around my waist had gone limp and fallen away, so I assumed we wouldn’t be followed. That and the fact that I got a glimpse of the second guard, slumped against the wall as we ran over him.
Of course it wasn’t what was behind us that was really the problem.
A bunch more fey appeared at the end of the hall, and these were smarter. And quicker, because they dodged the fireball—the huge, corridor-filling fireball—that Pritkin flung at them like it was nothing. But the wall behind them didn’t.
They threw themselves out of the way, just in time, diving back behind the perpendicular hall ahead. And the wall they’d just been standing in front of simply . . . disappeared. Which would have been great—if the barracks weren’t behind it.
“Shit!” Pritkin said as a couple dozen fey looked up from cots and dice games, along with a guy with a towel wrapped around his waist, like he’d just come from a bath, his hair still dripping—
And then flying, when he dove for a weapon.
“Shit!” Pritkin said again, and shoved me through a wall.
I was confused until I realized that there had been a doorway to our right, one I hadn’t seen because my eyes had about a thousand other things to look at. And then another thousand as we ran through a series of dim, connected rooms, with soft draperies and pierced screens and low couches and delicate glassware. But no exits, which was a problem, considering the army of little cat feet pounding behind us.
“Shit!” P