To Bleed a Crystal Bloom by Sarah A. Parker

Imake it about two dozen steps toward the ocean before I’m swept up and tossed over Rhordyn’s shoulder, landing a blow to my stomach that knocks the air right out of me. Recovery proves difficult when every powerful stride he takes lands another assault to my gut, preventing me from drawing a sufficient breath.

We’re inside the castle by the time I manage to haul my lungs full. I let out a furious scream, pummeling his back with my fists and swearing like I’ve heard the guards do when they think they’re out of earshot.

He doesn’t slow, doesn’t even grunt ... as if he were cut from the very walls of this very castle. So I prepare to sink my teeth into a slab of solid back muscle.

“No biting,” he murmurs, flipping me off his shoulder and catching me in a cradled position. “Those teeth can do far more damage than you realize.”

“Put me down,” I bellow, shucking against his grip. I free an arm and tear my fingers down his shirt, popping buttons and clawing his skin.

All I get in response is a throaty rumble before my arm is pinned down the side of my body. “You keep at this,” he says with a deep, gravelly cadence, “and that pathetic excuse for a garment is going to fall right off you.”

I stop moving. Instantly.

The glint in his otherwise stoic stare tells me he finds a sadistic sense of amusement in my sudden compliance, which only serves to rile me more.

Choosing to look at anything other than his intolerable face, I glance around, realizing exactly where we are ...

Headed down the corridor I’ve walked a thousand times with hungry, scent-starved lungs and empty hope in my chest. A corridor that leads to only one place.

The Den.

My throat clogs, nerves on fire, gaze shifting to the line of Rhordyn’s jaw that looks sharp enough to split wood on.

To the caged look in his eyes.

A week ago, being carried down this corridor would have pitted me with a seed of anxious excitement, but that was before I learned about the lies. That was before he put a sword through Mishka’s heart and smothered us both in blood.

“Rhordyn ... I need you to put me down.”

His grip tightens, and my heart finds a berth in my throat.

We reach the door to his personal chambers, and I’m tossed over his shoulder again while he undoes the handle, storms inside, then slams it shut behind him.

I’m flung to my feet, and it takes four stumbling steps to gain balance, a task made far more difficult by the fact that I’m suddenly choking on the potent perfume of his scent. Layers upon layers upon layers of it diving down my throat and shoving my lungs full.

It snares me. Unhinges me.

Flicking my tangled hair back with an angry toss of my hand, I spin to face Rhordyn and freeze.

There’s something about the way he’s looking at me—a wildness that’s hunting every breath. Every blink. The flutter of pulse in my throat.

But it’s not just that.

It’s the way he’s standing over me, smothering my view so all I can see is him. So every breath I draw has come from his chest, and each release is consumed by the same.

I quickly realize I’m entirely out of my depth, and I have one of two choices: swim ... or drown.

“Cover yourself,” he grates out, and I only have a second to shield all my important bits before his hand whips out and strikes through several strips of Cainon’s gown, the movement so swift I barely feel a thing.

Scraps flutter to the ground while others cling to my wet skin, though Rhordyn’s too busy digging through his draw to pay attention to my half-naked state. A shirt is tossed at me before he begins to pace the room, back and forth in front of the massive bed.

His strides are long and violent, hands ripping through sodden, silver-kissed curls.

Figuring he wants me to put the damn top on, I peel the remaining few scraps of blue from my body before tugging his shirt over my head, but I’m snagged the moment I do, pausing with my head halfway through the hole.

Digging my nose into the soft, luxurious fabric, I draw a quiet breath through the fibers, letting my lids flutter shut ...

All I can smell is him.

He’s worn this recently, perhaps even slept in it.

This material has been wrapped around his body. Touched him in ways I’ve never been able to.

The realization spikes heat through my veins that spears right between my legs. My skin tingles, and I have to clamp my lips shut to stopper a moan while forcing the rest of my head free, features smoothing in an effort to mask the utter ecstasy twisting me up.

But Rhordyn’s not looking at me—at the hem that falls to mid-thigh or the sleeves hanging around my elbows. He’s too busy pacing like some tortured beast.

He glances down to his own ruined top as if he just remembered I gouged his chest, and he tips his head, muttering words to the roof that make no sense at all. Gripping the hem, he tugs it over his head in a single motion, revealing powerful bricks of muscle I can’t peel my eyes from.

But it’s not his fierce, statuesque beauty that has me staring. It’s the blood dribbling down his torso, drawing from four deep scratches that cut straight through segments of his silver-scrawled tattoo.

My tongue sweeps across my lower lip as I slide forward one staggered step—

“No,” he barks, and my gaze snaps up.

He’s still, pointing at me, the muscles along his jaw popped and prominent.

My head kicks back. “Stop talking to me like I’m some disobedient puppy!”

“If you were simply disobedient, we wouldn’t be in this mess,” he states, launching into another barrage of back and forth.

I sigh. “What mess, Rhordyn?”

“How many days did he give you?” he asks, avoiding my question altogether.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

He nails me with a glower that makes me feel naked despite the sheath of his top and the full-time mask I’m cursed to wear. “Days, Orlaith. How many?”

Ah, right.

I should have figured he’d be talking about Cainon. The only splashes of color in this entire room are the shreds of material lumped at my feet and the dark blue cupla shackling my wrist.

That, and the blood we both wear.

“He didn’t give me a time frame, you incredulous bastard.”

He stalks toward me, chewing up the space between us in four powerful strides. “Two things,” he growls, ticking off his fingers. “Baze isn’t deaf, and unless you can learn to do it convincingly, stop fucking lying to me.”

A test ...

I should have known.

I don’t waste time pretending to be remorseful. “Well, stop asking questions you already know the answer to!” I yell, cold, pissed, barely holding myself together, and so very ready to be done with this conversation. “And Cainon was just being dramatic, so let’s not jump to conclusions.”

His eyes widen, that violent aura sizzles with an entirely new level of chill, and I find myself glancing around his den for anything I can use as a weapon—something to prod him with to let him know I’m not here to be pushed around.

“No, he was being diplomatic. He’s had his eyes on Ocruth for years, and evidence suggests he’s simply been waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike.”

The statement has me tripping internally. Outwardly, I try to show nothing but stark confidence.

“You’re wrong.” I shake my head. “That’s not what this is about. He made a deal with you: use of his ships in exchange for me. He won’t back out of the trade and risk the cost of war with his two neighboring territories all for a couple days without his promised.”

Rhordyn’s eyes seem to solidify, and I swear the temperature drops. “First rule of politics, Milaje. Never show your hand unless you know exactly what you’re up against.”

I open my mouth to reply, realizing my mistake, but he’s already charging toward the far wall where a window resides. The glass is swung open, and he leans out, peering left and right ...

My brow pinches. “What are you looking for?”

He pulls back in, the dense coils of his hair now dripping fresh rivulets of water down his bare back, chest, and shoulders. “Support beams,” he mutters, storming down the line of the wall.

My frown deepens. “You said that in a very accusatory tone ...”

“Did I?”

He opens another window and shoves his head outside, pulling back in a second later and lumbering toward the door wearing an expression hard as slate.

“Woah, woah, woah ... where are you going?”

“To slay a Vruk.”

My stomach drops.

“And ... and what about me?”

He stops and gestures around the room with a sweep of his hand. “Make yourself at home. I’m going to suggest a nap. I could be awhile.”

He continues toward the door, and I don’t think.

I just act.

I launch after him, grabbing his arm in a feeble attempt to keep him here. But he whirls in a riot of muscle and might, snatching my wrists and pinning them behind me before he slams me against the door like I’m just as sturdy as he is.

All the breath pushes out of my lungs as his other hand wraps around my throat, tipping my head until I’m staring into wielded eyes that hold no mercy.

One squeeze could end me. I can feel it in the strong muscles shielding my front—in his aura and his confidence and the breath so brazenly assaulting me.

He tugs at my wrists, shoving my breasts forward, arching me against his form. My body responds to his nearness like I’m a shadow hinging off his motion. The puppet on a string he accused me of being.

I hiss in his face, trying to jerk free. But he pushes closer, harder; making my heat rage and throb as if to battle his frosty strike.

He clicks his tongue. “Don’t come at me with that fire, Milaje. Not unless you’re ready to be torn to shreds. And I don’t mean your body—I mean your fucking soul,” he says through clenched teeth, squeezing just enough that I feel his fatal strength wrapped around my throat. He nuzzles his nose into the side of my neck and whispers, “I mean that pretty heart you think is so bruised.”

“You know nothing.”

“No ...” the word batters my ear, his hand slipping from my neck and trailing around my back, where it settles atop the ladder of bones curled around my lung and heart. “I know too much.”

I freeze, all my fight dissipating as if one tiny movement could impale me with a deadly strike.

“These right here?” he rumbles, tapping my ribs with the tips of his fingers. “We’re both tucked beneath them. Stuck in this fragile cage together.”

“Then break out,” I plead. “Set me free, Rhordyn!”

His body seems to calcify around me, and for a moment I think the man might have finally turned to granite. Until his grip on my wrists becomes bone-bruising, his other hand spearing up to coil my hair around his arm and pull.

He tugs me taut like a loaded bow.

My mouth pops open, chin tipping to the ceiling, and Rhordyn’s forehead connects with mine.

The world around us stills, paling in significance to the mountain of man poured over me.

We’re nose to nose. Eye to eye. Lips so close, his chilled breath is spilling into me. “I’ll give you anything, Orlaith. Anything but that. Don’t ask again.”

The words are spoken hauntingly calm, as if his heart stopped beating a very long time ago.

Another stunted response.

Another dead end.

The back of my eyes sting, a lump swells in my throat, and all I want to do is cry. But I can’t afford to spend more tears on him.

Not now.

Not ever again.

“Why not?” I’m proud of myself when I manage to keep my voice steady. “Just answer me this one question, and don’t you dare answer with a grunt. After everything, I deserve a truth and you damn well fucking know it.”

Nothing. He says nothing. Just murders me with his silence again.

Which tells me everything—bleeding me in an entirely different way than the drops of blood I gift him nightly.

I close my eyes, severing myself in a way I can’t physically achieve. But then his grip slips from my hair, driving up to support the back of my head. His fingers spread, lacing through my thick locks and making me gasp.

He loosens a frosty breath that steals the fire from my cheeks. “Simple, Milaje. I refuse to live in a world where you don’t exist.”

My eyes pop open. “Wha—”

His lips bruise mine in an assault that steals my ability to speak.

Breathe.

Exist.

He melds me to his rampant will, my fire swelling to meet his ice as I give myself to the clash of teeth and tongues and lips.

We’re two oceans colliding in a battle for space. There are no winners; only chaos and desolation. Only blurred edges and the complete loss of one’s self. But at this moment ... I couldn’t care less.

He may be kissing me like he hates me, but I was forged by his acrimony. This is the only language I know.

He cleaves me apart with the spear of his tongue, spilling a heady rumble deep down into me, drugging me with his raw, hungry sounds.

I’m lost in a downward spiral of desperate, carnal need for the taste of him and the scrape of his teeth against my bottom lip, commanding me to surrender in a way that feels so basely primal.

He drops my wrists, and my fingers dive into his curls as his hands skate past the hem of my shirt, bunching it up around my hips and baring my behind.

Clawed fingers dig into the plump, prickled flesh, and he catches my bottom lip. Holds it between his teeth.

Growls.

I shiver from the base of my neck to the tips of my toes, hooked by his stare as I’m spread apart, his fingers skimming so close to that sensitive crease that’s immune to his lies. That remembers only the way his fingers swirled around my entrance, teasing ... coaxing ...

My lids flutter closed.

He snarls and takes my weight, wrapping my legs around his hips and slamming my back against the door.

Heat spikes at the apex between my thighs. Delicious, surging heat that makes me grind and grind and—

I groan, my mind a messy, instinctual thing that’s driven by one thing and one thing only ...

Him.

“You’re staying right the fuck here, do you hear me?”

His words pour between my lips like liquid chocolate, and I gobble them down, mind focused on my bare and exposed core flooding with another wave of hot want.

I can smell it—my desire for him to sate my body and unbridled mind. To take my pain and cleave it apart with a plunge of rampant pleasure. Because this world is cold and cruel and callous, and I just want to feel good for a bit. Feel close to somebody.

Close to him.

He carries me to the bed, his demanding mouth eating up my hungry moans, and I’m punched into the mattress, a motion which would have felt violent if he hadn’t fallen with me like a landslide.

I’m lost beneath him, entombed by his flexing might, drunk on his scent, his feel, his force ...

I jerk my hips in invitation for the steel-like bulge pressing against my inner thigh, aching for him to push at my entrance.

For him to dig into my body like he’s dug into my soul.

I weave my hands between the press of our bodies ...

Desperate.

Seeking.

My fingers barely brush his laces before he nips my lip and whips off the bed.

“Be good,” he states, making for the door without looking back. He’s pulled it open before I’ve even had a chance to blink or lick at the sore on my lip, slamming it shut behind him, leaving me sprawled on his bed with my legs spread and the cloying bouquet of my arousal thick in the air.

There’s the sound of a key sliding into place, and the clank that follows drops my heart into my stomach and rips me from the cloud he set me in.

No.

No, no, no ...

I scramble up, clamber toward the door on legs that barely remember how to work, then grip the handle and twist.

It doesn’t budge.

“Rhordyn!” I slam my hand against the wood, then my foot when he doesn’t answer. “Rhordyn! If you leave me locked in here, I’ll never forgive you! Do you hear me?”

No answer. Just the incriminating silence of an empty hallway. I can’t feel his presence near.

He’s gone.

It doesn’t stop me from screaming his name, over and over, until my throat is just as ruined as my pride. I punch the door until bone collides with wood and blood stains the grain.

But it’s not enough.

I keep going—fingernails gouging, foot swinging, hand slapping, shoulder barging until I’m empty and spent and the sutures of my sanity split.

You’re staying right the fuck here ...

Rhordyn’s haunting words ring like a bell in my ears, and my knees give out, colliding with the floor in a way that would probably hurt if I could feel.

But I’m lost. Numb and broken. My entire awareness tunneled down to the failure gnawing at my insides ...

He pillaged my weakness. Offered me a drink from his well and I gulped with greedy draws until I was intoxicated and mindless. Then, he tossed me down the hole and left me there with no way out.

Now all I can do is drown.