Lair of Beasts [Book I in the Curse Of Blood Saga]

Chapter XXV - A Friend in Need

Cadeyrn eyed me suspiciously as I held out a crabapple to him, taking care to extend my fingers in line with my flattened palm, and offering him my most charming smile. But he stood imperviously out of reach and ignored my attempt to lure him forward for a scratch. He shot an unimpressed snort at me and lifted his cavalier head even higher, staring down his nose at me from a lofty height. I had been coaxing him sweetly for a while now and was starting to take the horse's rebuff quite to heart.

"Come here you dull-witted beast! I only want to scratch your head!" I was of a mind to throw the blasted fruit at him, but to my amazement he stepped forward and plucked the apple from my palm, crunching noisily on the flesh as I smiled triumphantly. "Ahh, so you will respond when I bluster at you. Tis duly noted, you ill-tempered savage," I winked.

I reached a steady but confidant hand up to his forelocks, rubbing him vigorously behind the ears and down his neck. This charger, in particular, was as infamous as his master. Thankfully Lucian was not known to bite unpredictably, as Caderyn was, so I kept my ministrations brief for I would as soon not incur another injury just to appease the horse's capricious whims — on the likely chance he decided to have a taste of my fingers.

"I do believe I've tamed you, Cadeyrn," I giggled as he leaned over the stall and snorted into my hair as if to disagree gently.

"You believe that if you wish," came an all too familiar, deep voice, "but plying him with apples and honeyed words will not ensure you his affections; I warrant it takes a little more than that to domesticate the beast..."

As Lucian entered my sphere, my core constricted with sybaritic warmth and my heartbeat accelerated into the habitual tempo it always assumed when my husband was near me — a chronic disorder that I had presumed would lessen the longer I knew him and the more I became accustomed to his presence. On the contrary, I had come to realize that he affected me more so now than he ever did before, notwithstanding the fact that we had now been married almost a month.

"You are wrong. He is completely enamored with my touch and has never surfeited on anything more to his liking." I grinned brazenly.

"Are we still talking about my horse, Aria?" 

I could feel Lucian at my back now, though he did not touch me. I shivered visibly as his whispered innuendo rolled deliciously over the skin behind my right ear. He did not need to touch me, for the hairs at my nape came alive suddenly and reached out toward him of their own volition, alerting me to his nearness, as though a thunderstorm were brewing. However, instead of cold air, the likes of which are always prevalent before a tempest unleashes its chaos, I was inundated with heat.

"You look tired, Aria. Are you not sleeping well of a night?" he said in a droll timbre.

"Verily I am not. Would that I did not have such a nocturnal sleeping partner." My smile grew all the more wicked at the thought of what I next would suggest. "Mayhap I should ensconce myself elsewhere tonight, so that I might better enjoy my slumber undisturbed." I turned in his arms to face him, bringing my arms up around his neck and threading my fingers through his thick, unruly curls. "And unmolested..."

"Unfortunately for you, madam, I can find no rest unless you are close by." With that, he brought his lips down and pressed them hungrily onto my own, pulling back only briefly to conclude, "Therefore, where you go, I too must follow."

Without further ado, Lucian pulled me into Hagan's stall, barely relinquishing my mouth, and when he did allow me breath, it was only to assure me that he had sent everyone away. I took him to mean that he had dismissed the farriers and grooms because of his planned seduction of me. I grinned as he angled my head back gently, using my long braid as a pulley, and grazed his teeth lightly over the base of my throat before he moved on to kiss me avidly behind my ear. He then swept his left thumb torturously over the hardened peak of my breast, drawing my breathless shudder for it was no less intense — and no less effective — for all the layers of cloth that lay between us.