Page 33 of Shattered Jewel
My voice is barely a vibration, but she hears me.
Her fingers hover for a moment over my body before her defiance comes back in full force. “You’d have to try harder than that, in the state you’re in.”
A challenge. Fuck, how I love a good challenge.
“I don’t try,” I point out, noting her shiver, “I conquer.”
“All right, that’s enough, big guy,” Wilder says, approaching my other side. He holds up a bottle of pills and shakes it. “Time to go night-night.”
I wince as Wilder shakes the pill bottle, the rattle piercing my skull. Elara resumes her ministrations, applying salve to my wounds with a gentleness I don’t deserve. The sensation unravels throughout my body like satin ribbons, desire and pain intertwining until I can barely distinguish one from the other.
“Open up,” Wilder commands, holding out two white pills. I glare at him, rebellion at the forefront, but Elara’s touch on my jaw draws my attention back to her.
“Take them,” she murmurs. “I’m worried about you. You need to heal.”
I want to refuse, to pull her down onto the bed and lose myself in her, but the throbbing ache in my chest reminds me of my limits. I open my mouth but snarl until it’s only Elara who can place the pills on my tongue. Axe hands her a glass of water, which she brings to my lips, and the cool liquid soothes my parched throat.
As the medication takes effect, my eyelids grow heavy, the room blurring at the edges. Elara’s face swims in my vision, her features softening with concern. I fight the pull of unconsciousness. The meds aren’t working yet, but my efforts to fuck her are certainly taking their toll.
I snake my arm around Elara’s waist, pulling her flush against my bandaged chest. The movement sends a bolt of agony over the need, but I welcome it with the pleasure of having her at my mercy.
She gasps, hands splaying over the bloodstained fabric as if to prepare herself.
Wilder grimaces. “You’re going to feel that tomorrow, brother.”
I don’t care.
My fingers dig into the supple flesh of her hip under her shirt, a promise and a claim. Elara’s breath stalls, her pupils dilating with a heady mix of annoyance and arousal. “Cav, stop. You’ll hurt yourself.”
“Fuck my injury,” I snarl, capturing her by tangling my fingers in her hair at the back of her head. “I want to feel something other than this goddamn curse.”
Kaspian chuckles from his seat, the sound low and knowing. “Better give him what he wants, beastie. You know how obstinate he gets.”
I grind my hips against hers, my hardness evident through the thin fabric of the sheets. Elara grits her teeth, her lower back arching, unconsciously seeking more contact.
Axe shifts to the side of the bed. The tension in the room changes, morphing into carnal hunger.
Elara’s denial is on the tip of her tongue, but I silence her by yanking on her hair until we meet with a bruising kiss.
I pour every ounce of my frustration, my pain, my thirst into the clash of our mouths. Her resistance is fleeting. She melts against me, her fingers relaxing against my chest.
I break the kiss, panting, “I wasn’t about to pass out until I showed you what you were missing by stomping off last night, butterfly.”
I’m pretty sure the grin stays on my face as I lodge her against me and, at last, allow the nightmares to claim my mind.
Refusing to let her go.
Chapter 9
Elara
Ipace the hallway, boots thudding on the marble, my bones clanging with each step.
Cav’s bedroom door creaks open, and Axe emerges, his storm-gray eyes finding mine, turbulent and clouded. Kaspian and Wilder trail him, faces grim, Kaspian wincing as he adjusts his injured shoulder.
It took mere minutes for Cav to surrender to the pain medication and fall asleep. I slipped out of his unconscious arm-lock with more flexibility than I thought I possessed, Wilder promising to explain everything after we made Cav comfortable.
I thought my mother shooting Kaspian was bad. Now, after tending to Cav and pulling away the thick bandages on his chest to reveal that … that horror…