Page 53 of The Death King

Talon seemed to feel the same way because after the door was shut, he paced in his sitting room, his muscular back to me, his arms rigid with anger at his sides. He released a heavy sigh as his fingers dragged across his mouth.

I remained against the wall, paralyzed by embarrassment and disappointment. My eyes left his back and moved to the floor, feeling the mark his lips had left on my mouth. They felt swollen from his bruising passion. I finally left the wall, my legs feeling weak like shafts of wheat that folded in the breeze, and I turned to the door to leave.

Talon didn’t ask me to stay. He left the sitting room and walked to his bedroom before he slammed both doors behind him.

I stayed put with my hand on the doorknob, listening to the silence that had replaced the heated kisses and the heavy breaths. It had all happened so fast, and no matter how wrong it was, I’d just let it happen. I finally opened the door and walked out, leaving the haze of scorching memories behind.

11

TALON

To the outside observer, I probably didn’t look angry as I sat there by the fire, my eyes on the dancing flames, my fingers resting against my lips. But make no mistake—an inferno raged inside me.

“One of those nights?”

My eyes lifted from the flames to look into the dark recesses of his empty soul. He hadn’t been there a moment ago, and like a phantom in the night, he appeared before me. To mock me with his taunts. To torture me with his mind games. A shadow couldn’t exist without the sun—but Bahamut could.

He sat in the other armchair, dressed in his dark blue uniform that looked like midnight. His eyes were serious, but his subtle smile was ready to play.

“You could say that.”

“I would ask what troubles you if I cared.” He sat back in the armchair, elbows on the armrests, the king of the dead facing the king of the living. “But I don’t.”

I looked at the fire again.

“What I do care about is the fact that you haven’t left this castle since we last spoke.”

“You’re watching me now?” I turned back to him.

He gave something of a shrug. “I hop in here and there.”

“I have a plan.”

“Plans are only as good as the opportunities to execute them.” He continued to stare, his eyes unblinking, still and hostile. “And that lack of opportunity is from you sitting on your ass waiting for pussy to fall on your dick.”

I stared at him as I felt the heat warm my left cheek from the fire.

He tilted his head slightly, waiting for me to unleash my ruthless temper.

But I kept it in check. “I’ve found a dragonian. Once she has what she needs, I’ll take back what’s mine.”

“And she needs your dick?” he asked like the smartass he was.

I let the question linger long enough until it disappeared. “Don’t question my determination. I want this more than you’ll ever know.”

He stared in silence.

I stared back.

He gave a subtle nod toward the door. “You have company.”

A second later, someone knocked on the chamber door.

When I looked back at Bahamut again, he was gone.

I left my bedroom and crossed the sitting room to reach the main doors. It was late, several hours after Calista had left my bedchambers, and I hoped she’d come back because I was the only thing that could extinguish the fire between her legs.

But I opened the door and came face-to-face with Natalie—again.