14. Riordan's Pov
1932 Words
Riordan
I smile when I’m nervous. I’m never nervous. She makes me nervous.
She pokes into the eggs with a fork, not quite eating and pushing it around her plate. Her blue gaze is trained on me with distrust and I see her trying to figure out what the f**k I’m doing in her apartment. It isn’t hard to read her thoughts when she wears them on her face.
“You should eat,” I say, breaking the silence. “You’re leaner.”
The fork clangs loudly as she drops it in the plate and folds her arms, pushing up those damn breasts my fingers long to fondle. “What do you want?”
Begrudgingly, I raise my gaze from her hard n*****s peeking through the wet, black dress. “We both know the answer to that question.” Her full mouth parts and I raise a single finger, stopping her from coming to one of those conclusions that might earn me a bullet to the head—if the rumors about how many of my people she has killed in the last three day since she has returned is true. “But, I’m here for an entirely different reason.”
A perfectly arched brow rises. She doesn’t believe me. “And that is?”
I lean back in the chair and she tracks the movement like a cat stalking its elusive prey. She has guts. I’ll give her that, but I’d expect nothing less from my mate. “I've ensured that only those you've welcomed will cross the threshold of your home. A ward.”
Surprise flickers in those blue depths, but she masks it quickly with a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “Including yourself? I didn’t invite you in.”
These deadly waters I thread, all for the sake of a corrupted throne. Mother would find this appalling. She never did like the politics anyway. Scarlett much reminds me of her. I shove down the grief I have bottled up for centuries, refusing to let it consume me whole. A small smile curves my lips and her eyes drop to it, heat flaring in them.
Good to know I’m not the only one aching for my mate’s touch. “I am allowed to be selfish, am I not?”
Unimpressed. She looks at me like I am the dirt she wants scraped off her heels. “And in return, you would like for me to part my thighs and accept your…seed?” She practically vomits the last word like the thought of me f*****g her again makes her repulsed.
The beast inside me growls in displeasure. I don’t like that very much. I lean forward, bracing my hand on the table and it cracks a little from the pressure. “Why, you find that revolting. Have you let anyone else in there in the last two years? How many?” It isn’t me talking. It’s the lycan pride and possessiveness. I can hardly control myself, sitting across from her after searching like a raving mad man for the last couple of years.
I’ve had women in that time. More than I can count. And it will never feel like that night. I hunger, I thirst, I crave her taste. Yet, I sit still, keeping my hands to myself, even if it goes against my very nature. I laugh inwardly at the thought. And the humans say chivalry is dead.
Scarlett’s cheeks redden with anger and something dark and ancient flashes in her eyes. “Who I choose to f**k is none of your business. Has and will never be.”
The air thickens with even more tension than I thought possible, and the crown darts left and right, never quite leaving Scarlett’s side. I tense. It was never that way with my father. It was nothing but a deadly jewelry with the ability to burn those who held it without its approval. Never have I seen it so…animated.
Calming myself with a breath, I let it go, only because I smell no other male on her. None that matters anyway, even if I am quite sure I catch a whiff of Tiarnan there. “It became my business the moment I found you dying and chose to save you, disregarding the wishes of my brethren. But if it annoys you so—I hear humans have an odd sense of…privacy—I must apologize for invading it. But you must understand, Ms. Montogomery. I have quite the aversion to sharing what is mine.”
She pushes back her chair, tossing the towel from her wet hair. “I know what you’re going to say next, and I’m afraid I will not be returning to Avallen with you, or getting between your silken sheets to bare myself to you, Riordan. That being said,” she pauses and c***s her head at me. “See yourself out.” I don't miss the way my name rolls off her tongue in that accent and I have to envision my father's face to force my growing erection limp.
I do believe I am being dismissed. I should be angry. They say that amongst the four sons of the late king, I have the worst temper, only because I am the gentlest. Yet, I am in awe of this woman who is surely kicking me out of her home. For the first time in years, I smile, not because I am anxious. On the contrary. It is the first time I am confident I didn’t make a mistake in turning her and tying our destinies together.
Rising to my feet, I walk around the table. Slowly. Her heart races—I can hear it. Her pulse pounds and her blood rushes, the smell tantalizing enough to make my canines ache to taste it again. But her face remains stoic. “You’re running out of time and options. Refusing us only puts you in more danger and believe me, rumors are circulating at Avallen about your weapon preferences, after what you did to Fionn.”
Pride grows within me at how much she has grown since I last saw her. How that fire in her eyes burns only brighter. I was beyond pleased when the news of Fionn’s encounter with her reached my ears. It had quietened the fucker’s usual boisterous comments of precisely what he would do when he got his hands on her. Last I heard, his palace has been closed off, the security tripled to hide the horrible truth from Avallen.
He’d been bested by a woman.
My woman.
“You’ve been lucky,” I murmur, getting distracted by the wet strand of hair sticking to her cleavage and I stop walking, leaving a healthy distance between us because I am unsure I can keep my hands off her if I take even half a step. “Getting attacked by one at a time. Your speed will do nothing to save you if you are cornered by a pack of wolves or a group of vampires. Or even worse, those bloody winged fools.”
She lifts her chin. “Then I’ll use the crown, just like I did that day.”
My lips kick up in a smirk. “Because that worked fine for you today. You must know that the Goddess never directly interferes in these matters. She moves with pawns, influencing the outcome of events from the start, altering lives only when it pleases her, but in the face of real danger? She merely prefers to observe. Are you strong enough? Are you worth her time and attention?”
The woman looks to the crown, the question in her eyes clear and I assume it speaks to her because she is now glaring at it like she wishes to burn it. “I’m not returning to Avallen.”
I nod. “I wouldn’t have warded your home if I was intent on taking you back.”
I have managed to make her surprised again, but she is quite intent on hiding it, masking it with a shrewd look that makes her lips, pale from the cold, pucker. “I get it. You’re going to do it here? Now?”
It is my turn to pause. “Do what?”
“f**k me.”
My d**k rises in attention to the command and I shift, hiding it from her. “No, Scarlett.” My voice is huskier than I intend and I clear my throat, looking at everywhere but her. “You may think me capable of the most despicable things, but never that. I will not touch you unless you want me to. Even if you do, now.”
Embarrassment colors her cheeks, turning them rosy. “What exactly do you want, Riordan? I don’t believe you’ve come here only to irritate me.”
A retort rests on the tip of my tongue, but I discard it when she starts to walk away. “Use me.”
Scarlett halts, her shoulders tensing as she turns to look at me. “What?”
I close the distance between us and she stills when I raise a hand to her heart, letting my palm rest over my mark on her. “I get awoken at night by your anger. Your pain. Your fear.” Something in me cracks as I gaze down at her. So small. So fragile. It doesn’t matter that in a few years, her blood will stop bleeding red, turning into a mix of ichor and black. She wasn’t born like us. She’ll always have her fragile human heart. She’ll always feel too much. She’ll always hurt.
“I did this to you by deciding to turn you. Let me fix it. You need protection? I’ll provide it. Vengeance for your father’s death, for the pain you’ve been caused? I’ll be the tool you need. A pillar to lean against? I’m well built for it.” I test waters by letting my fingers slide up her cold skin, marred with a scar of fangs that wasn’t there two years ago. I’d find the fucker who touched her if I didn’t know that she already killed him. Long, thick lashes flutter as I cup her neck, tilting her head gently so that all she sees is me.
Her pupils dilate and she blinks rapidly before taking a step back. “Don’t touch me like that.” Her voice is breathy and her scent in tinged with arousal. “And what will you gain from this arrangement?”
I smile. “Seven days. Every month. You give me a chance to…” I wonder what the humans consider the modern term for courting is and when I don’t recall it, I continue anyway. “Court you. Show you Avallen on its best days. It might seem different but my world is just as beautiful as yours—when your life isn’t in danger. You give me a chance to show you who I am and after that, you decide if you still want nothing to do with me.”
Her lips purse and I see the gears in her mind shifting, which is more than I can say for what I’d initially expected—a bullet in my head. But she must be desperate because she hasn’t said no. Call me a bastard for taking advantage of this situation, but I must have her by my side.
“One day,” she says after a moment.
“Five,” I counter.
“Three.”
“Done,” I grin.
- Writer
