Serpent's Claim (Serpent's Touch 2)

AMIRA

“Why would you want to hurt me, Lord Adriyel?” I walked faster, not wanting to be alone with him.

When we finally entered the main hall, I exhaled with relief, glad to see the groups of courtiers mingling here and servants gliding between them.

“What I meant was that you should be careful.” Lord Adriyel reached to touch Kyllen’s ring with the hag’s stone on my finger. “This ring won’t protect you from every peril in existence. There are many people in this palace and beyond who may have ill intentions in regards to you.”

He stopped at the base of the grand staircase, concealed from the others by the pillar on its side. I stepped aside, too, to better see his face in the shadows.

“Who are those people? And why would they wish me ill?”

“Your favor with the king makes you a target.”

“The king hasn’t granted me any special favors,” I protested. My position was hardly better than that of a pet. Any servant at the palace enjoyed more rights and freedoms than I had.

“You sleep with the king. You take private meals with him. You are the only person in centuries to share his bedroom for longer than a night. You have the king’s ear. People will attempt to use you to further their agenda. Some may see you as a threat to the established status quo. You need to be careful.”

“Trust no one,” I repeated the words I’d heard so many times.

“Right.” He slid his hands up my bare arms, turning me with my back to the pillar. His palms felt warm on my chilled skin. A shudder rushed over me, and I tucked my chin into the gauzy folds of the veil gathered around my neck, just like I used to hide it in my scarf before.

He lowered his head to mine so close that our temples nearly touched. “In Lorsan to be safe, a human woman will always need the protection of a powerful man.”

I inhaled a lungful of his scent—sweet citrus and cool mist, pleasant but that of a stranger to me. My back pressed to the pillar, I couldn’t get away, not without physically shoving him aside. I wished my strength could rival his.

“I have a powerful man to protect me,” I replied. “The most powerful man in the kingdom—the king.”

“But how long will he be there to keep you safe?” His breath fanned over my ear. “The king will die way before you do. What will happen to you then?”

I closed my eyes, afraid to think about that.

Yet Lord Adriyel kept talking, forcing me to think. “The king will die without naming a successor. A war will break out. Do you really think a vulnerable human woman like you has any chance at surviving a gorgonian war? Alone?”

I had no answer to that. It’d been so hard just focusing on surviving each day, I’d hardly thought about what the next day would bring.

“You’re nothing but a plaything for the nobles, Amira,” he proceeded, revealing the ruthless truth. “A novelty, a curious toy to grab as soon as your current owner is gone. The best thing, the only thing, for you to do is to secure a new protector. Someone who can take care of you and defend you from all the others.”

He slid his hand up my shoulder and under my veil. His fingers connected with my bare neck.

“You need a man who is strong and powerful enough to become the next king,” he said in a hot, coarse whisper. A pure, undiluted hunger shone in his cool silver eyes—hunger for power and…for me.

He slid his other hand up my side, cupping my breast, covered only by the thin silk of my powder-blue dress. My nipple hardened at his touch, pushing against the flimsy material. Desire zapped through my body, making my next breath shaky and weak. I’d been hungry, too, famished by grief and starved for affection. But not from him…

He smirked at my body’s reaction, kneading my breast through my dress. The heat in his eyes surged higher. Cupping my neck with his hand, he yanked me to him.

My book slipped from my fingers, falling to the floor.

“You’d make the strongest of men lose control, little human.” He took my mouth in a kiss through my veil.

The sheer material offered no protection from his bold invasion, no escape from his heady taste. His strong arms crushed me to his chest, knocking the air out of my lungs and lifting my feet from the floor.

My arms trapped between us, I made no attempt to free them or to hug him back. My mind reeled. My thoughts went spinning into a twister. I felt like I was spinning, too, caught in a hurricane, dangerous and deadly.

My lungs burned with a desperate need for air. I trembled in his arms, and he mercifully loosened his hold on me, breaking his kiss.

“You need a real man, Amira.” He roamed his hands all over my body. One slipped into the deep cut-out of my dress on my back, cupping my backside. With his other hand, he shoved the dress strap down my shoulder, exposing my left breast.

He groaned, ducking his head to suck the tip of my breast into his mouth. I exhaled sharply as his fangs scraped my nipple. The sting of pain felt oddly invigorating.

“You need a man who knows exactly what to do with this tight, hot body of yours,” he growled against my skin. Trailing a finger down my spine, he slid it lower, between my butt cheeks. “A man who can give you exactly what you need. Not that dry log you’ve been spending your nights with.”

I had to end this, somehow. I needed to end it.

Gathering all my strength, I shoved against his chest, but he wouldn’t budge. The muscles in his arms locked, trapping me.

“Tantalizing, delicious little human,” he muttered, oblivious to my struggles. “Say the word, and I’ll be your protector.”

I managed to shift aside, away from the pillar behind me. I then jerked back and out of his arms. He lurched after me, with a feral expression, his senties undulating wildly—a tangled mess around his moon-blue face.

“I-I need to go, my lord.”

I grabbed my book from the floor and made a mad dash for the stairs. Running up the grand staircase, two steps at a time, I straightened my dress.

My heart thundered wildly when I returned to the king’s bedroom. The king was napping. His loud snoring reverberated between the walls.

I paced the room, unable to calm down.

Afraid to wake the king. I slipped into his wardrobe room, adjacent to his bedroom. Here, behind the closed doors, I could pace to my heart’s content between the carved trunks filled with fine linen and the lavishly embroidered robes hanging along the walls.

My mind was reeling. Desire still pulsed through my body, awakened by Lord Adriyel’s uninvited touch. For the first time since Kyllen, a man had stirred it in me. Instead of excitement, however, a dark, gaping hole of despair grew inside me.

Lord Adriyel could never fill the emptiness Kyllen had left behind because being with Kyllen had never been just about physical desire. It’d been so much more.

Yet Kyllen was no longer there, was he? All that remained was a shadow of him, coming to me in my unexplained visions and dreams.

A strong arm caught me around the middle, and I stumbled into an embrace.