As of this moment, I decide I’m over it. I resolve to put him out of my mind as I walk back to the small sleeping tent I’m sharing with Ilona on the main dwelling’s outskirts, passing the revelry still going on.
Ilona is still back at the family tent, so I was looking forward to just crawling into bed and going to sleep. Just as I’m about to pull back the flap, someone steps out of the darkness from around the corner. My first instinct is to go into defensive mode, but before my body even tenses, it relaxes when I see it’s Ronan.
It. Relaxes.
I relax when I see it’s Ronan.
What the hell?
I put on my fiercest glare. “What are you doing here?”
He saunters up to me, looking down with a cocky smile. “I thought you’d come to collect your prize for beating me?”
My skin flushes, but I lift my chin. “Queen Nimeyah already gave me my prize.”
And it was a good one. A wishing crystal that would make any reasonable wish come true.
“No,” he drawls with a censuring tone. “If you beat me in the arena, you get to fuck me.”
“That wasn’t really the bet,” I say with exasperation. “I believe you said you’d fuck me.”
“You didn’t say no when we were discussing it,” he points out. “And besides… I think your exact words were that I was a reward if you won.”
Damn it. I did say that, but only because I meant I would be the one winning and getting a reward, not necessarily agreeing he was a prize.
Which he’s not.
Okay, parts of him are.
“Ugh,” I exclaim in frustration over the conversation in my head.
“Come on, Eliana,” he cajoles, moving in a little closer. “Come back to my tent with me. Let’s celebrate your win. You’ll see I’m a good sport at losing.”
“But you hate me,” I blurt, wanting to just get to the point.
Ronan frowns as if something just struck him, and he tips his head slightly. “But see… I don’t hate you. That’s odd.”
“Yes, it’s odd. It’s not natural. It goes against thousands of years of mutual loathing. There are loyalties we must observe, families to appease, and we can’t just be selfishly—”
My words are cut off as I’m suddenly in Ronan’s arms and his mouth is melded to mine in a fiery kiss of longing. Damn it all to hell, but I immediately succumb with my hands diving into his thick hair.
His hands go to my ass, fingers inching up the dress I’d put on after my bath this evening. One digit presses through the material, catching me through the ass cheeks and I moan with need.
But something niggles.
We can’t do this.
At least…
“Not here,” I say as I tear my mouth away from his. “Nowhere near here. No one can find out.”
Ronan doesn’t respond, but I feel the pull on my belly as we’re bending distance. It’s a magical ability we have to travel great distances in a flash. It involves envisioning where we want to go, locking onto it, and then pulling it close. We bend the linear distance so we can step from one place right into another.
In this instance, Ronan had envisioned Brevala when he whisked us away from Faere. The Cernian Falls actually, the lake glistening silver in the moonlight.
It’s pointed that he brought us here, for he could have taken us back to Seattle. But Brevala would be safe for us tonight with everyone back in Faere.
I can’t tell if he’s making a statement that maybe we can somehow work things out, but it jars me enough that I pull back from his embrace. The moon is bright enough that I can see the consternation in his eyes as he watches me like a hawk.
“This is just not a good idea,” I say, cooler thoughts prevailing now that he’s not touching me.
“It’s a fucking great idea, and you know it,” he replies smoothly.
“Why? Because we’re great in the sack together?”
“Can you think of a better reason?” he retorts.
No. I can’t think of a better reason. But the thought of disappointing my family… hell, of perhaps angering them to the extent my wings could be taken, has me backtracking.
“I’m going back to Faere—”
He’s on me before I can even complete my sentence, and, somehow, he has my hands pinned behind my back and his body pressed so hard into mine that I’m bending backward. “Fight it inside your head if you want, Eliana. Hell, you can fight me physically if it makes you feel better. But you and I both know you want this as much as I do.”
“I don’t—”
“You do,” he talks right over me, bending me back a little further so his face is hovering over mine. The moonlight makes his green eyes glow and they’re utterly freaking mesmerizing. “Remember that time in Rome… you fought me then.”