“I guarantee if you don’t call your magic now, it won’t get any easier.” Angling out of the way, Vesryn ripped her trousers off with an impressive fluid motion, discarding her pants on the floor. His lips quirked. “I’ll make sure of it.”
Serenna whimpered from her crippled position, panicked excitement stealing her words as the prince kneed her legs apart.
“Summon your power,” he repeated, face drifting down between her thighs.
Serenna sucked in a breath, pulse jumping when he lowered to kiss the inside of her bared leg. She ineffectively tugged against the shadows, trying to arch her body toward the sensation of his mouth skimming across her skin.
All she could manage was releasing a frustrated breath, unable to even perceive her Well. “I can’t.”
“Then try harder,” the prince said, his teeth scraping against her, traveling closer to her thin undergarments.
The rending spiraling around Serenna’s wrists pulsed like a heartbeat. A sudden surge of pleasure undulated from the tips of her ears to the ends of her toes.
Squeezing her eyes shut only sharpened her focus on Vesryn’s lips skimming up her thigh. A tide of warmth pooled in anticipation of him reaching his destination. After several half-hearted attempts of tunneling inward to sense her magic, Serenna admitted defeat. “I can’t do it.”
The prince’s fingers lazily rotated a feather-light graze against the remaining garment. “Why not?” Pulling on the fabric, he rubbed the material against the seam of her entrance.
Serenna stifled whatever pathetic noise tried to flee from her throat by grinding her teeth, unable to conceal the evidence of how he’d effectively coiled her into a jumbled knot. “You know why,” she snapped. The pressure from the prince’s teasing hand had her flesh throbbing with need, drenching the material between them. “Your face between my legs is hindering any progress I can make.”
Vesryn preened at the praise. “I’ll take that as a compliment.” Gripping the sides of her hips, he yanked her undergarments down with his teeth. Slices of rending slashed the fabric into ribbons. The prince lobbed the tattered remains dismissively behind him.
Serenna’s mind went blank when Vesryn tossed her legs over his shoulders before lowering his face. His emerald eyes shackled her to the bed as effectively as the shadows enveloping her. The prince had the audacity to smirk before diving between her thighs.
Serenna sucked in a hiss through her teeth as the warmth from Vesryn’s mouth merged with the dampness between her legs, blasting her with a bolt of pleasure. When his tongue stroked wickedly down her center, she threw her head back, blinded by stars.
All semblance of sense abandoned her as the prince’s tongue plunged into her core, curving inside of her. Retreating, he sucked that sensitive area, coaxing her body toward a euphoric peak. His ferocity had Serenna dissolving into eager moans, body throbbing in time with the stroke of his tongue.
Serenna's eyes flew open when Vesryn suddenly paused, the pounding pressure he’d built fading in the worst way. Completely bared to him, her cheeks flushed as his gaze locked on hers. It wasn’t her first time with a lover, but it was her first time with someone…like him.
Despite knowing what she felt through the bond, the prince studied her. As if waiting for any sign that she wanted him to continue or stop. The consuming way he looked at her only made Serenna redden further. If she could’ve moved, she would’ve been covering herself up.
“You don’t have to be shy,” Vesryn said, brushing the inside of her leg, his rough fingers kindling flames in their path. His cruel shadows furled, stroking the peaks of her breasts, shooting tingles of pleasure straight to her spine. “I’ve been wanting to do this since the first day you talked back to me.”
Serenna couldn’t help but laugh, her embarrassment evaporating. “You’re lying.”
“You know I’m not. I’ve always been curious how intimacy would feel with a bond.” One side of Vesryn’s mouth lifted. “Though I doubt my advances would’ve been welcome at that time.”
“And whose fault was—” Serenna gasped, clicking her teeth shut as the prince’s lips returned, clamping down on that bundle of nerves. He flicked and swirled his tongue around her entrance, rebuilding the tightness in her core.
Serenna sensed that his focus was entirely on her reactions. A coil of bliss knotted as he drew out her pleasure, release slowly gathering like an afternoon storm.
“Vesryn,” Serenna panted as he wound her tighter and higher, needing rougher friction than his current touch. The shadows restricting her from grabbing the prince or shoving herself further into him was an unforeseen torture. “Please.”
Vesryn emerged from between her legs. Loose strands of hair tumbled in front of his face, brushing his ruddy cheeks. His voice was hoarse with amusement when he answered. “I’m not letting you finish until you break out of this hold.”
Serenna’s jaw dropped along with her stomach. “What?”
Vesryn didn’t allow her any further protest. Arms hooked around her legs, he lifted her hips higher to plunge his tongue deeper, proceeding to devour her.
The prince’s mouth moved as he read how she reacted. Serenna now realized that he was reading the bond to use her body’s responses against her. As soon as he built pressure close to a devastating crescendo, he either slowed down, applied his tongue to the wrong places, or simply grinned at her, intentionally dissolving her release by withholding.
The stars-cursed bastard knew.
Frantic, Serenna knew she’d have no hope of blocking herself from the bond so she battered at her power, demanding that Essence answer her. Vesryn had previously used desire to pry out her force talent, but that emotion would be useless in shattering this rending hold.
Mouth working, tongue flicking along the center of her body, the prince drove Serenna to the cusp of release, again and again. Pressure spiraling low inside of her, she whimpered as he pushed her to the highest peak, anticipating that he’d let her vault over the edge.
Instead, Vesryn retreated, clicking his tongue. “Come on, Harpy,” he growled, shadows dancing around her. “You’re not even trying.”
Serenna’s pulse leaped as a sliver of darkness stroked down her slit with a sensation that she could only process as torturously pleasant. Desperate for a release, she trembled, twitching within the confines of her skin, fighting to push her body into his.
Serenna yanked in air, her core pounding with unsatiated arousal. It took her more than one attempt to speak. “How do I summon my power while you’re doing that to me?”
The prince dipped a finger inside of her. Serenna emitted something between a shriek and a moan when he curled his hand to reach her innermost wall. Her eyes rolled back into her head as the prince worked his fingers, stroking and teasing, his thumb joining to caress that sensitive peak of nerves.
Serenna shuddered with waves of pleasure before Vesryn settled her legs back to the bed. The prince inched up her body, trailing a wake of kisses over her chest.
“Separate your mind from your environment,” Vesryn whispered into her ear, his teeth grazing the point. “Like you do when assembling your mental barricades.”
Completely at his mercy, unwilling to slam a door against the pleasure he offered, Serenna’s words were a pathetic whine this time. “But I don’t want to.”
Moaning, she arched as much as the rending allowed when the prince stretched her with a second rough finger, the friction of his calluses crafting another round of bliss. Serenna’s knees shook, overwhelmed by the collective sensations of the prince’s shadows skimming over her body, his mouth sucking at her neck, and the friction of his fingers rhythmically pumping inside of her.
Vesryn’s lips swept over hers. Serenna released a shocked gasp against their tangling tongues when his shadows joined his hand, the combined pleasure fracturing her sight. As soon as her core started to flutter, the prince withdrew, reclaiming his fingers and magic.
Serenna ripped her lips away from his, screeching in frustration as he yanked her back from careening over the edge.
“You’re not going to win this,” Vesryn said, chuckling with more smugness than anyone had a right to possess. “Not when I can tell what you’re feeling through the bond.”
