A Kingdom of Blood and Betrayal (Stars and Shadows #2)(14)

The food was as delicious as it had been since I arrived, and I stuffed bite after bite in my mouth as the words Mina had said rolled through my mind.

The smell of whatever oils Mina dropped into the bath coated my room, and I relaxed almost instantly.

Evren had brought me here. He had tricked me into thinking we were something that we aren’t, but I couldn’t deny the fact that for the first time in a long time, I felt safer than I had in years.

I was supposed to be in a place that I had been taught to fear my entire life, yet I felt safe.

“It’s ready for you.” Mina wiped her hands on her long cream skirts before pushing her hair out of her face.

“Thank you, and thank you for lunch.” I nodded down to my empty plate. “It was delicious.”

“You’re welcome, child. Now I have other things to tend to, so get in that bath and clear your head.”

I smiled despite her gruff, demanding tone. I liked Mina. A lot. She was everything I had wished my own mother to be—kind and caring.

She was so many things that my mother wasn’t.

“Yes, ma’am.” I shoved the last bite of bread I still held into my mouth as I passed her, and she pulled the door closed behind me.

I tugged the shirt over my head before slowly lowering my trousers, and I stared at myself in the long, gilded mirror that sat in the corner of the room. Steam was clinging to its surface, but I could still see the scars that littered my body.

Rage consumed me as I was flooded with the memories of who had given them to me. Their venom, malice, and thirst for power were scarred along my body so carelessly.

Scars that were now marked with Evren’s magic. He had branded me, more than just physically, and I ran my fingers over my thigh as I remembered what it had felt like to have him cover their marks on my skin with his own.

My body responded to my own touch, but nothing like the memory of him could evoke. Every time he touched me, I became engulfed with everything that he was. He made me overwhelmed. He had me clinging to desperation.

He reduced me to a woman who would beg him for anything he was willing to give me.

I pressed my fingers into my scar, his black magic and my own starlight mixing against my skin, and I took in a shuddering breath as I slammed my eyes shut. His touch had been firm where mine was soft, his hands always so sure and skilled.

I imagined that my own were his. I envisioned the things he would say, the words he would whisper while I fell apart under his touch.

Evren didn’t need to lift a finger to cause my demise. It was his wicked tongue that would do me in.

I was haunted by the things he had said before he left my room only a couple days before, words that had tortured me ever since. I forced my eyes open, staring at myself and the way my hand was slowly snaking up my thighs.

I tried to imagine what Evren saw when he looked at me. If he were here now, what would he do? What would he demand of me?

My heart hammered in my chest, and I pressed my hand at the apex of my thighs as an ache began deep within me.

I stared into my eyes for a long moment, the two colors as at war with one another as the thoughts that were racing through my mind. I moved away from the mirror and pressed my fingers against the side of the large tub. The copper was warm from the water that waited inside, and I slowly dipped my toes in before sinking under fully.

The heat of the water caressed my skin, teasing me with memories of my mate doing the same, and I pressed my head back against the edge of the tub. I tried to think of anything. Of my mother, what Queen Kaida would do, of what my future held, but every thought slipped back to him effortlessly

So, I sank deeper into the water, and I allowed myself to think of nothing else.

Shame filled me as my fingers skated over my skin and down my stomach. I clamped my eyes closed and let myself to imagine that the magic-stained fingers that now touched me were his instead of my own.

My fingers trembled as I pushed them lower and slid two fingers through my sex. As soon as I touched my small aching nub, my stomach clenched in pleasure and a whimper passed through my lips.

Evren would have swallowed the sound with his mouth. He would have demanded that I give him more, that I begged him for what I wanted, and I knew that I would have given it to him.

If he was before me now, I would have given him anything he wanted to make him destroy this ache that constantly lived inside of me when I thought of him.

I slowly rolled my fingers over my nub, and I could feel the rise of pleasure building inside of me. I was so on edge that it didn’t take long. A few strokes of my fingers and constant thoughts of Evren were all I needed, and I found myself gripping the edge of the tub with my other hand as I pressed my head back and bit down on my bottom lip.

I thought of him and nothing else, and for a moment, it was as if I could feel his magic floating against my skin, caressing me and coaxing my pleasure from my body. I focused on that feeling and chased it with my own fingers against my sex, and I couldn’t stop myself as I cried out his name.

My pleasure had become his and his alone, and my body knew it even when he wasn’t there to command it.

My release hit me, and I clamped my legs down around my hand as it became too much.

I opened my eyes and gasped at the black magic that filled the room. My magic. I hadn’t even realized that I had allowed it to come to surface let alone slip through my fingers that were far too busy chasing thoughts of my mate to notice my own power.