Garden of Serpents (The Demon Queen Trials #3)(38)

Orion returned to the bedroom clad only in a pair of black boxers, his tan, muscular physique on display. My gaze swept down to his abs—then lower. From the looks of it, maybe he was as painfully aroused as I was.

“I’m going to release you and carry you to the bath,” he said.

“I can walk,” I protested weakly.

“Suit yourself.”

With a flick of his wrist, the coils holding me captive dissolved into thin air. I curled into a ball before stretching like a cat, twisting my back in every direction it could twist. If he wasn’t going to give me what I needed, then what I really wanted was some alone time. But he had warned me that too much sexual pleasure was dangerous. And clearly, it was time for me to start heeding his warnings.

“Promise me you’ll be more careful with your magic,” he said quietly.

“Oh, I promise.” I swung my legs off the bed, then stood to walk to the bathroom adjoining his room. I made it about two steps before I promptly collapsed.

Orion was close enough to catch me before I hit the floor, flinging an arm around my lower back. He scooped me up and carried me to the bubbling, lavender-scented water.

“Not there yet,” he said as he gently slipped me into the tub.

The water was divine, and it helped to take my mind off my sexual torment. I surveyed his bathroom, which was as neat and clean as everything else he inhabited. The white tiles and the marble sink gleamed, and sunlight spilled through the diamond-shaped windowpanes. Neat piles of white towels were folded on a mahogany table, and a mirror hung on the wall above it. In the reflection, I watched Orion behind me.

He dipped a white ceramic mug into the bath. “Tilt your head back.”

I did as he instructed, and he poured water over my head, careful not to let it splash into my eyes. On the forest floor, I’d been covered in dirt. Now, Orion washed my hair, massaging my scalp to clean me off. In the hot water, my skin started to go pink.

If you’ve never had your hair washed by somebody while you luxuriate in a hot bath, I highly recommend it, even if you can’t find a sexy incubus to do the job.

I relaxed under his expert hands and let the scalp massage become a shoulder massage, then a foot massage, and before I knew it, his face so close to mine that I could feel his breath warming the side of my cheeks. Whenever he touched me, his fingers played my body like a concertmaster on a Stradivarius.

But the more I healed—and the more that clarity returned—the more a disturbing thought started to worry at the back of my mind.

I’d fucking exploded, hadn’t I?

“Orion, what happened? How much did I destroy?” I asked.

“It’s fine, love. You just took out a whole bunch of old oak trees.”

“Shit,” I muttered under my breath. “But everyone was okay?”

“No one was caught in the blast.”

“Thank the gods.” My body relaxed, eyes drifting closed as steam curled around my body.

Gods, it was comfortable in here.

My eyes started to drift closed, my muscles turning to jelly. Orion must have noticed, because the next thing I knew, he was wrapping me in the towel and scooping me up. He carried me back into his room and laid me on his bed. He didn’t seem to mind that I was making his sheets all damp, and I was too tired to worry about it. I curled up in his covers, delighted to have the smell of burnt cedar—his smell—all over me.

My breath slowed, and I pulled his covers up over my shoulders. The last thing I felt before I drifted off was his arm wrapping protectively around my waist.

But in a surprisingly gentlemanly move, Orion was sleeping on top of the covers, and I was below.





*



I woke up to the sound of a woman’s voice filling the room. I blinked at the sight of the setting sun outside, and I tried to make sense of my surroundings. When I looked down at myself, I saw that someone had dressed me in a white nightgown and underwear.

Bleary-eyed, I blinked at the window—a sunset streaked with periwinkle and rose. I thought I’d slept a full day, and I sat up to drink the water someone had left on the bedside table.

I was in Orion’s bedroom, where everything was in its right place. Slowly, the memories started to return to me—the blast of magic, the sexual torture of healing.

But who the fuck was this woman talking?

The fog of sleep cleared more, and I tuned into her words.

“…but Lenore was always an anxious raven…”

I startled, looking back at the bedside table. An old-fashioned cassette played a very familiar book.

How did he remember? We’d talked about this in the underworld. This was what my mother would read to me when I was home sick from school, or she’d play the audiobook for me when I couldn’t sleep.

Lenore the anxious raven, who had to learn to slow her breathing before she could sleep.

My mind shot back to a conversation I’d had with him, the things our parents had done to soothe us. It shocked me that he remembered.

My heart swelled when I thought of him finding this for me.

Then it constricted again as I realized I was running out of time to prepare for the trial. And that Orion would be doing whatever he could to throw me off.

If I didn’t get my shit together—fast—I’d lose everything.