Garden of Serpents (The Demon Queen Trials #3)(61)

My hunger for him would never be satiated. When I ran my hand down his hard, muscled body, the look in his eyes told me he was at war with himself, too.

I kissed him, taking his lower lip between mine. His fingers slid down, tightening on my ass. He pushed my hips against his length and groaned, a desperate sound that made my nipples tight. I needed my clothes off, our bodies sliding against each other.

I’d become a monster, turned the world into ashes around me. I’d made people burn. And I needed primal, animalistic sex to forget it all.

Agonizingly, he pulled away, his muscles tense as he lay flat on his back.

“You’re not ready, my queen. Slow and steady, love. Almost there.”

Orion kept denying me what I needed. I was about to rip off my clothes again, but I felt him curling into me, his hand cupping my face. My eyes were growing heavy, my body limp. He was using magic on me—a different kind of Lilu magic. We were creatures of the night, of sex—and sleep.

Erotic dreams filled my mind before I could say another word.

Soon, I knew, I’d be getting everything I wanted from him.





34





ROWAN





I woke by myself, to a room streaming with light. Orion’s room.

For the first time in days, my muscles felt imbued with energy, my thoughts clear. I jumped out of bed and looked down at myself. Orion had dressed me fully in sweatpants and a long-sleeved shirt, which made me smile. This outfit was for him, not for me—so he could restrain himself.

I crossed to the window and opened the shutters to look out at the garden. Immediately, sharp hunger gripped my stomach. I was starving. When I sniffed the air, my mouth watered. Was that baking bread? And something with cream? Potatoes? Butter?

Gods, I needed to eat, or I’d lose my mind.

I pushed the door open and raced downstairs. Before I reached the bottom, Orion swung around the corner from the kitchen into the stairwell. He grinned up at me. “You’ve returned to us.”

“I’ve never been this hungry,” I said, salivating at the scent of food.

I glanced hopefully at Amon, who was cooking something in front of an expansive stone hearth. He nodded at the table. “Clam chowder?” he asked.

“Oh, God, yes.” I sat at the wood table, and Orion slid bread and butter across to me, then filled a glass of water.

My throat was dry as sand, and I drank it down. As Amon ladled chowder into a bowl for me, I attacked the fresh bread, slathering it in butter. Curls of steam rose from the bread, and the butter melted immediately. Salt and fat melted on my tongue…

Orion sat across from me at the table, his eyes glinting with amusement. “Take it easy, Rowan. You haven’t eaten in almost a week.”

The bread was gone.

The chowder—thick with cream, potatoes. Heavenly. More bread.

Orion touched my hand. “If you eat too much too quickly, you’ll make yourself sick.” It felt very much like something he’d been saying, something that had annoyed me very much over the past week.

“Always with the restraint,” I muttered.

Sunlight streamed in through the kitchen windows, over clean white walls and a terracotta tiled floor. Slowly, the memories from Sudbury started trickling back to me.

I leaned back in my chair. “I was out for a week?”

A smile ghosted over Orion’s lips. “We’ve been waiting for you to recover. I have something planned for the moment you’re better.”

I shook my head, my brain scrambling to keep up. “Wait. How did the trial end?”

He inhaled deeply. “I returned with the grimoire and you in my arms. The crowd was waiting for us, and they saw us return with the grimoire at the same time.”

So he was still king.

As if hearing my thoughts, he added, “I announced that we would rule together. A king and queen in the City of Thorns. And if you’re feeling well enough, tonight, you can address your subjects at the festival.”

“What festival?”

He beamed at me from across the table. “A Lilu celebration to commemorate the triumphant return of our people.”

My eyes widened. “You found them? Already?”

“It only took a few days,” said Amon.

“Traditionally,” said Orion, “the Lilu celebrations involve a human sacrifice, usually a prisoner dressed up as a mock king, and we tear him to pieces with our hands and consume his flesh.”

I gaped at him. “Can we just do, like…a taco truck, maybe?”

“But since we’ve already killed all the demon hunters,” he added quickly, “we can consider the spilling of mortal blood already completed.”

I had a feeling he was trying to placate me, and that if I weren’t here, he’d just go with the original plan. “Sounds like a fun festival.”

The afternoon light gilded his beautiful face, bathing him in warmth. “Also, traditionally, the king publicly mates with his lover during the celebration,” he murmured. “It symbolizes the primordial coupling of light and dark.”

This was all a far cry from the two college parties I’d been invited to, with keg stands and red Solo cups.

Wait a minute—was I more like the mortals than the Lilu? My mind was churning, roiling, trying to keep up with everything. The world seemed to be moving in fast motion suddenly, and there was still so much I didn’t know about Lilu culture.