Three Trials (The Dark Side Book 2)(6)
My eyes grow hooded, and that uncontrollable desire spikes even more like I’m caught in a haze.
He closes his eyes like he’s savoring the taste, and my hands mindlessly go to his belt, undoing it like now he’s mine to have. His hands clasp around my wrists, halting me, and I look up to see his taunting smirk.
“If we could have you, I wouldn’t be so selfish. I’d make sure you were well sated before taking mine, and I’d make you crave me as often as possible. The fact that I’m not your favorite kills me. But because of that aching need to be your favorite, I know you’d be the end of us.”
He pushes away and starts walking, while I try to gather my senses. I shift back to my phantom form, still feeling the aftershocks of my first orgasm that wasn’t self-induced.
Who knew there were varying degrees of pleasure like that? Just a taste and I’m addicted.
“Truthfully, you’re totally my favorite right now,” I tell him honestly as we exit the cave.
He half groans, half laughs, a tortured sound that fills me with a weird sense of accomplishment.
He stares up at the cliff that bypasses the hiking trail.
“I’m the fastest climber of the four of us,” he says, excluding me from that grouping.
Obviously, he knows I’m faster.
“It’ll be quicker to go up,” he goes on, sounding like he’s talking himself into that conclusion more than explaining his logic to me.
He starts climbing, and I ask a reasonable question. “What if one of those bird-snakes shoots out and knocks you off? I might have set the bar too high with that fabulous first catch, but I’m not so sure we want to see if I’m a one-hit-wonder or not.”
He curses and laughs at the same time, straining his muscles as he heaves himself up quicker and quicker.
“Climb behind me several feet down. They seem to be attracted to your presence the most,” he says.
“Did you forget my fear of clinging to a mountainside? I was just going to zap up when you got closer.”
The ground rumbles, and I start climbing immediately. The rumbling shifts, and as if cued, the bird-snake shoots through me instead of taking Kai down.
Kai blows out a shaky breath as that scaly tail—the tails are the absolute worst—finishes slithering through me.
“Since you’re my favorite and gave me my first two-person orgasm, I’ll tough it out,” I grumble, closing my eyes as I start climbing slowly, not really needing to actually worry about falling so long as I don’t look down.
His masculine, reluctant chuckle accompanies his usual groan.
“I’m going to need you to stop talking about that, because I’m hard as stone, and you have no idea the temptation I’m battling.”
“My evil vagina is impressed with her powers of temptation,” I deadpan.
Two more bird-snakes pass through me before we reach the top. I zap the rest of the way there once Kai tells me he’s over the edge.
The other three men stand from their seats on the ground, and Ezekiel grimly gestures to the next leg of the trial.
A hellfire tundra awaits us, stretching as wide and far as the eye can see.
And there’s no way across.
Chapter 3
“We can go back down and into the forest, but it’s going to exhaust us, and who’s to say we won’t find the same thing on the other end of it?” Ezekiel asks, frustrated.
I look out, only seeing the black forest behind us and nothing beyond it. I’m assuming that’s the Devil’s trick.
“So we wait for a gift from one of the children, in other words,” Jude says on an annoyed breath.
I move to the edge of the fiery lake, bending low. My hand merely passes through the flames, and I try to think of the power I envied so immensely that Lilith wielded.
It crashed through me with such an overwhelming presence before it temporarily dried up the lake of lava then.
“I’m not volunteering to step in it this time,” Kai says bitterly. “I was the last sacrifice.”
Jude curses, moving toward the edge like he’s going to do the same stupid thing Kai did at the last trial.
“Stop!” I shout, and he does, but just barely.
“What if I can duplicate what Lilith did? I remember the power. I recorded the feeling.”
“Recorded the feeling?” Gage asks.
I nod. “It’s how I’ve learned to do things. I record the processes in my mind—like the clothing issue that started in the beginning. I pick apart the powers later. I even drew out acid on command today because I’ve been getting better and better since my last level-up.”
“Lilith has a lot more power than you,” Kai decides to point out.
A wave of envy washes over me again. I’m assuming she did something to me when that power rushed through me, because I’ve really hated her ever since.
“Just for that, you’re no longer my favorite. It goes back to Ezekiel by default.”
Ezekiel’s eyebrows raise, at the same time Gage asks, “How did Kai become your favorite when he was your least favorite?”
Since I already replaced the ripped panties with an exact replica pre-barbarian Kai, there’s no evidence of our detour.
“The most important part of that you should concern yourself with is the fact you’re the only one who hasn’t been my favorite,” I tell him flippantly, studying the fire lake a little more intensely.