Kingdom of the Wicked (Kingdom of the Wicked, #1)(73)

If I’d been angry a moment before, standing high up on the cliffs, it was a forgotten memory the second I walked across the sand. If I’d been worried about invading demons, I no longer could recall why. Now all I knew was bliss.

I was so preoccupied with happiness, I just wanted to dance; sway my hips and feel another body moving in time with mine. Rhythmic, joyful, unfettered. As if my desire summoned a dance partner, invisible hands roved across my bodice, down my sides, gripped my bottom.

I gasped. I didn’t slap my bold partner. They’d given me what I wanted the second the thought entered my mind. And I liked it.

Music and laughter drummed all around. The beat was life. Enticing. It called to my most primal witch instincts. I moved without thought, giving myself over completely to nature and my senses. I spun away from my invisible dance partner, and my skirts and hair flew around.

The serpent and root dress I’d slipped on earlier reminded me of the wilderness—I tossed my head back and soaked up the dying rays of the sun. Maybe I’d left my body and was a cloud. It felt so good to just be free, to move and forget. Here, near the crackling fire and invisible dancing people, I didn’t think about murders, or curses, or creatures of the underworld, and the devil’s horns.

I didn’t think about stolen amulets and diaries.

Dancing, down here on the beach, I only knew peace and joy and pleasure. I didn’t need to worry about anything. I could stay here, drifting from one good sensation to the next, forever. He was coming for me. My king. My damnation. I don’t know how I knew, but I did.

Balance. Light and dark. The sun and moon. Good and evil. A snake winding through a bed of wildflowers. Offering a taste of the most forbidden fruit. Scales of justice were tipped; a choice hanging there for me to decide. To right a wrong, or damn us all.

A tiny voice screamed in warning, this was all terribly wrong, but was silenced as music and movement swept around me, through me. Whispers grew louder, more frantic. I shoved them aside.

I must have kicked off my sandals, my soles slipped over warm sand, and I was overcome with the sensation of it. Everything felt so good. So intense. Like all my pleasure receptors had been spelled a hundred times their normal rate. I didn’t know I was capable of so much feeling.

I wriggled my toes, laughing as grains of sand slipped between them, tickling and teasing. Someone handed me a glass of wine and I drank deeply. It tasted sweet, strong. Apples dipped in honey and blessed by the stars. It was one of the most delicious things I’d ever had. Vittoria would have loved it. I gulped more—maybe to forget, maybe because I wanted it.

Then my glass was gone and I was pulled into another dance.

I wanted to stay here for eternity, lost to these good feelings. And it felt like I had. Here I didn’t have to feel grief. I didn’t have to mourn. Here I could simply live.

Minutes passed, maybe hours or days; time had no meaning. I moved and swayed, closed my eyes and listened to the enchanting sounds of the water, the murmurs of voices that belonged to people I couldn’t see. Those invisible hands from earlier became bold explorers, mapping the uncharted territory that was my body. They slid down, lower . . .

“Remember.” A strange voice whispered to me. “Inferus sicut superus.”

As above, so below. There was a memory buried there, skirting the outside of my mind.

Something piercing in my arm, cold and sharp, jolted me from my trance. My eyes flew open. Fear reached icy tendrils out to me again, but just as quickly as it happened, it was gone. Replaced with pleasure. Rapture. Complete and total freedom from all thought. I liked it there, deep in a cocoon of oblivion.

Then I saw him.

He cut through the crowded beach like a blade, his anger setting the peaceful joy ablaze. My invisible dance partner vanished, but I hardly noticed. There was a much more interesting creature stalking closer. The most terrifying and feral. Vaguely, I felt I should run in the other direction. That he was a carnivorous beast and I was a lamb, stumbling ever closer to danger. Amidst a group of shadowy figures, he burned brightly—the only form that wasn’t hidden.

I thought about fire, about plumes of smoke and flames licking the air. Which made me think about dragging my tongue over him, seeing if he was as hot as the energy steaming off him. Drums beat. My heart pounded. I wanted to experience pleasure on all levels.

I wanted a spell to bottle this feeling and sip from it whenever I desired.

Magic was life and life was made by making love and feeling good and our bodies constantly tried to remind us to live. I’d spent the last several weeks consumed by death and destruction—I needed balance. I deserved it. As above, so below.

He stopped before me, his expression wary. “Time to go, witch.”

Hardly. I twirled away, but he grabbed my hand, spinning me back until I crashed against his body. Heat poured off him, enveloped me. I had the strangest feeling I should hate it. “Hello, demon. Let’s dance.”

“You need to get out of here. Immediately.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re tearing your clothes off and looking at me like mine are next.”

I glanced down and laughed in surprise. I was trying to undo the stays of my bodice, but he thwarted my efforts. His tattooed hand covered mine. I looked up at him, my brow crinkled. “Don’t you want to see me naked?”

“I have.”

“And?”