Free Dark Dealings by Kim Knox Page B

leave the vault.
    She straightened her spine and willed strength into her legs, wanting focus. “How did you find thieves in the past?” Heyerdar was centuries old. He’d seen other times when thieves had breached the city wards.
    “They start out careful. These bastards hid the body. But then cockiness and greed, the need for more blood, more flesh, the addictive taste of life, will always catch a thief.”
    Ava almost groaned. Did he have to put it like that? She needed food, meat, as rare as she could get it, before she did something insane like sink her teeth into Heyerdar’s firm belly. Even an elemental’s sour, muddied blood would go some way to sating the need gripping her, pounding out with the fast pulse of her heart.
    The thief in her rose, dark, empty, and the heavy want burned ways into her skull to use the shadows against him, to feed and twist his power through her soul and bind him.
    The thick door of the vault thudded shut behind her and she jumped, her thoughts jolting. She couldn’t do this. She’d fought the emptiness of her soul for years. Why was it now out of control?
    Shadow swept around her, and the hunger surged. Fuck. Her fingers scrambled for the smooth wall and dug into cracks and crevices. Ancient remnants of magic splintered under her grasping fingers, but it wasn’t enough. Her belly growled, a raw rumble. The hints of old magic only whet the craving. It wasn’t nearly enough.
    “Take this.” Heyerdar’s words were a growled order. And before she realized what he meant, he shoved her back against the cold stone and covered her mouth with his.
    She didn’t hesitate. Golden threads of energy warmed through her, sinking down into her hollow soul. The heat of his mouth, the clash and bite of his teeth, how his thigh pushed between hers, his hand squeezing her breast, burned through her body and tore his power from him.
    Heyerdar groaned. Not pain. Want.
    His hand gripped her backside, pushing her harder against the solid muscle of his thigh in an increasing rhythm. Tight shocks of white light burst behind her eyes, coalescing with the fierce, hot gold of his magic. Heat rose up through her, her pulse wild. She grabbed at his shoulders, her nails digging into the tough leather of his tunic, and met his fierce thrusts.
    She wanted skin and flesh, the slide of his against her own. To bite him. Fuck, to devour him.
    Heyerdar broke their kiss but buried his face against her neck, his teeth grazing her. Breaking the skin. “You shouldn’t feel so fucking good.”
    She could echo his words. He wasn’t the man she wanted. He was a means to an end, not the end itself. But the power of him surging into her, his hands, the way his thigh deepened the throb in her sex almost, almost made her forget.
    Reist.
    Ava pulled her hands away from him. The hunger had eased. She could focus. “Captain. Enough.”
    Heyerdar laughed against her neck, the warm huff of air sharp against the marks he’d left in her skin. He stepped back, and even in the shadows, with her empty soul so full of him, she could see the golden threads of his magic weaving around his head, his body. He raked his fingers through his hair. “I may have you sooner than I planned.”
    Ava let out a slow breath. The fierce ache had receded. She didn’t feel bloated, simply...calm. She was still hungry, but it was for meat that wouldn’t drop death on her. “I get food and I won’t need your...assistance.” It was a lie. He no doubt knew it. “Rare meat, still bloody is best. Cooked enough not to scare the squeamish.”
    “Who do you plan to eat?”
    It was a bad joke. But the memory surfaced of how she’d used her blades to tear up the bites she’d taken from the three men she’d killed. Reist had had the bodies burned quickly. Her gut twisted. Protecting her again.
    Heyerdar paused. “I know of a place you can eat. But the minute you ache to sink your teeth into a good subject of the emperor, your head’s on a block.”