Page 45 of Tangled at the Root
I expect her to protest, to ask why, but she looks away instead, her eyebrows furrowed, shoulders drooping. Her scent goes a little sour, which confuses me.
Does shewantto do that again?
Diefor me again?
I swallow, over and over until I can speak without choking on it. Grateful she doesn’t have supernatural senses like me, that she can’t scent the wetness growing between my thighs.
I cup her cheek, tilting her head up so she’s looking at me once more.
“It terrifies me,” I confess. Fuck. I have to swallow yet again. “It terrifies me, how good it felt.”
Rosemary’s breath hitches. She grabs my wrist, her eyes wide, naked. “It terrifies me, too.” Her breasts heave softly with her rushed breaths, her scent going just as hot as mine. “But …” The word comes out pleading.
“Rosemary,” I try to reprimand, but my voice is thick, hoarse with lust.
“It felt good to me, too,” she says in rush. “I’ve died many times before, Genevieve. But this is the first time it felt … good.Right. This is the first time it’s actually meant something.”
“You said that before. What do you mean by that?”
I’m changing the subject, but she lets me.
She rolls onto her back, putting some space between us. I resist the urge to tug her back into my arms. She needs this distance right now, so I willingly give it to her.
“Remember I told you we were made to leave my village? After they found … after they discovered my gift.” Her throat bobs. “My mother was actually the one who’d made us leave.”
She stops. Her scent is going acrid at the memories. I want to hold her so badly, but I know she needs me to pause. To listen.
Eventually, she speaks again.
“The reason she made us leave was because, well. Up until that point, I hadn’t had a lot of friends. My mum had been … a little overprotective after she’d discovered my gift, which meant I grew up a bit sheltered. But after I’d gotten exposed, so to speak,she’d let me go to the boarding house for secondary school. Maraya has its own education system, teaching both the arcane and everything else.
“Anyway, like I said, I didn’t have a lot of friends. And my set mates had heard about me. They’d been curious, or whatever. So they’d—” She stops talking abruptly, but I don’t need her to continue.
“Fuck, Rosemary,” I whisper, giving in and tugging her back into my embrace, holding her tightly. “Fuck. That’s so fucked up. What the fuck.”
“I know.” She laughs, but it holds no humour.
“That should never have happened to you. Fuck them. They shouldn’t have taken advantage of you. If they were here right now …”
She lets out a choked sob. “I’m sorry.” She wipes furiously at her eyes, but the tears don’t stop coming, spilling down her cheeks like water from an overfilled dam. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m crying.”
“That’s all right,” I murmur, rocking her against my chest, stroking my hands down her back as she sobs, her body shaking. “You’re okay, omemi. Let go. I have you.”
I hold her until she stops crying, until she’s crawling up my body, joining our lips messily, desperately.
“Please, please—” she whines, her begging going straight to my clit.
“Fuck,” I groan, licking hungrily into her mouth, gently pushing her shoulder until I have her splayed out underneath me on her back.
I lift up, resting on my left elbow, while my right hand slides slowly up her body, over one soft, plump curve of her breast until it’s wrapped lightly around her throat. Her pulse is a wild thing against my palm.
She stares up at me like she’d done before, with love and worship and complete devotion—she’s seen every single part of me, she’s seen themonster, for fuck’s sake, been on the very end of this depraved hunger, yet here she is, still, giving me absolutely everything.
And I’m fucking lost.
I feel as vulnerable as when Genevieve had had me literally cracked open, my ribs and heart and lungs—my stomach and intestines and other organs completely exposed to her devouring gaze.
I’d known it before, on some level, that what had happened to me back in my village had been messed up. At first, I’d told myself it wasn’t a big deal. I literally couldn’t be killed, and my set girls had simply been curious; what was the harm? Hadn’t my mother done the same thing when she’d wanted to “confirm” my gift? What was the difference now?
