Page 11 of In Violent Waves

It was almost a shame that he was about to die.

His arms moved from across his chest to his sides, allowing her another step closer. Lyra pressed her breasts against the space where his chest met his stomach. Her nipples pebbled as she strained to press harder against him.

The friction of the fabric was infuriating. She wanted to bare herself to him, or the caress of the air. Anything would be better than this confining fabric.

When he didn’t answer her, she tried again, walking her fingers up his stomach and to his chest.

Right where his heart thumped beneath his ribs.

“Did you like what you saw?—”

Wilder grabbed her hand and slung her around.

Her back and head crashed against the rough stone.

Sharp pain lashed down her spine, and her head pounded; stars erupted across her vision.

It took her a second too long to figure out what had happened.

One moment she had been standing there, pressing her breasts against his body, and the next she’d been slung and pushed against the wall, a steel blade angled at her neck.

Wrath twisted Wilder’s beautiful features into something terrifying—something from her worst nightmares.

Elf. He was a godsdamn elf.

“Because I have been ordered to,” he spat, pressing the blade to her throat as he answered her former question.

The edge nicked her pale skin.

The scouts had been right. But what could the elves possibly want from her? No one knew about her magic.

Her nostrils flared, catching the scent of her blood.

No—no, it was supposed to be his blood, his heart, she was consuming.

Lyra licked her lips and leaned forward against the blade, daring him to end her, and testing the boundaries of his orders.

Would she be the one who didn’t return from the Tithe?

No.

Fury flooded her mind, clouding her vision and skewing her thoughts. Lyra needed to return to Atlantis—she had a fiancé to kill. And then her life would be better.

She would be free of her father and the court.

The only sound that reached her ears was the crash of waves against the stone. It echoed the roaring in her head.

Wilder’s eyes narrowed, and he leaned away from her, moving the blade enough that it didn’t slice through her.

She had called his bluff, and it had worked. So, he had been ordered to take her but not kill her.

“Andwhoordered you to?”

Wilder smiled, and it was savage, wicked even.

A small divot formed between her thin brows. She didn’t know which side of him she preferred. The beautiful male or this wicked creature.

“You’ll see soon enough.”