Page 66 of Our Covenant

Any self-restraint I had left snaps. My mouth covers hers and I taste the last vibration of my name being cursed as my hips piston. The surge of my magic flows through my muscle and tissue, beading to the surface like sweat on the back of my neck. A spark of a subconscious voice tells me to follow her lead.

“Fuck. Please. Fuck. Yes. Asher.” She punctuates every huffed word with a curse or my name, and the tingling at the base of my spine starts to rush me toward completion. “Come for me. Please. Oh, fuck.”

The angle I need is just out of reach. Her hips jerk and buck, silently directing my focus, but the counter is too low and her injuries are too fresh to not take complete control. I’m so close. But I already know that I’ll be fiending for her pussy as soon as I finish. She gropes at my shirt, taking the fabric between her fists and urging me closer. Deeper.

I wrap my arm around her back to pull her ass off the counter and rut into her. Filthy and corrupt thoughts invade my pleasure when she starts chanting my name under her heavy breath. She feels too good, and the buildup has me teetering on the edge. But I need to feel her pussy convulse. I need to feel the tight squeeze of her muscles before I’m driven mad by my own ravenous hunger.

Something unknown nudges at the invisible fabric of the power I wield. It tugs at the fringes until it finds connection. Like a live wire, electricity and pressure erupts just as Elsbeth gives into the orgasm. The one I alone provide. Her eyes roll back then shut tight as ecstasy reaches her then yanks me under the crushing wave along with her. My cock jerks while our chorus of triumph echoes off the porcelain and into the hallway.

Glorious rapture floods me, then the rarity of exhaustion turns my muscles to lead. The heady fog of lust is replaced by the silence of the room. Drops of water from the bath faucet drip into the water below. Then the noise begins.

Did anyone else hear us?

Are they at the end of the hall, waiting to scold me for giving into her?

She isn’t one of the sacrifices chosen from our coven, meaning there are no long-set boundaries that we live by to rectify anything that’s transpired tonight.

After keeping her spent body in my arms for longer than she should, she shifts in my hold. I’m still buried deep inside of her cunt and in real time, I have to come to terms with reality. I have to put her down and walk away. I have to tell Fox the name she gave me so we can cross-check. If her confession was real at all.

Gently, I set her ass back down on the countertop and ease out of her. She’s sore, swollen, and still bleeding, but by the way she’s biting her lip, I doubt she’s regretful. Pulling my pants up, I force myself to put distance between our bodies, but stay close enough to offer my hand for her to steady herself with.

“I think I can take it from here,” she says, firmly standing on her own two feet.

“Right.” I turn to leave and get halfway out the door before I stop. “I’ll be down the hall.”

“Good to know.”

Her voice is cold and dismissive. But when I look over my shoulder, I catch her sinking into the water. She hisses at the heat but sits fully, the water lapping at her chest when she lies back against the slanted wall of the massive tub.

Did I hurt her?

I don’t always have control over my strength, and my magic couldn’t resist coming out to play at the height of it all.

She brings a handful of water to her face, washing away the grime. “Could you hand me a towel before you leave.”

What should I expect? That somehow fucking her would soften her to us? If being with Fox, Thorne, and Maddox didn’t change her mind, then why would I think that my cock would be any different?

I squat next to the tub and pick up her towel to hold it out. She blindly feels for it, her fingers catching my wrist before the terrycloth.

She peeks through the water clinging to her lashes and my stomach drops.

Her eyes.

“Thanks,” she offers into the thick material now covering her face.

My tongue is thick in my throat, but I manage to nod before I stand and leave without another word. Because I don’t have any. Panic fills me as I close the bathroom door and press my back to it. The house suddenly feels too small and too vast simultaneously as I look down the hall. I have to tell them that I’ve finally been convinced.

Elsbeth is dangerous.

Not because she hates every last one of us . . . but because she is one of us.

28

FOX

Elsbeth refuses to speak to me. If I didn’t know any better, I would think it was embarrassment. I shouldn’t know anything about this woman’s mannerisms. I shouldn’t be able to step into her room and dress her wound and instantly feel the shift of tension between us. Because there shouldn’t be tension—or anything for that matter—between us. So why am I fighting the urge to march upstairs and demand her attention?

“I think I liked it better when we didn’t know what we were up against.” Maddox sighs from where he’s been planted for the last hour. “She can’t be a Noyce. They died out fifty years ago.” He’s standing in the doorway of the solarium as vines of ivy and jasmine stretch down from the ladder that arches over his head.