Corrupt Me: A Fated Mates Romance (Immortal Vices and Virtues Book 8) by Everly Frost

Author:Everly Frost [Frost, Everly]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ever Realm Books
Published: 2022-12-25T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

Slater

Emmaline falls asleep in my arms.

It takes me a long time to get my thoughts and my body under control. She triggers desires in me that I know are unattainable, but that doesn’t stop me from wanting them.

The purely physical wants will be easy enough to deal with, but the emotional ones are scraping at my heart.

I don’t remember much about my father, but I do remember that he never considered showing emotion to be a weakness. Ravens, by nature, are intuitive, and he expected us to express our thoughts. That might have been one reason why I fit well into the House of Gold and Garnet. The former king, Vesperus, wasn’t afraid to acknowledge his feelings and neither is Kaspian.

But now, my emotions feel like my enemy.

If I listened to them—if I gave in to my most basic instincts—I’d gather Emmaline up and fly her away from here right now. It’s the same instinct I felt when I woke up in the cage and she was hurrying toward me. I wanted to reach her and get her out of that cage. Get her out of this place.

I have no rational basis for that impulse, and it’s baffling in its intensity.

I shake myself a little too hard and she stirs in my arms, opening her luminous, chestnut eyes. Her lips are blushed with color, bruised a little from my kisses, and her cheeks are glowing.

She stretches against me with a sigh. Then a light crease forms in her forehead. “I fell asleep.”

I stroke back her hair. “We should get cleaned up.”

She breaks into a grin. “That sounds like a good idea.”

We take our time finding our feet and by the time we step back through the waterfall, I’ve left new kisses on her lips and fought the desire to taste her all over again.

I’m surprised to find the pond’s water pristine again. No hint of the blood that washed off me earlier.

Emmaline explains that the magic within the water makes it self-cleaning, and she adds that it won’t cause the skin to look like prunes—which would explain why I stood for so long in it and didn’t notice any effects.

We immerse ourselves, still naked, and take our time to wash.

I’m concerned that the Mother and the Crone will come looking for Emmaline, but she assures me that they’re unlikely to emerge from their books until dinnertime.

“Maybe not even then,” she says. “Once they have a purpose, they’re single-minded until they achieve it. They’ll only come looking for me if they find a cure for the curse.”

“What about the defenses that the Crone wanted to place around your home?”

“She can cast those spells from a distance. She doesn’t need to come down here for that.” Emmaline swills her hand through the water. Her gaze becomes distant for a moment before she refocuses on me. “In fact, she already has.”

Water slides down her arm as she lifts it. “There are extra barriers across the sky and all around the outer walls now.

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