Corrupted: An Epic Dragons and Immortals Romantic Fantasy (Fallen Emrys Chronicles Book 1) by E.E. Everly (motivational books for men txt) 📕

“Seduction?” I whispered. I crushed my hand to my heart, feeling the organ splintering one small shard at a time. Unbonded relationships were forbidden. A sin. Evil. The mortal world was just unveiled as the abyss it truly was. Men murdered. They died. They took intimacy when they desired, without eternal bonds. My admiration for Caedryn plummeted off a cliff into that sucking abyss.

He must have sensed my emotions because he staggered, grabbing the bedpost. “Don’t wound me in such a way. Let me explain.”

I nodded, fighting the instinct to recoil. He was too close.

“I did love her. She was the only one, but our relationship wasn’t a love as you’ve witnessed between others in Gorlassar. I imagine when you discern their feelings they’re pure, sweet, beautiful. Our love, the love I had for this woman, was raw. Not tender. Untamed. Desperate. Sadistic.”

My face pinched painfully.

“Imagine a craving so intense, so insatiable, you’d do anything to satisfy it,” he said.

Caedryn’s words came back to me. Not in me to be satisfied. “No,” I whispered. “No.”

“That’s the truth.”

“You’re trying to be careful with me.”

Silence, while he gathered his words.

I didn’t wait. “Are you saying you’d force yourself upon me if given the chance? If you couldn’t control yourself? This is why you won’t touch me.”

“No. No! I’d never hurt you!” Caedryn pressed his fist to his mouth.

“But you’ve thought about making love to me.”

He dropped his fist and looked squarely at me. “Every day.”

I fought to keep my breath steady. I could do nothing about my racing heart. “Your love was so perverse you cower at touch?” His twisted, human love. His dark mortal side. I felt sick.

“Not exactly. After welcoming you in my arms when you arrived, the way you clung so despairingly, so injured, and yet so fragile and innocent, I knew I couldn’t offer you more than the touch of my hand. Your embrace was too consuming. You burned my soul and nearly broke me. I’ve tried to be so careful since then.”

I smoothed my hand down my neck. And I had crawled into bed with him, not knowing how he had to work to restrain himself.

Caedryn leaned around the bedpost, hovering above me. “What I feel for you is not what I felt for her.”

“Who was it?”

Caedryn only stared at me, reading my face, willing me to realize so he wouldn’t have to say her name.

“It was her—the empress—Rhianu.” I’d betrayed the empress’s heart.

“Yes,” he said softly.

I hadn’t considered how a twisted past with another woman might affect Caedryn. My soul was fraught with worry. What did his revelation mean for me? What did it mean for us?

“Niawen, did you hear what I said?”

“Of course.”

“Not about the empress. About us. I said ‘I feel for you.’”

“You feel for me?” I rose and closed the distance between us until I saw my reflection clearly in his eyes. “What do you feel for me?”

He inhaled. “So many things. An ache. A want. A need.”

Those were possessive things. I held my ground, not satisfied. “You’d rather possess me—own me.”

“I’m saying everything incorrectly. What I’m trying to say is I see you. I know you. I understand what you’ve been through. I want to protect you. I want… to kiss away your sadness.”

“But you don’t,” I whispered. He wants to kiss me.

Did I want to kiss him?

He whirled away, tensing, hesitating, but rounded back on me with fury. “By the light, Niawen! You won’t be satisfied until I do, will you?”

Caedryn lifted his hand near my face but didn’t touch me.

I held steady, waiting, hoping. Worrying. What if he couldn’t restrain himself? How would his kiss feel then? What did violent passion feel like?

“The fear behind your eyes gives me pause,” he said.

“I’m not afraid of you.” My words were an outright lie. I was afraid of how he could affect me. How he could itch under my skin, pushing… taunting.

His hands became claws as he fought the urging in them—reach out or not?

Reach out.

His hands slid past my cheeks and into my hair. He leaned in close and pressed his forehead to mine.

I held my breath. Pressing foreheads together was the customary emrys greeting. Family members embraced each other this way, but as they did, they expressed candid feelings for each other. Did Caedryn know about this tradition? Had Siana taught it to her posterity?

Was he testing me?

I should have given him the emotions I felt for him, but he wasn’t giving me any in return.

I hesitated too long in my consideration.

“See, touch makes you nervous, as it does me,” he whispered.

“Has it been a while since you’ve touched another person?” My words were barely audible. “Besides me?”

“I imagine intimacy among acquaintances is the same in your realm as it is in mine. We touch rarely. Half-emrys go about reading each other so often, understanding every single emotion, that touch becomes unnecessary. And when the opportunity arises, we can’t control it.”

Violent passion.

“Tell me, whose touch have you felt?” His breath kissed my cheek.

That wasn’t enough.

His fingers trembled against my face. “Tell me how and where. How did it make you feel? How do you want me to touch you?”

“I don’t know.” I tried to look away, tried to conceal the lie on my lips. I knew exactly how I wanted Caedryn to touch me, and I knew that he knew.

He was taunting me into madness.

“Tell me,” he said.

I should have been furious that he was demanding answers from me when he was still masking himself, but I was lost to his commanding presence. “I thought you were concerned about losing control.”

“I am,” he whispered against my cheek.

His