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Master and apprentice and nothing more. Like nothing ever happened?’ Furies save him, his mind went right back to the moment he’d had her against the tree in the Bloodwoods, plunging his cock into her while she cried out his name, each stroke more intoxicating than the last. He gritted his teeth. ‘Yes.’ ‘Then stop looking at me like that,’ she snapped. ‘Like what?’ ‘Like you’ve seen me naked.’
His anger sparked anew as he thought of how she’d run herself ragged, of how she’d failed to tend to those dislocated knuckles. He’d put them back in place himself if he could stand the idea of hurting her.
Suddenly, she’d been taken back to the hours before the initiation test, where she’d gripped that arrow as Hawthorne fucked her against the tree, his beautiful, tattooed body bare in the dappled moonlight. Pleasure, and something deeper, had rolled through her as he’d moved inside her, as he’d moaned her name against her lips. ‘Once was not enough, Thea…’ he had groaned after wringing a shattering climax from her that left her trembling. ‘Not nearly enough.’
‘If you master your storm magic alongside your warrior training, who the fuck is going to stop you?’
You must train her, hard. Even if means becoming her enemy. Even if it means she never looks at you the same way again.’ He fought the urge to rub the ache at his chest. ‘I know,’ he murmured. ‘Do you?’ Audra challenged, an edge to her words. ‘This is your duty – to her, to the midrealms. Althea has the power to change the fates of us all.’
What was Hawthorne thinking? Forcing them to share such close quarters? Was he so intent on shattering her temper? Or worse, her self-control? She’d already slipped once. That kiss in the training ground was seared into her like a brand. Thea had only just managed to leash herself, and even now, she could
Her stomach bottomed out as the realisation hit her, a bitter taste coating her tongue. Hawthorne had another woman’s necklace and it was here in his cabin. Where he never allowed anyone. Had she truly been so foolish as to think —
He hadn’t bothered to cover the curve of his muscular backside. Her mouth went dry as she stared. Stared and stared as the candlelight from the bathing chamber illuminated the bedroom. Enough so that when he dropped his towel completely and slid beneath the sheets, she knew for certain that he did, in fact, sleep nude.
‘You’re not my friend. You’re not my… anything, besides my mentor. And even that’s debatable. I don’t have to talk about it with you. I’m here to train, to learn, and that’s it. That’s all I want from you.’
But another Warsword was already there. Torj’s large frame engulfed Thea as he stood close behind her, nudging her feet apart with his own, his front pressed to her back as he widened her stance. The Bear Slayer’s arms closed over Thea’s as he adjusted her grip on her blades — ‘That’s not how it’s done,’ Wilder growled before he even realised he was standing beside them.
Furies save him, it was the second time that jealousy had reared its ugly head. He needed to get himself under control. He was the Hand of Death, for fuck’s sake.
He could feel the eyes of their fellow warriors on them, watching where they were joined, how they moved together. He could sense the undercurrent of their fascination, their recognition. Let them see, Wilder thought irrationally. Let them see that she belongs with me.
I wouldn’t exactly call it that.’ ‘What would you call it?’ Kipp asked. ‘Fucked against a tree like a pair of animals…?’ Mead exploded from Cal as he coughed and spluttered, eyes bulging.
‘Don’t want you?’ he cut in, his words harsh. ‘How can you think that? After everything? How can you not feel it? This thing drawing us together?’
His silver eyes were intense as he grabbed a fistful of her shirt. ‘You have no idea how much I want you. How I burn for you. You lit an inferno within me and it won’t stop. I can’t stop —’
‘I have many regrets in this life,’ he murmured against her skin, kissing a path down to her navel. ‘But not tasting you that night in the woods is one of the biggest. I need to rectify that now. Let me show you how much I don’t want you, Thea.’
‘I want you undone, Thea…’ Wilder murmured against her. He fucked her with his tongue and fingers, her thighs clamping around his head as she lost herself in him, as she did exactly as he bid.
Wilder stopped pacing to rummage through the bottles in Torj’s side cabinet, looking for his supply of fire extract. ‘Where’s your liquor?’ ‘I’m doing a cleanse,’ Torj replied, deadpan. Wilder gave him a stony look and waited. Torj waved to the lower half of the cabinet. ‘Bottom left cupboard. If I don’t hide it, Kipp tends to help himself.’
‘One of these days what?’ Torj shrugged. ‘You’re gonna have to get over yourself and let someone in. Accept help and all that.’ ‘Oh, fuck off.’ Wilder headed for the door. Gods, Torj Elderbrock was a good Warsword, but an even better man. He hated that.
And so Wilder didn’t return to the cabin. Instead, he headed to the library, where he knew Audra would be.
‘Took you long enough,’ she mused. ‘I know,’ Wilder replied. ‘You’ve got something I need.’
At last, Thea turned to him. ‘How did you know my size?’ ‘I have some familiarity with your body, Thea…’ His voice was husky.
Desire coursed through Thea at the sight. The last time he’d been on his knees…
‘I knew you’d be my ruin,’ Wilder muttered against her lips, his voice thick with lust as he enveloped her with his powerful frame.
‘You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. There’s no coming back from you, no end to this wanting…’
Wilder took her hand then and guided it to her core, helping her circle her clit, working her into a frenzy as he nudged her entrance with the crown of his cock again. ‘I have dreamt of this every night, Thea…’ he breathed, his throat bobbing. ‘Every. Fucking. Night. There is no counting the ways I want you.’
His silver gaze met hers, clouded with lust. ‘Come for me, Thea.’ Thea didn’t break eye contact as she moved with him, her sweat-slicked brow pressed to his. ‘Not without you,’ she murmured against his lips.
Wilder kissed her slowly and thoroughly, the way he’d kiss her if he’d been granted the time to court her in the way she deserved. He was so fucked, so well and truly in over his head.
Wilder felt increasingly heavy as he joined her. He fought every instinct that screamed at him to reach out and touch her, to lace his fingers through hers, to reassure her.
They have put bounties on their heads. Anyone showing signs of magic is to be brought in for questioning. Any rumours reported to each kingdom’s officials.’ ‘Gods, every man and his dog will be searching for the heirs now.’ ‘Indeed.
‘Of course there is,’ Wilder muttered. It wasn’t enough that they were harbouring two fugitives, not only from his fellow Warswords, but from the rulers of the midrealms themselves.
The petty squabbles of men are no concern of mine. My concern is the pair of Delmirian princesses we have in our midst, and the one in particular who can’t control her magic. It’s dangerous, Hawthorne. Now more than ever.
He had seen so much of the world, and the pieces she’d seen herself were pieces he’d shown her. What would it mean for them if she became a Warsword? From what she had gathered, the Warswords rarely worked in teams.
Wilder stood with his back to her by the small stream, completely naked. Thea’s mouth went dry. Gods, he was glorious. Every inch of sun-kissed muscle on display, water sluicing down the planes of his mighty body as he washed himself, oblivious to her arrival. Pact or no, arousal coursed through Thea at the sight of him.
For once, Thea didn’t ask questions, didn’t try to rile him up as they worked. She simply listened and implemented what he said. It was unnerving.
Thea had given him a gift… She’d shared herself with him. She’d found her place under his skin and in his heart, and there she’d stayed, despite whatever vows they’d made.
‘You’ll get there.’ ‘How?’ Gods, he wanted to tell her to trust him, that he could feel it in his bones that she would be something great; something the midrealms had never seen before. But those were not the words of a mentor. They were the words of a lover, and he was that no longer, if he had ever truly been. Instead, he settled for: ‘A hunch, Princess.’
There’s no forgetting anything with you.’ Then, because he couldn’t stand to be near her for a moment longer without touching her, without kissing her, he filled his gaze with challenge. ‘Race you to the rise?’
He was fucked. Well and truly fucked. Because the way he burned for her… No vows, no notion of duty – nothing – could stop it.
The reaper blinked at them, which was more unnerving than a swipe of its claws or a lash of its power. Wilder had never seen one blink before. It was almost reptilian, a slimy lid swiping slowly across the eye.
Thea kept stealing glances at Wilder across the fire, at the stoic warrior she was slowly coming to know more deeply, more intricately. It was with a mixture of longing and regret that she savoured these moments with him, realising with a resounding grief that she would never come to know him as deeply as she wished to.
The lost princess of Delmira had no idea that the Daughter of Darkness, the Warswords of Thezmarr and the rulers of the midrealms hunted her and her sister.
Let me,’ he said. Wilder knelt at the head of the tub and threaded his fingers through her hair, massaging the soap into her scalp. Thea moaned, the sound sending a bolt of longing straight to his cock.
There’s no escaping this,’ she said, reaching for his hands. ‘No matter what we say. And I’m done denying it. I want you, Wilder.’
Thea was a Princess of Delmira. And he was so deeply in love with her it might just consume him.
‘Look at me, Thea…’ he murmured. She did, and gasped at what she found. His silver eyes were aflame with fury.
Wilder’s gaze darkened with desire. ‘I want to do more than look,’ he half growled. He came to her side once more, under the guise of helping her line her cue up to the striker. ‘I’d fuck you right on this table if I could.’ ‘So do it, Warsword,’ Thea said brazenly. ‘Didn’t realise you liked an audience, Princess.’ ‘You’re big enough and mean enough to make them leave.’ ‘I am. But I won’t.’
Because I’m already dangerously close to —’ He cut himself off. ‘To what?’
a Warsword has no business feeling the things I feel for a princess.’ ‘I’m not a princess.’ ‘But that’s exactly what you are.’
Then tell me, what do you feel?’ she asked.
