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“Is that a command, Sire?”
“There’s a difference between being cared for and being commanded. Know it.”
“Try being open to accepting aid, Raeve. You’d be amazed at how the grain no longer chafes. A simple request for my help doesn’t make you weak. It makes you real.”
My heart stills. He’s watching me with a haunting intensity that threatens to peel off one of the many calluses crusting my heart. A look that presses against my chest. My soul.
“Don’t do that,”
“Do what?”
“Pretend we’re cozy. We’re not. I don’t know you, you don’t know me. I’m plotting...
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“Of course.”
“The only exit is down the stairs and out the back door. That’s if you can creep past me quietly enough, since I’ll be sleeping on the seater. If you succeed, I’ll enjoy hunting you down, so be my fucking guest.”
Of all the things I’ve seen in my life, he’s one of the most magnificent. I can admit that to myself now that we’re parting. Another reason why I need to go.
This decision should be easy. He’s in the way. Get him out of the way. Why is it not easy?
bundling all my budding curiosity and tentative appreciation and tying it to a stone. With stout determination, I creep across my lake, shards of silver light spearing up from beneath the ice like something bright and bold is soaring through the water. Following me.
It’s never chased something I’ve discarded before. At least not that I’ve noticed.
Slower than a rising aurora, he pulls his arms from beneath the pillow, one strong hand settling on my hip. Gripping hard. The other settles around the side of my face, cupping it in a way that feels so jarringly familiar. So right it makes me want to crack my aching heart into shards because it’s obviously confused.
“I see you, Raeve . . .”
“I don’t . . . I don’t k...
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“...
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“I fucking see you.”
“What do you need, Moonbeam?”
To scratch this primal itch in the hopes it’ll assuage the emotional blade now lodged in my chest.
“You want me to touch you?”
“Yes,”
“Please.”
“Cut me if you want me to stop,”
“I’ll gladly bleed beneath you, so don’t be shy.”
“Touc...
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“Take what you want, Moonbeam.”
The words till something inside me, my mind drifting somewhere bright and breezy. A dream, maybe. Somewhere that smells like salt, spices, and sweet, succulent flowers. A place where the only thing that matters is . . . this. Us.
“I need you,”
“Now.”
“You fucking h...
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“No, I nee...
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I catch him looking at me with the intensity of a chapped wasteland desperate for even a drop of rain. The sort of look that consumes. That clutches heartstrings and braids them together for eternity . . . forever bonded. Can’t he see that my heartstrings are stubby and frayed?
“Are you sure you want this, Moonbeam?”
“Certain,”
“I want you in me, Kaan Vaegor.”
“But first you have to stop looking at me like it means something.”
“You want a meaningless release?”
“Right.”
“Well . . . you won’t find that here, Prisoner Seventy-Three.”
I toss my hair back off my face, groaning at the smell of him now staining my fingertips. Like he seeped through my pores and melded with me, creating an aroma that’s so carnally us.
Moonplumes don’t survive in the sun, and I can’t lose her. My heart can’t take another hit. I’d rather die than watch her turn to stone.
Fate Herder . . . It’s the fucking Fate Herder. The creature is more legend than reality, so rarely spotted in the flesh. Those who have seen it are often considered crazy or delusional, boasting stories about the beast nudging them to make a different decision from the one they’d intended.
“It was foretold that the Fate Herder would bring you to us. That your offspring will tether the moons to the sky,”
“Forever.”
“This is a Tookah Trial,”
“They are fighting for the great honor of being bound to you. The honor of building a life and producing offspring with Kholu is the greatest one could wish for. To pin the moons to the sky for good will ensure the future for offspring of the entire Johkull Clan, and their offspring, and theirs. To secure such peace is a great privilege.”
“My body is mine, and I will do with it as I please. Nothing more.”
“The Sól has announced that since blood has already been spilled in your honor, you must not leave this crater unclaimed. That if you do, more moons will fall in this place of ill-spilled blood and the Johkull Clan will lose our place of sanctuary. That many will perish. Her word is final.”
A vision saddles me with such intensity my breath snags: Kaan’s málmr resting between my naked breasts, my body slicked with sweat as I writhe in rippling pleasure, looking past my navel. Down between my split thighs that are gripped by large, powerful hands . . . Down to where Kaan’s ember eyes are blazing for me, his tongue laving at my—
