Page 68 of Brutal Birthright

Her weapon shoved harder into his shirt. This time slicing through the fabric and embedding into his skin.

“Warning me? Warning me?” Flames danced in her eyes as she canted her head back to hold his stare. “You fucking vanished, without so much as a word. I know something happened that night—the night we lost Saskia—and you were too much of a coward to even have a fucking conversation with me.”

She spat out the words and continued to press the dagger harder. Deeper. Blood began to well and soak the front of his shirt, and he couldn’t care less. His fists clenched, and the threads to his self-control that were barely clinging together were about to tear apart.

“There were far more important places I needed to be.” He had plenty of reasons for staying away. Namely, that he didn’t trust himself anymore around this girl.

“Oh, how convenient. I hope you had a wonderful time with whoever she is.”

Rowan stilled.

“Watch that mouth of yours, Oriana.”

Her chin jutted out. The girl was defiant as fuck and looked like the darkest kind of temptation for his blackened soul.

“What a surprise. You won’t deny it.” Blood coated his chest beneath his shirt as she continued to bear down on the blade. The wetted material of his shirt clung to the slick line trickling down his stomach.

“You have no idea what you’re talking about, little faerie. I’d advise you to stop running your mouth before it gets you into more trouble.” He closed his hand around her fist. Swallowing it in his giant palm. Taking control of whatever futile attempt this was to threaten him with her dainty little knife. “If you want to stab me, do it fucking properly. I don’t have all day for your tantrums.”

She growled. A noise that did nothing but kick some primal urge into life inside him. Becoming a visceral, demanding thing in his gut.

“Maybe I will. And maybe after I’ve sliced you open, I’ll go find someone who knows how to handle me, who knows how to fuck me, because clearly you don’t—or maybe you’ve forgotten what to do—because you’ve had every opportunity with me and you’ve done nothing.”

Her chest heaved as tension and desire and fury whipped around them like a vortex. Those words ripped apart whatever tenuous hold he’d maintained on his sanity.

She had no idea. No fucking idea.

A warning rumble burst out of Rowan’s chest, and before he knew what he was doing, he reached out with his free hand and grabbed her by the back of her hair. Not caring for one second about the way she yelped at the roughness of his grasp. She’d poked the beast, and now the consequences were coming to claim their brutal satisfaction.

Yanking her towards him, whatever next move he intended to make was so far removed from any kind of sane decision he might as well have been soaring straight towards the sun. Ready to godsdamn burn, along with the consequences of what he was about to do.

In one thundering heartbeat, he took her mouth, crashing his lips against hers and portaled them out of the training arena.

Chapter 22

Rowan tasted like oak and magic and forbidden fruit.

The ground dropped out from beneath her feet, and her head spun. A roaring of blood inside her ears collided with blinding sparks at the backs of her eyes. A kind of ancient magic that started in her fingers and toes, racing through her veins like an arrow to plunge deep into her chest.

This wasn’t just a kiss. Rowan single-mindedly consumed her. Fucking her mouth with the kind of confidence and power she knew would be her ruin.

With one hand fisted tight in her hair, he growled against her lips and threw the blade away. Allowing it to clatter to the floor before he wrapped the other hand around the front of her throat. His large palm was hot and slick with the blood that had dripped down the handle of the weapon.

This was the kiss of a man who was savouring his last chance to capture a breath before drowning.

Maybe they were both drowning.

No–there was no fucking way this was real. Ri’s brain shattered into a thousand sparkling shards and then melted with the intense furnace of raw desire and want claiming her mouth.

Rowan was kissing her, and it couldn’t possibly be…

Sagging against his hold as her knees gave out, she fisted the front of his shirt—his very fucking blood-soaked shirt. The sticky wetness of the material beneath her fingers only added to the onslaught of sensations tumbling through her. A battle between her mind and body that threatened to tear her in two.

As if he could sense her panic and desperation hurtling around on the inside, he drew back with a dark noise. Giving her a scathing and smouldering look through hooded eyes. “What?” He rumbled.

Fuck. That look alone could burn entire realms to the ground.

Breathless and aching for more, she darted her tongue out to swipe across her bottom lip. Confessing the truth danced on the edge of her tongue—a struggle warring within against the relentless tug of fate.

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