Page 91 of Brutal Birthright

Right here, she could melt into the long, comfortable stretch of silence between them and ignore the deep sense of foreboding that had been brewing. The sense that something was coming.

As if he could tell her thoughts had strayed, his brows furrowed. Ri traced the crease in his forehead with her thumb.

“Tell me.” She murmured. Wanting to pry as deep as he might let her, lest he discover her own treasure trove of secrets lurking beneath the surface.

Rowan skimmed his hot palm up her waist. “My earliest memory is knowing exactly how to kill another.” He dropped his eyes to rake over her body. Leaving her shivering at the way he devoured every curve with hunger. “One glance at you, and do you know the first thing I saw? It wasn’t the way your hair reminds me of silk, or the softness of your skin, or the way the light glints in the gold flecks of your eyes. No. It was the exact spot on your neck I could squeeze to cut off your breath. Followed by the perfect place where my blade would slice cleanly as I severed your head.”

He took another long drag on the spice. Allowing his words to hang thickly in the air like the smoke billowing around them. Those blue eyes traced her mouth, still calm, but there was so much hurt hidden behind them. The kind that she desperately wished she could give him some reprieve from.

“So go on, little faerie… try and tell me again how I am anything but the dangerous bastard the Goddesses created me to be.”

“I’m quite fond of dangerous things, brute.” She ran her fingers over the stubble of his firm jaw.

He held the spice up to her mouth, then stroked his thumb over her bottom lip as she blew out a long exhale.

“There’s a but in there somewhere.”

She dragged her teeth over the puffy swell of her bottom lip.

Was now the time to reveal how uncertain she felt about them being together?

Rowan’s fingers caressed over her hip. “Oriana.”

Fuck. All it took was him saying her name with that dark rumbling tone and she was putty in his calloused hands.

She focused on his shirt collar, fiddling with the material as she blurted out the words that might make him disappear faster than she could blink.

“Look, if you were a vampire or had telepathic magic, you could at least meddle with my mind and give me some kind of reassurance that we’re in this together. I know I might seem confident and filled with all the certainty in the world–and do I feel that way when I’m with you like this, when it’s just the two of us–but as soon as we’re out there… that’s the moment I start to worry.” She chewed the inside of her mouth for a moment while Rowan absorbed her torrent of words. “I overthink things. I start to doubt. And I can’t help it. My impulsive side gets the better of me, and it takes about five seconds before I’ve convinced myself you’re about to turf me out of your life.”

Wincing, she darted a look at him, only to be met with what could only be described as a softness in his usually stern expression.

It made her heart do little pattering somersaults.

“You never have to doubt with me. Even for one second.”

Butterflies rioted in her stomach.

“I know I’m not easy, brute.” Ri protested.

“Listen well, little faerie. You’re everything I never knew I could hope for or even deserve. The only Goddess-given bright spot in an otherwise bleak existence until now.”

He took another long inhale of spice, blowing it out slowly before continuing.

“Before I met you, things came only in shades of grey or crimson. Now it’s like there’s a whole palette of colour to my life that I haven’t even been aware I could dare to reach for. My greatest fear is that this is all a dream, and one day I’ll wake up and find that my bed is cold and I’m submerged back into the endless murky, bloodiness of life without you in it.”

She realised her fingers were clenched in his shirt front. Her mouth hung open. Then she gave a little shove against his muscled chest.

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you willingly say so many words all in one go before. You’ve been practising, haven’t you?” Ri teased.

Spirits, she was ready for this man to be naked and fucking her again. After a speech like that, her clit was begging for attention.

“There’s a lifetime of regrets I carry around, little faerie. Making sure you feel safe with me is something I wish to keep well away from that list.”

“So, I’m not a regret?” This entire conversation lit her body aflame.

“The furthest thing possible.” He dropped the last of the spice into the glass beside him with a small hiss as it hit the dregs of the liquid. “A headache? An infuriating test of my endless patience—”

Ri just about choked. “You? Patient?”

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