Page 113 of Haunted

“Don’t lie.” She threads her hand into my hair and yanks my head back before I can kiss her again.

“All right.” Disappointment fills me, but a deep desperation to make her mine surfaces. It’s an ache I want satisfied. I push my hips into hers and force her back until she touches the desk behind herself. “I don’t want to lose you. My fear took over. Any threat to me is a threat to you and our child.”

This is truth. No one will ever harm them.

“Is he alive?” she asks.

I have to think back to whom she means. The prisoner. “Yes.” I push him from my thoughts and kiss Niawen. I’m hungry now, for her.

Touch me. Satisfy me.

But her mind is still distracted, and she pulls away with a gasp. “Take me to him. I can heal him.”

Absolutely not. I take a heavy breath. “It’s taken care of. Someone is seeing to him.” I pepper her jaw with kisses. Forget about him. Eventually, she tilts her head back, but she’s rigid.

My frustration builds.

She won’t let this go. “What you did was wrong.”

“Niawen, please.” I’m pushing all my anger down. “Not now. Stay with me.” Forget about him.

“Caedryn…”

I shut her up with a kiss before hoisting her onto the desk. “He’s been drugged. He’s resting,” I wrap her legs around my waist and carry her across the room to a bed.

When she grips my shoulders, I sense her losing willpower.

That’s right. Succumb to me.

A tear leaks from her eye. She desires me as I desire her, but she feels guilty because she’s thinking of the poor prisoner suffering in the dungeon.

I turn her thoughts away. “Is this safe for the babe,” I whisper as I kiss her tear away.

“Yes.” She swallows.

I feel the instant she gives in to my advances. My dark energy snakes across the room, drops the door’s latch, and whips the curtain closed around us.

We are wrapped in seclusion, where I will make Niawen remember that she is mine.

75

Despite my afternoon in Niawen’s arms, I’m bereft. I cannot place what’s missing.

I question her loyalty. As I recall the times Niawen fondly remembered her princes, my skin grows cold.

She is mine. Did you not prove that to yourself?

But doubts continue to torment me because of the prince in my dungeon and this so-called bond they hold. Not willing to spur an argument with my beloved, because she’ll call me out on my restlessness soon enough, I suggest retiring early after supper.

I fall asleep with my head on her shoulder and my arm cradled over our small speck of light—our child.

I’m not sure when I drift off, but my dreams are at least peaceful.

Then a voice, a moan in her mind pries me from slumber. I don’t move. I don’t open an eye.

Niawen is awake. She hasn’t moved yet.

Niawen, Kenrik says.

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