Page 64 of An Empress of Earth & Darkness

She had only just gotten over the embarrassment of Emara finding her in the bed of her own room with Artem Stryker, so she wasn’t ready to let her guard down again, not when Emara had put her neck on the line for her to be here.

She would wait on post, even if her stomach was eating itself inside out.

A wolf and hunger never did any favours for humanity.

Maybe she should knock on the door? Check in? Make sure everything was okay?

If she wasn’t going to leave this post until she knew Emara was okay, she should check in. Her boot kicked off the wall, springing her up and into action as she started her way down the corridor.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” a deep, silken voice said from the hallway that connected to hers.

Breighly swivelled, and a scent of baked oranges and summer rain hit her face.

An inked warrior of Thorin stood at the other side of the corridor.

Artem Stryker.

She folded her arms, too grouchy to be interrupted. “And why would I listen to you?”

The last time he had whispered instructions to her, he had been ripping her clothes off. After that, his skin had been on hers, pounding and relentless. The biting, the licking, the feral kissing…

A heat flashed deep in her core at the images of his body on hers.

Shit!

She had to forget all of that. It was normally easy to forget the relations she had, but for whatever reasons the Gods had, her thoughts seemed to linger of Artem Stryker.

Fuck, he’d absolutely love that if he knew.

Artem sauntered down the corridor, his large presence invading the dim lighting. “You should listen to me because I have more than enough knowledge of what is likely to be happening in that room, and Torin wouldn’t be happy if he was interrupted whilst making love.”

Breighly scoffed. “What have I told you about making ridiculous remarks? Making love is a horrendous term. You need to behave yourself.”

He grinned wider than before. “You need to stop pretending you hate the words making love.”

She gave off a fake shiver. “Revolting.”

He ran his teeth over his lip, trying to keep his smile tamed. His dark golden eyes glanced at the floor before finding her eyes again. “I brought you this.” He handed her a bread roll with chocolate spread that she hadn’t noticed was in his hand. How did she miss that? “I could hear your stomach rumbling over the music downstairs and it got annoying after a while.”

She laughed and swiped it from his hand. “Hunters don’t have that good of hearing, don’t kid yourself.”

Her teeth ripped into the warm bread, and a moan almost escaped her lips as the chocolate melted in her mouth.

Artem bit back a grin. “You are welcome, cranky pants.”

Her eyes darted to his face. “You do realise that I have my own weapon belt now, right? And I would be a total liar to say that my palm isn’t twitching to try some of my new steel on your flesh.” She gave off a small growl laced with a smile. “Don’t mock a hungry wolf, idiot.”

His eyes flashed full of dangerous desire as if her words only excited him instead of warding him off. But the casual grin spread across his mouth faded. “I wanted to find you before the celebrations started so that I could say I was sorry, but I kind of got caught up in it.” His thin nose flared, allowing the fiery torches in the corridor to flicker down on the dainty silver circle in his nose. It glinted like a star, and she cursed herself at how much distraction a little silver hoop caused her.

Breighly cleared her throat, swallowing down the last of her bread. “What for?”

He placed his hands behind his back and his lashes swept down. “For putting you in a position where you could have lost your guardianship before it even fully began.”

Something punched in her chest.

Okay, this conversation was actually happening.

Instead of showing that she was surprised, she rolled her eyes. “It takes two to dance in the bedroom, Artem. I am as much to blame as you.”

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