Page 18 of Bound By Dance and Desire

“I am. . .a warrior. I understand what's required of your discipline. You have my word.” He took my hand. “Now come. The sound of your stomach rumbling disturbs me. . .mortals.”

Chapter

Six

ANDREIEN

Ibraced myself against the sheen of tears in lustrous eyes braced for pain but hoping for joy.

She did nothing to conceal the transparency of her emotions, and that soft, searing look nearly brought me to my knees, tugging on every instinct to protect her—and the darker need to confine and control.

Resigned, I took her hand to help her into the coach.

“You're too open,” I told her after the coach began moving.

She was nothing like I’d expected. She didn’t respond as human women typically did, and I’d had to adjust my tactics—quickly. Overt seduction wouldn’t woo her. Attempting to sweet talk her downtown had almost backfired, if not for the opportunity that foul human presented me to recast myself in her favor. I’d scaled back the heat almost entirely, and turned up the. . .charm. Warmth and sweetness, offering comfort and companionship.

“It's safe with me,” I said, trying not to brood, “but not with anyone else.” Why couldn’t we develop the bond in bed? That was the perfect venue for cementing intimacy.

I suppressed a frown, staring at her, and curved my lips in a smile, looking at her under my lashes.

My smile didn’t last long. Her brow creased with the same bemused, laying-in-wait skepticism she'd been aiming my way all evening—the girl was humoring me, as if she'd decided there was no point in arguing when time would take care of the problem for her.

As she gazed at me with that humoring expression, three hundred years of denying myself the pleasure of strangling my beloved younger sister after one of her pranks allowed me to keep from teaching this girl an immediate lesson in humoring the Heir of Casakraine.

“What do you mean?” she asked in her soft voice.

“You're too willing to accede to my will.” Except in the one way I wanted, of course. Females.

She folded her legs on the seat. I imagined them enfolding me. “Maybe I don't have energy to waste fighting a battleI'll lose. I have to dance.”

I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose, and didnotyell at her. “And there, again, you expose yourself too readily. Here you've handed me more power over you—I know what you want. I can use it against you.”

Her eyes widened slightly, pools of endless onyx. But where I expected tension, suddenly she relaxed and shook her head. “Idon't think you’d do that to me. I don't know why, but I don't feel you're that kind of man.”

By the Dark, could she be anymorenaive? “Hasannah, I am not a man at all.”

I quailed at the massive task of keeping her alive. My mother had warned me during one of our many screaming arguments over her methods of ruling the Court, that one day I’d understand the value of ruthlessness.

That glimmer of understanding dawned now. There was nothing I wouldn't do to cut off the merest hint of threat towards this human female.

She wrinkled her nose briefly. “You understandwhat I mean. Besides, if we're going to be in a relationship, clear communication is paramount. I'm not exposing my vulnerabilities, I'm negotiating. Setting boundaries.” Something flickered in her eyes. “As long as you don't interfere with my dance, we can. . .date.”

She was so very mortal.

Date.

A date was a food, not what I was going to do to her once she accepted me into her bed.

I reached across the coach, capturing her hand and lifting it to my lips.

“Fine, Hasannah. Fine. I won't argue over it with you. I've never seen a happy coupling where one person tried to change the other.”

“I hope you remember that,” was her quiet reply. “Because some things can’t be changed even if you pray they would.”

My suspicion was that as long as she was allowed to dance and train at will, she wouldn't fight me on any other front.

No, I’d take her vulnerability into consideration and ensure she was never left alone with any member of the Court. Not until she had another fifty years of age on her.

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