Page 102 of Heirs of the Cursed

“There’s something bothering you, I can see it in your pouty face,” Naithea murmured, not really sure if she wanted to know what troubled his mind. “Besides being great in bed, I’m a good listener if you haven’t noticed.”

“It’s nothing,” he replied, kissing her forehead to avoid worrying her.

But she’d been paying attention, and when he said it was nothing, it was everything.

“You can lie to your soldiers all you want, but I don’t give up so easily. What is it?”

Ward kept quiet for a long minute. “We are getting closer to the princesses and once that happens . . .”

He’ll have to leave for Camdenn, she finished his troubled thoughts.

And she would stay there, trapped under Madame Dimond’s unbreakable deal. The one she had been trying to pay for years and that only extended further.

“Can we not think about our inevitable future?” she begged, hiding her face in Ward’s throat. “I want to be here, now. With you. Let us not be bothered by those things.”

She couldn’t think of it just yet. Naithea wanted to spend every second they had left enjoying each other, without fearing whatwould happen next. Because when she did, the thought of losing him pierced her heart with the worst kind of pain.

Ward readjusted himself in the bed and held her face, descending his to kiss her lips. An energetic vibration coursed through her body, a feeling she’d never felt before. Naithea moaned softly as she kissed him back, letting herself be drowned in that dangerous sensation. She wanted to feel his lips against hers, his body protecting hers . . .

Forever.

But forever was a promise neither of them could make.

When Ward pulled back, he said, “I wish I could freeze this moment forever.”

“In this moment or in me?” she provoked him, surrounding his hips with her legs as she pulled him closer to her; his hard cock caressing her entrance.

“You have the dirtiest mind, love.”

Naithea laughed at that. She gathered all her strength to push him to the bed, until she was on top of him. Her legs were on each side of his muscular body, yet she didn’t feel so self-conscious about her nudity, because he saw everything in her. Everything she was.

Ward groaned as every inch of their bodies brushed.

“Are you already regretting giving me all the control, Commander?”

“You look too good for me to regret anything at all,” he purred, moving his hands up her legs. Ward sat on the bed and moved closer to bite her nipple. “Really good.”

“So possessive . . .” She caressed his hard chest with her nails, marking him. “You have already paid for all my nights.”

“I just like to protect what’s mine.”

Naithea didn’t roll her eyes as she would. She simply allowed herself to be intoxicated by the words he’d just admitted aloud.

“Does that mean you’re mine as well?” Naithea asked with passionate flames shining in her boreal eyes. “Is your body mine to please?”

“Yes,” the commander responded in an exhale, as she lowered her body to his and sunk her hands into his white hair.

“Is your heart mine to protect?” she asked again.

“Only yours . . .”

“And is your soul mine to—”

“To do with as you please,” he finished the sentence for her. Ward brushed her hair back from her face and held her affectionately, holding her gaze. “It’s yours to hold, yours to destroy. But only yours.”

Naithea strolled through the marketplace with her sisters after leaving Ward asleep in the brothel.

A silly smile was plastered on her face as she saw that her hands still glowed under the sun’s rays. In that night of passion, the commander magic had marked her with each one of his caresses on her body. Now, hues of starlight were etched in her skin.

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