Page 49 of Mated to the Mad Marquess

“What’s he saying now?”

Malcolm took a steadying inhale through his nose. “He believes he knows why you’re brooding, what it is you need,” he said, voice husky. “And he’s describing it in vivid detail.”

“Oh?” Hrafn’s wings flittered on impulse, another invitation, an instinctive one. Her pulse throbbed in her neck and between her thighs. She didn’t know what Solis was saying, but if she strained her ears, she thought she could hearsomething, a murmur of a voice, incoherent and far away.

“This has to be the last time between us,” Malcolm said gently, his eyes glassy and full of a feeling she couldn’t name because there were too many of them. A storm of emotions swam there in his deep blue depths.

“The last time.” She licked her lips. “Because I won’t stay?”

“And because I can’t go with you,” he said so softly she barely heard him.

His gaze burned into hers. She understood fully the boundary he was setting. It was a practical choice, a necessary one. One last time together intimately.

She hated it.

Hated it so much it was like acid in her belly. It seemed so unfair. First, to be stuck guarding a prison so long, and then to find the man she loved, but in order to keep him, she had to remain in that damnable cage.

A trapped bird for all her eternity.

She put a hand over her stomach to stifle the unpleasant sensation. It was a choice so wicked she didn’t want to accept it. She wanted to push it all off into the distance for some fuzzy future version of herself to tackle.

But this was a gift he was giving her, too. A piece of her culture, a treasured mating ritual. Acceptance in a world that wanted to forget her. This last time with him was sacred, because no matter what happened, when the monster was dealt with, she was leaving her cage and taking these precious moments with her.

Forever.

Slowly she nodded her agreement, and her throat went tight. She opened her mouth to speak, but his thumb came up and stroked her lower lip. She listened.

“I do want to play. When you fight me, I’ll fight you back. When you tell me to stop, I won’t listen. I’ll make you break free on your own if you can.”

Need pooled hot and demanding between her legs. She pressed her thighs together, stopping the whimper in her throat before it could slip out and interrupt him.

“But I don’t want to miss your subtle signals ever again,” he said, and his voice had dropped to a tempting whisper. “Don’t say ‘no.’ Don’t say ‘stop.’ I’ll ignore those and assume they’re spoken in good fun. When you need the game to end, say ‘horse.’ Say that word, and Solis and I will let you go, no matter what. Say it now. I need to know you understand.”

“Horse,” she whispered, her lips curling at the humorous reminder of their first meeting.

“Don’t forget that word, little bird.” His breath blew ragged and hot across her brow. Beneath the fall front of his trousers, his cock twitched. “When I let you go, you’d better run. Run quick and fly fast, because when Solis catches you, he’s going to hold you down for me.”

An excited hum slipped past her lips, anticipating his next move, but his fingers were still there, a feathering touch warming the side of her throat.

Then his hand dropped.

Hrafn shot to her feet and sprinted for the balcony. She shouldered open the glass doors, rattling them against the paned frame. Wings spreading with an audible whoosh, she dove from the stone rim, falling fast, her heart thundering in her chest.

She didn’t look back, didn’t let herself despite the temptation. His wing-beats were always soundless, and she didn’t need to see. She knew he was close, felt her mate’s nearness thrumming through the bond, sensed him reaching out his wraith-like hand to catch her ankle.

So close,so close.She bit back a delighted shriek, instincts flooding her body so intensely her belly tremored.

Hrafn let herself plummet, gaining speed. Wind whipped by her ears, cooling her nose and cheeks. With one powerful beat of her wings, she lifted out of the nosedive, jetting through the courtyard, the gust of her approach ghosting over the lawn, bowing the stalks of tall grass.

She rounded the ruined tower, and then she kicked up her speed, pumping her wings with everything she had to give. She dove behind an outbuilding to hide. Solis zoomed by, not seeing her. She waited until he rounded the granite tower in the distance, looking for her, before she made a mad dash for the keep doors.

She wrenched them open, startling the domestic who hovered inside. Hrafn didn’t stop even to apologize. She pressed on, through the entryway, up those treacherously steep stairs.

“My lord,” she heard the servant mumble.

The sound of landing footsteps behind her fed her surging pulse. Her heart was a wild drumbeat against the cage of her ribs. She reached the landing and raced forward.

Solis ghosted through the walls at the end of the hall. He stood there before her: all broad shadows, crown of antlers, shrouded in midnight illusion, his dark tail whipping behind him.

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