Page 56 of A Pact of Blood

I haven’t gotten to kiss the woman I love since before her final trial. But Bastien has struggled the most with accepting how his plan was upended. He always takes on so much responsibility for the rest of us.

If anyone needs the reminder of how much she cares in return, it’s him.

Raul’s gaze tracks Aurelia as she moves from our foster brother to him. A predatory glint sparks in his cool eyes.

He watches her apply the salve to his own wound, any discomfort he’s feeling buried deep. “Is the kiss part of the cure, Shepherdess?”

She gives him a wry look. “I suppose we can count it as that. If only to show I belong to you all too, as much as I can.”

The words bring a catch into my breath. No further envy stirs as Aurelia kisses Raul, only a tingle of anticipation.

She comes to me next, gliding across the floor like a figure out of a dream. The salve imparts a comforting coolness into my skin. The sad smile she offers me sends an ache from my throat to my gut.

I touch her cheek.“I meant it. I’m yours.”

She answers with the kiss I’ve spent more than a week imagining. Her lips meld with mine, soft and sweet, while her cool, wild scent fills my lungs.

How could I want anything else when I have her?

When she draws back, my hand trails down her face totuck the strands of her hair over her shoulder. The gesture reveals a ruddy blotch on the side of her neck.

My fingers jerk away from it.

He marked her. Her wretch of a husband bruised her beautiful skin to stake his claim.

All careful intentions go out the window. I tug her back to me, capturing her mouth for my own, teasing her lower lip with a graze of my teeth before deepening the kiss. As she melts into me, I ease my hand down her side. My palm slides over the tempting swell of her breast?—

Aurelia pulls away with a shaky breath. She clasps my hand so the refusal doesn’t feel so much like a rejection.

“I want to,” she says, the hunger turning her voice raw. “I just don’t think?—”

She already explained this to me. I squeeze her fingers, a shameful flush rising to my face, and flick my other hand through the air.I know. I’m sorry—I shouldn’t have pushed.

Aurelia steps farther back, glancing over all of us. She looks wilder and more gorgeous than ever with a flush of her own darkening her cheeks and her hair flowing unkept about her face.

She screws the lid back onto the jar and lowers her gaze to it for a moment before meeting our eyes again. “With the way Marclinus has been acting and the court setting off for Ubetta tomorrow, I think we should be even more cautious. We won’t have any secret passages or discreet rooms to sneak off into in the waystations. And he seems to be watching us so closely…”

My innards tighten even more at the idea of putting additional distance between us. The cloud of gloom that consumed me a few days ago settles over me, but I force myself to incline my head in agreement.“Whatever you think is safest for you.”

Protecting her matters more than bodily pleasures, as much happiness as a single touch from her brings me.

Raul grimaces. “I realize I’ve taken chances before, but I don’t want to put you in danger. You know the threats you’re facing better than any of us. You decide whether our combat lessons continue—whether you even want to talk to us—and we’ll follow your lead.”

“But we’ll still be here,” Bastien adds, his face drawn. “If you do need us, in whatever way…”

Aurelia’s mouth twists. “I want all of you to stay safe too. If I could, I’d have you all sent back to your home countries already?—”

No!I interrupt with an overt jerk of my hand. I’m recoiling from the thought too violently to concentrate on my gift.

As Aurelia stares at me, I repeat the same gesture I did in the audience hall.I belong to you.Then I add,We belong here with you. The fight is ours too.

She blinks hard—against tears she’s managed to hold back until now? “I know, but if something happened to you because of me…”

She’s still haunted by the death of that guard she fell for years ago. A duller twinge of jealousy passes through me, but it isn’t as if he’s competition now.

Maybe she needs the confirmation that he’s not a harbinger of our doom either.

I gather my composure enough to conjure my illusionary voice, girding myself against the brief ache of effort.“It wouldn’t be because of you. I don’t think it was the time before either. Why don’t you tell us all exactly what happened, so we can make sure what we have here doesn’t end the same way?”

---