Page 37 of WarBride

I won’t turn around. I won’t let her see what she’s done to me, though I suspect she knows. “We wait for dawn,” I say. “ThenI will do as I promised and help you find your sister. If it is in my power, I will help you reclaim her and escort you both safely back to your own people. Our association will be over.”

She is silent again for such a long time, I begin to wonder if she’s dozed off. But at last she whispers, “And . . . what of the other vows you made?”

Shakhme, if I didn’t know any better, I’d think she was trying to lure me back into that bed. Grimacing, I bow my head and run a hand down my face. What is wrong with me? We’ve shared no more than a few short hours together. And yes, those hours involved some of the most intimate, passionate moments I’ve ever known with a woman. I don’t know how it could be, given the fact we know nothing of each other. Maybe it’s simply the reality of the vows themselves—the holiness instilled in the marriage bond, which makes me feel as though our connection is much deeper than it is.

But I won’t be a fool. Gods, I don’t even know her real name! I know nothing about her save that she loves her sister. That she’s ferocious in the face of terror. That she has the voice of an angel, a voice instilled with strange magic. That’s it. The sum total of my knowledge of this girl.

Or perhaps not.

After all I also know the little mewling sound she makes when I kiss that sensitive place at the curve of her neck. I know how her body shivers when I glide my hands from her hipbones up her abdomen, when I cup her soft breasts. I know her scent, her taste. I know the song of her release.

I know things about her no other living man has ever known.

But she is not mine. Not truly.

“The Goddess, in her infinite wisdom, must understand that such vows, made under coercion, cannot be binding.” I turn slightly, just enough to cast her a look over my shoulder. Not enough that she should see how I still swell for her. “As long asyou are in my care, you can expect my protection. But I will not touch you again. You will carry your maidenhead with you to give to the man of your choosing.”

The girl sits upright, pulling that filmy gown back up onto her shoulders, crossing the gauzy fabric over her breasts. Then she grasps one of the fur blankets and pulls it around herself, though the interior of this pavilion is warm. I cannot help a twinge of regret. I should have liked to dwell on her lovely form a little longer. But this is selfish. So I say nothing.

“What if . . . ?” she begins and stops.

I wait. And part of me hopes. But for what? That she will say I am the man she chooses? That she will ask to remain with me as my wife? That she will invite me back to her bed here and now so that we may spend the rest of the night exploring each other more deeply and face the coming dawn hand-in-hand?

Fool that I am. Even if she wanted it, I could never return to the Hidden City with a human wife in tow. My people would not accept her; some would surely call for her death. No, our story must end tonight. And it will not end with me defiling her. Even if she asks me to.

“Go to sleep,” I say at last when her silence does not break. “Take the bed. By my estimation we still have two hours until dawn. You will need what sleep you can get before we set out to find your sister.”

“And . . . what about you? Where will you sleep?” She hesitates, then her voice drops an octave. “There is room enough for two here.”

Oh gods! Is she trying to break me? “I will stand watch,” I declare firmly and, with those words, march to the deepest, darkest part of the tent, out of the firelight. There I drop my head into my hands, breathing roughly in and out. Why is this so much harder than I thought it would be? Not just resisting the temptation she poses, but . . . tomorrow. Everything that musthappen tomorrow, when I will carry her out to the human world, leave her somewhere, and then ride away, never looking back. Why is the very idea like a knife to my chest?

“This was a mistake,” I groan. Even as I speak the words, the invisiblevelracord tightens painfully around my forearm.

*****

Somehow I manage to doze off sitting upright in that dark corner. The exhaustion of the last few days simply washes over me in a wave, and I bow my head to my chest and let everything else cease. At first there is nothing but darkness, peace.

But then . . . the dreams.

The girl is there, her voice in my head. I feel her soft body quivering under my palms. I breathe her musk as I nuzzle into her secret places, and she moans. Ah! such a sweet, sweet sound. My body awakens, roused once more with the excitement of pleasing her. I increase my tempo, my breath short in my nostrils, and—

“Taar!”

The harsh bark breaks through the gauzy film of dreams like a dash of cold water. I startle awake in my chair, confused, aroused, and bleary as nine hells. Shaking my head, I rub both hands down my face, struggling to rub some sense back into my head.

“Taar!” that same voice bellows again, loud enough to penetrate all the muting spells surrounding Ruvaen’s personal pavilion. “Get your arse out here and bring the human girl’s arse while you’re at it!”

Lurodos. Recognition hits me with a jolt. I push hair out of my face and look across to the bed, where the girl has also startled awake. The blanket she’d pulled around her last night falls away from her shoulders, revealing her lovely bare skin. Trapped as I am between sleep and wakefulness, between erotic dream and cold reality, I cannot help the sudden surge of fire that coursesthrough my veins at the sight. My mouth goes dry, and I stare, open-mouthed, even as her wide, terrified eyes seek me out in my shadowed hiding place.

“Come on, Taar! By now the girl must be crying for a propershakh!Bring her out and let me show her what a true man can do.”

“What’s going on?” the girl hisses. “Why is he out there? I thought you said the law was satisfied.”

I lurch to my feet. Blood pounds in a pulse of mingled lust and violence, each sensation vying for dominance. I am not my best self in this moment, and for that I am glad. I need some vent for these feelings, and as I cannot indulge lust just now, wrath will have to do.

“Stay there,” I growl, too harsh but unable to be gentle just now. “I will deal with this.”

She nods. Horror brims in her eyes as Lurodos’s voice shifts from Noxaurian to common Eledrian, which she can understand. “Come out, sweet maid!” he cries. “I’m hungry this morning. Let me feast on your succulent fruitsuntil you scream my name—”

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