Page 73 of Thorns & Fire
‘Cal, I think we need to make a trip to the conservatory,’ he said, with a curious glance at Torj.
Did he hear us?Torj worried.Surely we weren’t that loud...
But Zavier didn’t spare him another look.The long-lost Prince of Naarva simply waved goodbye to the two women inside and strode off with Cal in tow.
Moments later, Dessa made her excuses and bid them farewell, leaving Torj alone with his charge.He peered inside the study room to find Wren wincing as she rolled her shoulders.
‘Are you hurt?’he asked, startling her as he stepped inside.
‘You scared me!’she said with her hand over her heart.‘No.I’m fine.’She turned back to the book in front of her and rested her head in her hands with a sigh.‘I don’t know if I’m going to be able to recreate the cure I used on Zavier,’ she said softly.
Torj’s chest seized for her.‘You got what you needed from Delmira.Why wouldn’t it work this time?’
Wren rubbed her temples.‘I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but things tend to not go to plan around here.If I don’t succeed...’
‘You will.’He said it firmly, with no room for compromise, and he believed it with every fibre of his being.He believed in her.He always had.
Wren fitted her hands to her hips and arched her back, stretching what were clearly aching muscles.Guilt lanced through Torj as his gaze dropped to her breasts, which were thrust forwards.She was in pain and he was ogling her.He truly was a bastard.
‘Here.’He moved towards her without thinking – apparently, he was doing a lot of that lately – and rested his hands on her shoulders.
A slight gasp escaped Wren, and all he wanted to do was swallow that sound with a kiss, but instead he stood behind her and slowly started to knead her shoulders.
Wren melted into his touch.‘Oh.’
‘You’re made of knots,’ he told her quietly, working his thumb over a particularly hard spot behind her shoulder blades.He could feel her skin heating beneath the fabric of her gown.
‘I haven’t been moving as much.I was stretching and training with Thea every morning before we left here—’
A moan broke from Wren’s lips, her head tipping back slightly.
The sound went straight to Torj’s cock.It was a miracle he was able to keep the same rhythm with his hands as he worked across her tight muscles.
The flush across the back of Wren’s neck told him that she hadn’t meant to be so vocal.Torj only just managed to bite back a comment about enjoying her noises.
She cleared her throat.‘The exercise was helping,’ she continued, as though she hadn’t made a sound.‘But since we returned I’ve moved from one workspace to another, and...Well, apparently my back isn’t what it used to be.’
‘I know what you mean,’ Torj said with a soft smile.‘Can I get you something for the pain?’
‘I’ll survive.’But she leaned into his touch with a quiet sound of relief.‘Right...there.’
Torj had never been more aware of the intoxicating scent of her, finding himself dangerously close to inhaling that hint of spring rain and jasmine directly, like an addict.
‘You could train with me,’ he ventured, working down the length of her spine as much as her chair would allow.
There was that arch again.Furies save me.
His heart felt raw, as though he had freshly ripped that bond apart all over again.Sometimes he thought he could still see glimpses of it – glimmers of gold.But Wren had said nothing, hadn’t seen it.And that meant there was still a chance to save her from him.
‘Why are you being so nice to me?’she said suddenly, wrenching him from the fantasy he’d been having where, in the midst of a training session, Wren straddled him as she had in the tent during the storm.
Torj’s hands stilled.‘I—’
Wren pulled away from him, gathering her books and getting to her feet.‘I think it’s time I returned to my room.I have work to do.’
‘You should rest—’
‘Until I can present the cure as my opus to the masters, there will be no rest for me, Bear Slayer.’
