Page 33 of Stormbinder King
He saw me watching and, laughing, strode over and pinched my chin affectionately.
His lightweight white shirt was open at the throat and his sleeves were rolled up.
Jack reached out for me, hooking his fingers possessively around the fastenings on my bodice, pulling on the eyehooks to bring me closer.
He tasted deliciously like sun and sweat, and I could feel his heart beating.
I wanted to put my hands under his shirt and run them up and down each heated, golden inch.
Jack loved me. I needed to tell him about Aurelia’s bullying.
“Jack, why don’t the—women here like me? I’m trying to make friends but everyone acts like they hate me.”
“Hate you?” he asked, flicking his tongue piercing into the hollow of my throat. “How could anyone hate you?”
“They do!” I insisted. “Especially Aurelia. Was she—did the two of you--?”
I searched his face to see if he had any guilt over rejecting her, because I was more sure than ever thatshewanted to be his mate.
But the little frown line between his eyes cleared.
“Don’t worry about it,” Jack said, his fangs extending for just a moment to make two delicious little pricks in my throat, then he went back to sparring.
Agile, yet aggressive, there was no one who could match him.
Without the tree covering or the magical scarves, I was forced to head back into the shadows to keep from getting heat stroke.
Wandering about at the outer edges of the village, I stumbled over a rock and noticed more of them on the ground—as well asbroken bits of woods and crushed beams, rocks looking like they had been broken in two.
I looked up in astonishment. The entrance to a beautiful little building had been destroyed, the intricate flowering vines laying torn on the ground.
What had happened to it? Even the pretty green door was so crumpled and mangled that it looked impossible even to get in. The stone walls had been utterly destroyed, collapsing in on themselves.
An unfamiliar wave of sorrow washed over me, gripping me utterly even though I had never been inside the building. I didn’t know why the damage had affected me like this.
I reached out tentatively, my fingers brushing down the rough and splintered surface of the door.
It had been such a pretty, jewel-like green color.
Who could have done such a thing?
But before my finger could barely brush down the wood, a rough hand was gripping me by the back of my dress and yanking me away.
“Never go in there,” Symeon growled. “I do not want to see you anywhere near this building.”
“I just wondered what it w-was!” I protested, hating the stammer that always betrayed me. “It’s a beautiful building.”
“Itwasa holy place,” Symeon corrected me. “No longer.”
“But why?” I cried. “Why destroy it?”
“It no longer serves its purpose,” the King bit out.
What had prompted Symeon to only recently fill it in? If it had been a sacred area?
“What was its purpose?”
But he did not answer the question.
