Page 90 of Feral Guardian
The possessive fire in his eyes turns red hot with the challenge. He reaches for me, and I lash out on instinct, clawing him across the wrist. Angry scrapes, not nearly as deep as the ones I’d inflicted on Trask, carve across Alastair’s arm. He looks up from his wound with bewilderment that quickly morphs into a determination so staunch it would make Morgha quiver in her greaves.
He swipes for me again and I dodge, but barely. He’s much faster than I am and I stumble back to avoid his grasp. There’s only a flicker of magic left in me and I can’t use it for any rune-writing without draining myself dry.
So I run.
“Why?” I scream at him as I dodge around trees, my smaller size and agility the only things saving me from his clutches. “Why must you take me to my death?”
I lurch backwards as he grabs my arm. I twist and claw him across the knuckles deep enough to make him growl and release me. With him recoiling, I take the offensive, swiping for his chest and sides. He rears back, avoiding my hits.
“Why, Alastair?” There are tears streaming down my face and I can’t stop the floodgate of emotions.
“Because I’m nothing without you!” he shouts, shaking me to the core.
I stumble and he moves in for me.
Anger swells in to fill the void left in the wake of his confession. “Howdareyou say that about my best friend!”
He scowls, his demon receding a measure. I dodge his next grab, rolling through the crunchy pine needles.
“You take it back!” I scream, putting a larger tree between us.
“What am I if not your guard?” he asks, juking left around the tree before swiping at me on the right.
I claw at his reaching hand and fall back against the next tree. “You’re kind, and you’re really good at cooking, and you have a mother that you desperately need to see!”
His horns recede another inch, but he keeps advancing.
“You love Kor’Tar, and even though you pretend not to, you like my dirty jokes, too.”
I try to stay out of reach, but he gets hold of my wrist. I rake my nails down his forearm, and he captures that wrist too. Without many options left, I lean in and bite his hand. He tastes of blood and vengeance. He releases me with a pained grunt. I try to get a few paces between us, but he gives chase.
“You say you don’t like poetry, but, Alastair, you’ve spoken to me more beautifully in the past weeks than anyone ever has in my life!”
He lunges for me, and this time, I lunge back.
I wrap my arms around his neck and press my lips against his.
Alastair is frozen, his eyes wide open in shock.
I close my eyes and hover my lips on his in an unmoving question.“Do you want me? Do you need me in the way I crave you?”
For an unbearable second that feels like eternity, we stand like this. His hands clutching my sides. My arms coiled around him. His body unmoving. My heart hammering, one choice away from breaking.
And then he groans, dragging me against him in the sweetest feeling of surrender. His mouth moves against mine with ravenous hunger, stoking the embers of my love for him until it burns between us like a beacon. He drops to his knees and envelops me, making sure there is no part of me that doesn’t touch him.
His hands rove up my back and tangle in my hair, holding me firmly against the power of his passion. I moan into him, tears sliding down my cheeks onto his. He stops, pulling back. His eyes are wide with fear, and hope. I memorize the expression, for I know I’ll never see it again.
I place my hands on either side of his face. “You’re everything to me.”
His eyes glisten and he makes a pained groan before he pulls me back down against his lips. He palms my ass and holds me harder. The fierceness of his touch has me keening into his mouth. His tongue glides against my lips and I open to him.
The heat of the kiss blazes through the chill of the night as his tongue slides over mine. My body is alive with love and desire, weaving twin vortexes of annihilation through my thoughts. There isnothing but Alastair. No need I have greater than Alastair. Nothing I wouldn’t do for him, give up for him.
“You will sit upon that throne, Lilianna,” he growls between fevered kisses. “If I must kill every single person that stands in your way, including your mother, I will.”
“There’s no way you can make me, unless you sit upon the one next to me.”
His passion stutters. “What?”
