Page 130 of House of Embers
“Days,” he promised.
“Your sweet Kerrigan returned hours ago,” she teased.
His hazel eyes bored into hers. “And yet I remained.”
“For what reason?”
“I think you know.”
Their first kiss played out before her eyes, the dozens after heating her through, the rain she’d been flying in moments earlier forgotten for his heat.
“A girl likes to hear it.”
Dozan grasped her around the middle and pushed her back against the door. His nose brushed hers. She had always been tall, and still he was taller. It made her feel almost dainty when she had never been called such. She felt like a different person entirely in Dozan Rook’s arms.
“I missed you,” he said as his lips found a sensitive spot on her neck. “I worried when you were not with the others.” A nip at her earlobe. “I do not like to be kept waiting.”
She shivered as he sucked the earlobe into his treacherous mouth. “I’m a commander. I did what needed to be done.”
“And me?” he asked as he pulled back and traced his thumb over her cold bottom lip. “Where do I fit?”
“Maybe you don’t,” she challenged.
He smiled, full and brilliant. “All right. Guess I’ll go find another lady,” he said, turning from her.
“Don’t.” She grasped his forearm and jerked him back to her. His body covered hers, a dirty, delicious smirk on his lips.
“Aha,” he said. “I am wanted.”
Then he kissed her, and she sank into him, forgetting the rest of the world and the oppressive thoughts of her people that she had grown up with. Humans and half-Fae were not beneath them. Not so long as people like Kerrigan and Clover and Dozan existed.
“As much as I want to continue,” Wynter admitted, “I desperately need to get out of these clothes.”
Dozan’s eyes brightened. “Well, love, I’m excellent help at that.”
She snorted and pushed him away. “A bath and some dinner.”
“Is this an invitation?” he purred.
“You’re insufferable.”
“I can make it worth your while.”
She took his hand. “If you’re lucky, I’ll let you join me.”
“That would make me the luckiest man in Alandria.”
“And don’t you forget it.”
Dozan traced her face with his eyes as if he was memorizing every inch of her. And all he saw was the person she had always wanted to show others. Not the broken pieces or the shattered heart. And he liked every dark thought in her head and every dangerous motive. He wanted her precisely how she was, and it was the greatest gift anyone had given her.
“I can’t sit out the next one,” he told her solemnly. “I can’t wait here to know what’s happening with you. I know I don’t have any magic. I know…”
She put a finger to his lips. “I know. I don’t want that either.”
Then she produced a small silver amulet with a capitalRetched into the metal.
Dozan’s eyes widened. “Is that…”
