Page 23 of Through Battle and Blades (The Wolf Queen 2)

But the smile faltered when I pressed my fingers to his lips, his gaze becoming intent, focussed. I wanted to replace my hand with my mouth, to dig my hands in his hair, rip open his trews and—

Dane had told me to identify some rules for a reason and it wasn’t just to contain him. It was to keep me from making stupid decisions too and he nodded when he saw me realise this. But then he tossed his head back, his hair sliding over his shoulders, baring his neck to me, and that’s when all sense went out of my head. My hand whipped out and wrapped around that muscular column and all Dane did was glance up at me, like this was no big deal.

“Try anything you like, lass,” he ground out. “I think you’ll find that I can take it.”

13

“A Granian woman,” I told him, “she’d get beaten within an inch of her life for daring to grip a man by his throat. The priests would be egging the man on all the way.”

“I’ve always thought that Grania was run by fools, but never more than now.”

I could feel the vibration of his words through my palm. His jaw inched upwards, forcing the muscle harder against it. Men like Kris would see Dane’s behaviour as some kind of shameful submission, a womanish display, but it wasn’t that at all.

He relinquished nothing, not one iota of his power or dominance, not as he stared into my eyes, not even when they fluttered half closed as my hand slid down. I touched him and he allowed it, gracious as a prince.

I ran my hand along the line of his shoulder, the muscle tensing there, but was that from discomfort or from giving me a show? He smiled then to let me know. So I traced the lines of all that beautiful muscle, letting my fingers curl inside the hollow of his collarbone, my thumb dipping into the space between them, then smoothing out over the hard curves of his bicep. I followed the snaking vein that led down his arm, trailed my fingertips across his ribs, then up to circle around the flat medallion of his nipple. Dane let out a hiss, the small bead tightening.

“Sensitive?” I asked.

“Not usually, but apparently I’m doomed to be inordinately so when you’re touching me. You unman me.”

“Unman? What does that even mean?”

He tried to answer me with words, but his lips fell open as my fingertips teased his nipple. Just light brushing touches, I couldn’t help but do it again when he responded so intensely. It was like I was touching him somewhere far more intimate, his brows creasing, his breath coming in short little bursts, then a groan when my other hand touched the opposite one. And that’s when he broke.

His arms came whipping around, grabbing me by the waist and dragging me down onto his lap, so I could feel exactly what effect I was having on him.

“There are two wolves inside us men,” he growled, his hands going to my scalp, sinking his fingers into my hair. “One wants to protect, to serve his mate until he has nothing left to give.”

“And the other?”

A little waver snuck into my voice as I watched his eyes flare bright.

“The other is a hungry beast, who just wants to satisfy his ravening needs and doesn’t care for any of yours. Unmanning is the point where the man fails and the beast wins. I become selfish, greedy, impulsive…”

His words faded slightly in that moment as I stared into his eyes. My prince. Each one of them had earned the title, but somehow Dane epitomised it. Always noble, always responsible, leading so we had someone to follow.

But at what cost?

I moved forward, slowly now, and pressed my forehead to his, my lips ghosting across his.

“And is the other wolf ever let off the leash?”

My question was a quiet one, little more than a whisper, but I heard his ragged groan in response.

“I don’t know how, Darcy. I’m fucking terrified of what will happen if I do, of how I’ll act.”

I pressed my lips to his, and his arms locked tight around me. His scent filled my nose and his taste, my mouth. Dane came rushing in. But it wasn’t just the sensory things, though they came first. It was him. Dane’s… soul for want of a better word, beat like the wings of an eagle, hot and hard and desperate. But this eagle had his wings clipped hard. And I quickly worked out why.

The room, Dane, his mouth and mine, they all fell away and were replaced by this, a memory.

We were in the castle. I recognised the architecture and the tapestries on the wall. And her. I would now recognise Aurora anywhere, even if she looked considerably younger then. That beautiful face, so like Dane’s and yet utterly different. Dane’s couldn’t screw up into a mask of viciousness, not like hers did.

“Little bastard…” she said, prowling closer to a young man I knew had to be Gael. He was much lighter in build, his body had that lanky, half grown look of a boy moving into manhood. But even so, his fists balled and his arms bunched at the approach of the queen, his chin jerking up as his lips thinned down. “I’ve heard you’ve been getting above yourself again, thinking you’re fit company for princes of the blood.”

I saw then a stiff and pale Weyland and a just as stricken Axe. Their eyes slid to Dane, who stood there, pinned to the spot. They watched him, but he watched his mother with a kind of dread fascination.

“Father said we had to accept Gael,” Dane’s disembodied voice said. “I thought that was sufficient to keep him safe. Mother always obeyed Father. He was the only one who could compel her. When Gael was brought home, when he was brought to court, Father watched her go white as a ghost, her teeth sinking so far into her lips her mouth ran red, but he still recognised Gael as his son.” I heard his sigh. “I underestimated her.”

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