Thankfully, nobody follows me.
The streets grow quieter as I move away from the bustling center, where the moonlight paints everything in silvery hues. I follow it to the stables and slip inside.
Jasce stands in a patch of moonlight streaming through the slats in the walls, one hand resting casually on a wooden beam. “Hello, beautiful.”
“Beautiful?” I lift my hand to my veil and pull it away.
“Yes.” He closes the distance between us and traces my scars with his fingertips. “You’re beautiful to me, Annora.”
“When did you know?” I ask, the question rising above the soft shuffle of horses in their stalls.
“Know what?”
“That you wanted me. Therealme?”
His eyes lock with mine, holding me captive. “When I saw you playing with Will.”
My breath catches as the truth of his words settles over me. “That wasn’t very long after we first met.”
“I know.” Jasce’s tone changes, turning deeper, more tender. “You captivated me. The way you pulled your hands into your sleeves. The way you drew. The kindness you showed Will.”
Heat blooms in my chest as Jasce’s lips find mine again, and everything else fades away. The stable, the horses, the distant sounds of the city.
There is only Jasce. This man. This chieftain I love.
With him, I am not scarred or broken. I am simply a woman.Hiswoman.
The thought fills me with a sense of rightness, of inevitability. As if every path, every choice, every twist and turn of my life had always led me here. To him.
His fingers tangle in my hair as he changes the angle of the kiss, deepening it. I moan, and his lips curve into a smile against mine. He likes that sound, likes knowing the effect he has on me.
His tongue sweeps into my mouth, and I meet him stroke for stroke as the kiss turns more urgent.
If only I could freeze this moment, capture it in amber and hold onto it forever.
Jasce’s hands slide down my back, gripping my thighs as he lifts me. My arms instinctively wrap around his neck as he carries me toward a bale of hay.
“From a palace to a stable,” I tease. “How far we’ve come.”
He laughs, the sound rumbling through his chest. “I’d fuck you anywhere, Annora. A palace, a stable, the middle of a desert.”
“Who says we’re fucking?” I ask with a grin.
He sits down on the hay with me on his lap. “We’re fucking.”
I shift until I’m straddling his lap. “Not unless you say please.”
He grips my hips and pulls me against him. “Are you trying to kill me, woman?”
“No. I just want to hear you beg,” I say, repeating the words he said to me a while ago.
“Is that what you want?” he asks, his voice low, sensual as he shifts me enough to yank up my gown.
My pulse throbs in my throat as I plant my hands against his shoulders. “Yes. Beg, Jasce.”
The heat of his breath tickles my ear as he leans close and speaks. “I don’t have to. Not when I know you want me as desperately as I want you.” Lightly, he trails his fingertips up my thighs, then brushes them against my undergarments, feelingthe wetness—the evidence of my desire for him. “Tell me you missed me, Annora.”
“You know I did.” I rock against him, savoring his sharp intake of breath.
