by Alex Lidell
Tye was already moving from across the stable when Rik finally managed to grab Lera’s hair and haul her off Puckler. In the same motion, Rik slammed her chest-first into the wall so hard that the boards rattled. Without missing a beat, Puckler grabbed Lera’s free arm with one hand, the other rubbing his reddened neck. With Puckler and Rik now pinning Lera to the wall, Lord Nolan snatched a thick leather girth from a hook.
Leralynn froze, the scent of her sudden terror filling the air—and kindling an explosion of primal violence inside Tye.
Tye’s vision darkened. He was still a pace away when Nolan swung—just as Puckler realized they were no longer alone and shouted a warning.
Tye discerned neither Puckler’s words nor his twin’s answer. Tye heard nothing but the pounding of his own heart as he grabbed Nolan’s thick blond hair and shoved the bastard headfirst into the horses’ drinking trough. And then Tye held him there, beneath the water, while the tall lord thrashed uselessly. In outrage. In fear. In desperation for air that Tye was never going to let him have.
The twins’ eyes widened, the righteous excitement in their faces fading to disbelief.
Puckler shouted something. Lifted his hands. Stepped away from Lera.
Tye didn’t know what Puckler said. Didn’t hear. Didn’t care. Not with Lera’s frightened scent still spinning his head, the sight of the marvelous, ethereal creature who’d faced down three of the Academy’s largest royals being made vulnerable.
Beneath Tye’s grip, Nolan kicked wildly. Seeing his cousin’s jerking spasms, Puckler swung a hammer-sized fist toward Tye’s jaw.
Jerking Lord Nolan’s head from the trough, Tye used the lord’s face to intercept Pucker’s blow. The crush of bone and spray of blood chilled the stable’s air to ice. For a moment, no one moved, Nolan holding together his broken nose while Puckler stared at his own bloody fist.
Tye, his hand now free to curl into a fist, twisted about the battle scene, ready to finish the males. To rip their throats out with his teeth.
“Walk away.” Lera’s quiet voice skittered across the stable. Not aimed at Tye, he realized through his haze of protective instincts, but at the royals. “Move slowly. No running. No sudden moves.”
The royal cousins glanced at each other once before obeying, and it was all Tye could do to keep himself from pouncing on the pathetic figures and clawing them to shreds. His chest heaved. Yes. He longed to hunt them down. To kill them. To protect Leralynn from anyone who dared harm her.
12
12. Lera
Choking down the pain and fear still filling my lungs, I wait until the doors close behind the escaping cadets before stepping toward Tye. The male’s chest heaves, fiery hair damp with sweat, his green eyes still flashing with a primal fury. The fury is as much Tye’s as that of the tiger he doesn’t know he shifts into—the tiger he only started connecting with earlier this year.
“Tye?” I say softly.
The male finds my gaze, his own still unfocused. Still primal and savage and as dark as the blood that gushed from Nolan’s broken nose. Unlike Tye, whose veil-covered mind remembers nothing of me, the tiger must still feel the mating bond pulling at his soul. Just as Shade’s wolf does.
My breath hitches. Unlike Shade’s wolf, Tye’s tiger form recalls nothing of his fae partner even in Lunos. With the mortal lands further choking the magic, if Tye ever shifts, the resulting predator would think nothing of ripping half the Academy to bits and eating them raw. I can’t let that happen.
“Tye? I-I’m all right.” I swallow, forcing a smile into my lie. Leaning against the wall for support, I try to ignore the throbbing as welts and cuts check in from all over my flesh. “I’m all right. It’s over.”
Tye shakes his head, his mane of red hair swooshing about him. When he steps toward me, his glazed eyes slowly regain their reason. Distantly, I notice that, unlike me, he’s not dressed for dinner—he looks to have come straight from training, in a cut-off gray uniform tunic and black pants.
I hold very still. Doing nothing that might further wake the predator.
Tye blinks again, his gaze lucid, and it’s all I can do to keep from burying my head in his shoulder. As if all the strength and courage I’ve borrowed have now fled. That’s what I would do with my Tye—but this is not my Tye.
“Leralynn.” Tye crouches beside me, his hands brushing my wrist. His perfect features are sharp with focus now, his silver earring glinting in the barn’s low light. Concern and anxiety roll off him in waves of warm scent, the gaze that held murder moments earlier now focused entirely on gently probing my flesh. “How are ye, lass?”
“Sore.” Very bloody sore. The bastards’ crude attempt to turn me into a pony flashes in my memory, making my jaw clench. “It’s mostly my pride that’s injured.”
“Why don’t I believe you?” Tye asks, his thumb stroking a bead of blood from my lower lip. Penetrating green eyes brush my body, seeing every rip and welt and cut. The clean pine-and-citrus scent of him mixes with sweat—and determination.
Before I can move away, Tye snakes his arms around me and lifts me into the air. I gasp, struggling as I find myself held tightly against the male’s broad chest.
“I-I can walk.” I should walk.
Tye’s arms tighten, his heart pounding so hard that I hear it through his chest. “You are currently wearing magenta strips of silk,” he says, his light voice utterly at odds with his heartbeat. “While the Academy would no doubt enjoy the spectacle, I’d like to keep this little secret all to myself just now.”
I open my mouth to protest, to ask where Tye thinks he’s taking me, but shut it without speaking. I hurt. And for now, just being cared for is enough.
With most everyone in the dining hall, the grounds are near deserted. Wherever Nolan and twins ran off to, I see no trace of the royals as Tye navigates the convenient rows of trees and hedges he plainly has experience using as concealment. Five turns later, even I am lost as to our destination until the low stone bathhouse looms before us. The men’s bathhouse.
“Wait!” My protest comes altogether too late as Tye shoulders the door open, crosses a locker-lined antechamber, and brings us into a large, softly lit room filled with sprawling bathing pools. From a heavily steaming pool in one corner to a tiny round one steeped with mugwort—which gives it approximately the smell and color of black tea—to a deep, clear pool that looks unheated and long enough to do laps. The thick wet steam caresses my skin, and I inhale a lungful of blissfully warm air. Unlike the female baths, where vases of spring flowers provide splotches of color amidst a white interior, the men’s bath has patterns of smooth round river stones laid into the green tiled walls and around shelves holding soap and towels. The sloped floor takes advantage of a cleverly routed branch of the Great Falls river to easily circulate the water, while always-burning braziers keep hot water readily accessible.
Setting me down on the farthest pool’s lip, Tye closes the drain and tips a flow of scalding-hot water to mix in with the burbling, cool liquid already there. His muscles flex and shift under his skin in the low lantern light. The bathing pool thus drawn, Tye pulls off first his boots, then my own, his deft hands moving with the skill of centuries spent undressing women.
“How did you know there was trouble?” I ask. Next to Tye’s perfectly lithe movements and sweat-mussed hair made only more perfect by its wildness, I look like a tattered rat rolled in muck.
“I was training nearby and Rabbit fetched me. It didn’t make Katita pleased at all.” Tye adds the latter under his breath, as if the words are intended more for himself than me. “Pitting yourself alone against three royals—I don’t know whether that makes you the bravest or most reckless Great Falls cadet. And I’ll have you know, I currently hold the most reckless title, and I’d rather not give it up.”
Tye was with Katita. A jolt of pain I’ve no right to feel twists my stomach. Free of the magic bonds, this Tye is kind and smart and brave—but he isn’t mine. He’s made that clear enou
gh. Which is good. The farther we stay from each other, the less chance of me provoking the amulet.
Stripping down to his undershorts, Tye slips into the water, planting himself between my open thighs. I do everything I can not to stare at his bare torso—the broad flare of his pectorals and shoulders, the hard ridges of his abdomen, bulging even at rest, sun-kissed by many shirtless training sessions—but it’s a losing battle. His calloused hand cups my cheek gently. “Let’s see the damage, lass. From the little I caught at the end there, you’ve something to show for the encounter.”
I open my mouth, but no words come out.
Taking my silence as consent, Tye pulls down the tatters still holding the top of my dress to my shoulders, letting my breasts tumble free—which, instead of making me rightfully furious, sends a shiver of excitement along my skin. Warm water swirls around my legs, reaching up my calf. When my arms come up to cover my breasts, Tye flashes me a quick grin. “You know that just makes me want to look closer?”
Face heating, I focus on the steam rising above the water in little curls. Curls that look so like the coarse hair I know is to be found around my companion’s cock that I quickly realize I need to be looking elsewhere. But where?
Tye’s fingers probe my ribs, his intense green gaze so focused on my body that my breath hitches. One white canine, dulled by the veil amulet’s magic, scrapes his lower lip in concentration. When his hands slide around toward the front, slipping beneath my tender breasts, I bite my lip and try to pull away.
Tye shakes his head, dismissing my efforts. “I don’t think anything is broken,” he says, pearly drops of water running along the grooves of sculpted muscles. The focus of his gaze makes the rest of his broad, trained body even more beautiful, the tension singing beneath his skin sending vibrations right to my apex. His touch gentles. “But you’ve some bruises to match the night sky.”
“Stop it.” Pushing Tye back, I gather my dignity and slide off the pool’s edge into the water—which has the opposite effect of what I’d intended. Instead of providing greater cover, the water that only reaches Tye’s waist now slaps gently against my breasts, the soft bounce drawing a clear swallow from Tye. Adding to the mess, the remaining bottom of my dress yields to the water’s pressure and billows up to my waist. The welts along my backside sting, but I dare not rub them just now. Dare not do anything that may bring us closer to the line we’ve decided not to cross.
Friends. We are friends. Not even that now. Acquaintances. Partners in crime. Tye came to my aid just as I came to Rabbit’s. There is nothing more in this than that.
With a soft curse, Tye turns his gaze to the ceiling, drawing several deep breaths. When his attention returns to me, the male captures my waist. Sitting himself on an underwater bench, he draws me to stand between his legs. With him sitting and me between those corded thighs, our faces are level. “You are beautiful, lass,” he growls softly. “So much that a man can’t help wondering if you taste as good as you look.”
Line. Not helping.
The thought of Tye’s mouth on my sex is enough to make it clench. Ignoring the wetness slowly coating the inside of my channel, I splay my hand on Tye’s broad chest, feeling the warm, velvety skin damp with steam, the muscles contracting beneath my fingers. “You are obnoxious, Tye. Or have you forgotten that we’ve no interest in bedding each other?”
A shadow passes over Tye’s face, gone so quickly that I’m not sure I saw it. “Aye, but if I stop being a prat, you might notice that I’ve been busy removing the rest of your clothes.”
I blink, realizing the male has, in fact, been busy handling my dress, and now lifts the remaining fabric over my head. I jerk backwards, which proves a mistake when Tye’s large hands close on both sides of my bruised bottom.
I yelp.
The amusement in the male’s face fades, his whole body tensing as he beholds the full results of the royals’ handiwork. “I am going to rip them apart limb from limb.”
I reach for the soap, determined to be wearing at least something, even if it’s only bubbles. “I don’t imagine princess Katita would thank you for it.”
“That might be the best part,” Tye says, his earring glinting dangerously, a match to the silver flecks in his eyes. This close, I can see his constellation of freckles and suddenly long to trace them with my lips like I used to do in Lunos. His fingers trace the tender bruise around the curves of my cheeks, my resulting shudder having nothing to do with pain. “Do you want to know what I’m thinking now?” he whispers roughly.
“No.” My voice comes out in a croak. My sex clenches around the emptiness inside it, my whole body longing for Tye—the real Tye, my mate. Longing to finish what we started against the tree. The heat pooling between my thighs is enough to warm the bath with no help from the brazier. My pulse quickens, the aching along the insides of my thighs radiating through my core and burning away all common sense.
Tye’s teeth flash, leaning forward until his lips touch my ear. “I am thinking that I can’t stand the scent of those royals on your skin. And that if I don’t dive into a frigid bath right now, I’m going to lose the battle to replace their scent with mine. Very, very fully.”
13
13. Tye
What in the names of all the bloody stars did Tye think he was saying?
The truth.
The wrong truth. The impermissible truth. Beneath the water, Tye’s cock strained so hard that it actually pulsated with his rising heartbeat. The bruises covering the girl’s skin looked even more livid than before, and the thought of someone—some male—having laid his hands on her waking a primal beast inside Tye’s chest. The same beast that smelled Lera’s arousal as he towered over her small form, tracing her curves with his hungry gaze. Another moment and Tye would lose all control altogether.
And that wouldn’t be fair. Not after what he’d done to Tiga.
Releasing Lera quickly, Tye curled his hands around the edge of the pool. Lifting his chin toward the ceiling, he forced air into his lungs. Focused on the sounds of gently gurgling water and dripping condensation echoing off the tiled walls. Anything to relieve the hold on his shaft.
It didn’t work. No. Everything inside Tye suddenly demanded his scent—yes, scent—all over the lass before him. Needed it. And the part of his mind that had any rational thought left, the one telling him that men did not do such things, was quickly becoming irrelevant.
He had to go. Run. That was the only way this would end without him inside Lera, taking her so hard that her screams echoed from the bathhouse walls.
Lera stepped forward, her knee bumping against Tye’s throbbing shaft. The sudden jolt of sensation made him leap to his feet.
A glaze settled over Lera’s deep-chocolate eyes. Her nostrils flared delicately with her quickened breaths, her engorged nipples tantalizing atop the gently bouncing breasts. Even the light touch of freckles along her perfect cheekbones was bloody arousing. She’d been so blazing hot when he’d fingered her against the tree, the thought of what that channel would feel like around his shaft stole Tye’s air.
“Tye?” Lera breathed, her fingers touching the crest of his hip. The sensation went right to his engorged cock.
“I wasn’t kidding about the scent,” Tye said breathlessly.
“I know.” The way Leralynn said it made Tye think she really did know. Understood it in a way that he couldn’t himself.
That did it. What little self-control Tye had remaining fell apart as a deep possessive instinct had him gripping Lera’s head.
Tye pressed his mouth over Lera’s, her lips parting hungrily to let Tye’s tongue slip inside. He’d intended as much. Planned to savor her sweet lilac taste. To linger there and then muster control and pull away. Right up until Tye tasted the drop of blood on Lera’s split lip and felt his world blur around the edges.
Tye cupped Lera’s face, holding her steady as he plunged into her sweet mouth, claiming every tantalizing taste of her. His. His. His. Tye took Lera deeper
, swallowing the moan that escaped her mouth, the sound vibrating through his aroused nerves.
Her fingers dug into his back, pulling him closer. The molten heat from Lera’s mouth reached so deep inside him that Tye’s heart raced, tripping over its own beat. Deeper. Deep enough to kindle a flame that had lain cold since Tiga’s death.
Cupping Lera’s lush thighs, Tye hoisted her up onto his waist. The girl’s legs wrapped instinctively around his hips, her toned muscles linking their bodies like pieces on a perfect puzzle. Stars. Such a small, strong, vibrant creature.
Lera’s foot kicked at the top of Tye’s undershorts, struggling to pry off the wet cloth. Tongue still savoring her mouth, Tye released one hand to loosen his front flap, his cock springing free so hard that he and Lera both inhaled at the sudden smack.
With his hand still low, Tye brushed it along Lera’s opening, discovering a wet, warm slickness that made him groan with need. Tightening the arm holding Lera against him, Tye plunged a finger into her channel.
The needful moan that evoked was the most beautiful sound Tye had ever heard.
His second finger went in, teasing and stretching her blazing tightness. A third.
Lera’s channel clenching around him, the girl broke the kiss with a frustrated growl. “I. Want. You.”
Tye attempted to chuckle—he prided himself on making women soar, drawing out their pleasure and frustration for a climax that would shatter their world—but the attempt came out raspy and strained. He couldn’t play. Tye needed to take her. Now. Fast and hard and permanent. It wasn’t just his cock, with its engorged shaft pulsating in anguish, but something much deeper that demanded he connect. That he mate, as if he were a wild predator instead of a man.
Panting, he gazed up into Lera’s face. Her muscles strained, her heart pounding so fiercely, he could see the pulse at the side of her neck. A droplet of sweat beaded her temple, close to her glazed brown eyes. The thought of being inside all that heat and power drove Tye as mad as Lera’s lilac scent, which spurred his heart every time he inhaled.
