The Konig Cursebreakers

by Brenna Lyons

  She shook her head. “I don’t—”

  “Then, let me explain it,” he interrupted her.

  “Don’t.”

  “You are the most frustrating woman I have ever met. Don’t you get it? I want this baby, and I want you.”

  “You can’t. You don’t,” she managed.

  “Why?” he demanded.

  “Because it’s not real.” She sat up abruptly and stared at him with red-rimmed eyes. “You don’t want me. Not really in the happily-ever-after type of way complete with beasts. You’re just printing. Don’t you get it?”

  “Why in the world would you think I don’t want you? I can’t keep my hands off of you. I’m miserable without you. I know you better than anyone in the world. What do I have to do to prove that I want you?”

  “You said it over and over. You don’t want to print. Just release. If you don’t want it, you don’t want it. Anything else is a trick, a trap that you don’t even have the common sense to try and escape, because that’s part of the trap. You actually think you want to be there.”

  Curt laughed cynically. “I lied,” he admitted. “Do you have any idea how confusing that is? Human men tell women they love them to get them into bed. I had to assure you that I didn’t want more than gratuitous sex, because admitting what I really wanted would have sent you running. I was lying to you when you were fifteen, and I’ve been lying ever since. Do you know how ridiculous this is?”

  Erin looked at him in shock. “No. Why should I believe you?”

  “Because it’s true. You have to be able to feel it when I touch you.”

  She shook her head. “Release. Simple release,” she denied.

  “You don’t have the comparison to know.” Curt sobered at that. He was glad she didn’t, on some level. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he whispered.

  “I won’t allow you to be trapped into staying with me. Not by printing and not by this baby. I don’t bait.”

  “You’re baiting right now,” he countered. “You’re dangling every wonderful thing I ever wanted in front of me and denying me it.”

  She shook her head mutely, and a pained expression crossed her face.

  “Were you ever going to tell me?”

  “Not if I could avoid it,” she managed weakly. “I thought... If I could swear certain key people to secrecy, lie if I had to — dates and facts, avoid Maher range. My only pressing problem would have been the telltale blue eyes, if the baby had them. If he did, I’d be screwed.”

  “Do you realize how utterly impossible that would be? Avoiding Maher range is easy enough for you, but hiding a Warrior child? The security for the birth alone would have been paramount.”

  “You mean hiding my child,” Erin replied miserably. “No one else needs a small army for childbirth.”

  “Our child,” he snapped at her. She couldn’t forget that. Curt wouldn’t let Erin forget it. “Did you want this? Did you just want a child with no strings attached? Was that the plan, Erin?” He fumed at the thought. It was too bad if she did want that, because she wasn’t getting it.

  “No. I didn’t plan this. I told you my plan long ago.”

  “No printing, no husband, no babies,” he replied woodenly. “You’re not thinking...” His heart pounded at the unwelcome possibility, and he held his breath for her answer.

  “No,” she protested, seemingly horrified by the suggestion. “You know I couldn’t do that. You know me better than that.”

  Curt tightened his jaw. He thought he knew Erin — until she hid his baby from him, until she planned on never telling him he had a son. “I know why I didn’t sense you. I was too caught up to consider the practical side. Did you even check? I know you did the first time. Did you check at the lake?”

  She met his eyes and paled. “Yes, I did. When you were so ready—”

  “If you didn’t want this, why would you go through with it high cycle? You had to know. Warriors are damned easy babies to start.”

  “I wasn’t. I was on the cusp.”

  “But you knew it was too close,” he prodded.

  “Yes, I knew there was a chance.”

  “Then why did you do it?”

  “It was a mistake. I wanted release with you again. I should have stopped it. I started to several times, but...”

  “But what? Why make that mistake?”

  Erin settled her forehead into her hand, looking very tired. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “Everything got — confused.”

  “That happens when you’re printing,” he suggested. “I know.”

  Her jaw tensed. “I am not printing. I will never print.”

  “Why? Because the stone has already won a child from you, and it’s the only thing left to fight? This isn’t a competition. So, you’re having a child? Stone chosen or not, it was your choice.”

  “Was it?” she demanded. Her eyes widened and she darkened.

  He sat beside her, and Erin pushed herself against the headboard firmly.

  “If you didn’t have a choice, you’re printing. If you did have a choice, you wanted to have my baby. Which is it?”

  “I don’t,” she began uncertainly. “I’m not printing.”

  “Good. Then, you wanted to have my baby.”

  “No. I made a simple mistake. I’m sure you’ve made a few miscalculations in your life.”

  “Are you sure? Maybe we should test it to be sure,” he suggested, his blood already heating at the prospect of touching her again.

  “No, I don’t think that would be a good idea,” Erin whispered, drawing her knees up to her chest like a shield.

  “When you started to push off of me at the lake, I let you go. It felt like I’d die if I didn’t finish, but I let you go. Why did you stay? Why did you make love to me, Erin?”

  “It was sex, Curt. I wanted release. I was too close to stop.”

  Curt shook his head in amusement. “I could.”

  She glared at him. “So, you’re better than me at something. You’ve had more practice,” she shot at him acidly.

  “Not at stopping. I found a willing woman, had her, and walked away. I never considered stopping before. It never hurt when they walked away — or I did. What do you feel when I touch you?” he crooned.

  Erin looked away. “Pleasure. You’re very good, very experienced.”

  “That’s all?” He raised an eyebrow at her. “I don’t believe you.”

  She stammered the beginnings of a protest. “I’m not willing this time,” she warned.

  “A kiss, Erin? Surely after everything we’ve done together, you’re not afraid of a kiss.”

  “I’m not afraid. I’m just not willing.”

  The urge to trap her in a mindless, searing embrace was tempting, but if Curt was right, she would submit willingly with little provocation. He leaned his face close to Erin’s, and she braced her hands on his chest. Her eyes fluttered closed as he brushed his lips in soft trails over her cheek, her chin, her lower lip— Erin trembled, but she didn’t protest. Curt could smell her arousal now. He nibbled at her ear and felt her shudder in response.

  “Are you willing, Erin?”

  “No,” she moaned. “Please, stop this, Curt.”

  “Why?” he crooned as he trailed his lips to the corner of her mouth. “One kiss,” he tempted.

  “I can’t.”

  “Tell me why, and I’ll stop,” he promised, tasting her lips, tracing them with the tip of his tongue.

  “You won’t.”

  Curt watched her lips as they parted to speak, aching to drive his tongue into her mouth and end this torture. “I can stop,” he assured her, nipping at her jaw and neck lightly.

  She opened her eyes and looked down at him with a truly miserable expression. “I can’t,” she admitted. “I never could.”

  “Never?” he asked gently, moving his lips to her throat and pausing on the rapid beat of her pulse.

  Erin turned her head to offer her neck to him. Her hands softened against his chest,
and she traced the muscles until her fingers pulled at the buttons on his shirt.

  Curt covered her hands to still her progress, nipping at her neck again. “I promised to stop,” he chided her. “Don’t push that promise too far.”

  “What if I don’t want you to stop?” she breathed.

  “Then we’ll finish — after our discussion.”

  She groaned. “The kiss you wanted?” Erin offered, moving her legs to lean her body closer to his in invitation.

  “Explain the never first.” He moved his lips to the pale skin of her chest above her button-down shirt.

  Erin had given off so many signs that he should have seen. She wasn’t wearing her usual t-shirts. She walked more to her heels. Curt groaned in need as he realized she wasn’t wearing a bra either, most likely too sore for the constricting material — or it was too tight. Her breasts were definitely fuller now.

  “For the love of all that’s holy, explain please,” Curt breathed, pulling open another button and running his lips along the lower neckline of her shirt.

  “Can you still stop?” she asked breathlessly.

  “Do you want me to?” he countered.

  “No, I don’t.” The admission wasn’t an unhappy one that time. Her voice was wanting, needing.

  “Good.” Curt ran his tongue inside her shirt, teasing at the creamy skin, nearing the areola gently. He was glad Erin hadn’t demanded to know if he could stop. He wasn’t sure he could anymore.

  “The mistake I made training in Maher range was no mistake. I wanted you to fell me. I wanted to know what your body would feel like pressed to mine, what your kiss would feel like,” she admitted slowly. “I didn’t set out to have sex with you. That wasn’t the plan.”

  “You certainly snarled at me for calling you on the opening,” he noted, pressing a kiss to the hollow between her breasts on his way to explore the other side.

  “Before you released me, you mean?”

  “Yes.”

  “It wasn’t what I wanted. There was almost no contact except for our arms and the back of my head.”

  “You wanted to feel me over you?”

  Erin groaned and arched her breast against his lips.

  “You wanted me pressed into you intimately?” Curt wanted to feel that himself — now, but he had to know first.

  “More than anything. When I felt that you were hard, I had to have you. I knew you’d be willing, and I couldn’t have stopped — not for anything.”

  “Why the blade to my throat?”

  “I was afraid.”

  “Of me?”

  He removed his hand from hers and brushed the fingers over her nipples through the shirt. Curt froze as Erin cried out harshly, but he realized that it was a cry of pleasure when she moved further into his hand. It wasn’t that her breasts were in pain as much as it was that the increased blood flow made them ultra-sensitive to each touch, good and bad.

  She met his eyes and blushed. “You made a mistake you’d never make. I was afraid you were printing.”

  “That frightened you. Was it because you didn’t want to print?”

  “Partly.” She looked away and worried her lower lip.

  Curt turned her chin until she met his eyes again then laid another kiss on her chest. “Tell me.”

  “I was afraid of printing in general. I was always afraid a Warrior would print and end up on my father’s blade, because I didn’t feel the same way.”

  “Why? What made you fear that?”

  Erin shot him a look of pure misery. “Warriors have made overtures since I started my training. Like Bryant. I know a Warrior can print on a woman with very little encouragement then pay the price. The men all seemed to want to bait me into printing so they could have the mighty Blutjagdfrau.” She laughed harshly.

  “Mighty? It was tiring. I had to be cold. I could never joke or flirt. I even had to be careful smiling at someone or laughing at his jokes. Gods forbid a Warrior would get the wrong idea. I’d be the death of him — literally. It got to the point that the first sign of interest meant a warning. If that didn’t work, I had to crush him in battle and refuse him as a training partner. I guess habits are hard to break.”

  “I never realized. You must have felt like the prize in a grope.” A world full of Bryants? That was a scary concept. If every man treated her that way—

  Erin nodded, pulling back the tears in her eyes. “I don’t want to be a prize. That’s why I chose you.”

  “I don’t understand. Why me?”

  “You never treated me that way. You treated me like any other Warrior, like a friend. You talked to me and cared what I felt. That meant more to me than you could ever understand.”

  “So, giving me your maidenhead was a reward?” he asked in confusion.

  “No.” She blushed deeply. “I didn’t intend to print. I didn’t really intend to let it go that far, until I was trapped in your arms and knew you wanted it as badly as I did. I thought you were safe. You kept saying you wanted to be friends. I thought you wouldn’t print, but I still wanted you. I think I’ve wanted you since the day we took on Adam together. If I was going to give it to anyone, it certainly wouldn’t have been one of those...” She waved her hand in frustration.

  “Baiting bastards?” he guessed.

  Erin winced and laid her forehead against his shoulder. “I am sorry, Curt. Lumping you with the rest of them was unkind.”

  He worked his fingers along the tense muscles in the back of her neck, cradling her face to him. “As long as you know the truth now. Did you know I was following you the night at the lake?”

  She raised her face, seemingly confused. “Of course. You weren’t hiding yourself from me. I swam out to the dock because I thought you wouldn’t follow.”

  “The cold water?” Curt guessed.

  Erin nodded. “I couldn’t very well send you away. You wouldn’t have left me out there at night — naked. So, I tried to turn you down in my usual style.”

  “Which didn’t work,” he teased.

  “You kept touching me,” she complained. “I had all these reasons why I shouldn’t — why I couldn’t let you take release with me again, and you kept touching me.”

  “Being close to high cycle?” he asked.

  “Yes. And, I knew I was starting to print. If I kept taking release with you, wanting what I was wanting, I’d be the one insane. What a joke that would have been. Not to mention, you kept reiterating that you wouldn’t print.”

  Curt groaned in understanding. “You were printing, and I was assuring you I wouldn’t and vice versa. It’s amazing we weren’t both insane.”

  “I think I was. Why else would I let you touch me after all my arguments not to?” she noted miserably.

  “Was that why you couldn’t let me touch you again after that night on the lake? Because you’d finish printing with a man who said he didn’t love you?”

  “That was part of it.”

  “And the rest?”

  “I’m almost ashamed to admit this.”

  “Go on,” he urged her. Curt had to hear it all. He had to understand what was driving Erin away, so there would be no more barriers.

  “I knew you’d see I was high cycle — or pregnant.”

  “And I’d stay out of duty, because I wouldn’t print,” he guessed.

  “Or worse. If what you saw was the high cycle, I was afraid you’d use it as an opportunity.”

  “Opportunity for what?”

  Erin closed her eyes and turned her face away again. “I can’t believe I even considered this,” she growled. “Old habits die hard, and I was lumping you in again. I was afraid you’d use your rather convincing manner on me a few more times before I passed high cycle to ensure a baby and trap me.”

  “I don’t understand. You were printing. Wouldn’t you want me to stay?”

  “Out of duty or as your possession?” she asked in disbelief.

  “I’m sorry. That should have made sense to me without asking you to spell
it out. Okay, let’s cover the basics. We are each printing on the other, and we have been for a long damn time. No one feels trapped by the idea of printing — I hope.”

  Erin shook her head slowly. “I’m still adjusting to the idea of a baby, but I want this child very badly.”

  “Good,” he breathed in relief. “You know I want you, not a prize. You know I’m not baiting you, and I’m not here for duty or to possess you. And—” He ran his hand over her abdomen lightly. “I want this baby nearly as much as I want you.”

  She smiled shyly. “Can we add that I know you’re the only Warrior I’d have a baby with?”

  “I’d be honored if you would.” He took her hands. “I’ll give you forever, Erin. Say you want that, and we’ll end this torture.”

  She smiled crookedly. “If I agree, is the discussion over?”

  “Are you feeling ill?” He panned his eyes over her in concern. Erin was more than a little pale, and she hadn’t been eating well. That would have to change.

  “No. You promised we’d finish what we started after our discussion,” she reminded him.

  Curt smiled a predatory smile, which made Erin gasp in delight, and dragged her to him to capture her mouth. He set out to possess her utterly and found Erin possessing him with equal intensity. He lay her beneath him, scooping her legs around his hips as he followed her down onto the bed. A groan escaped from deep in Curt’s chest as she arched to meet him.

  “This is what I’m offering, Erin. Myself. You know me. Will you accept this forever?”

  “I can’t imagine another minute without you. What about you? You’re willing to accept a neurotic Warrior woman who’s likely to take your head when the cravings and morning sickness act up?”

  “Can I hide your weapons?”

  “No. My mother trained through both of her pregnancies. I want to do the same unless I’m feeling really lousy.”

  “How did she do that without risking her baby?” he asked in confusion.

  “Ask Dad later. They figured out some way.”

  Curt felt his jaw tighten and he wrapped his arms closer around her, pulling Erin to him protectively. “You ask him. I haven’t forgiven him yet,” he grumbled.