by Jill Monroe
“True, if you’d awoken from the dead. But it was a good surprise attack. You need more.”
They bouted again and again with Breena losing every battle. “How do you expect to render justice with skills like this?” His voice was almost a taunt. He was trying to make her give up.
“My opponents won’t all be Ursan warriors with a thorn in their side.”
“Oh, it’s way bigger than a thorn,” he told her crudely.
She shoved him away. “Cool off, Osborn. Your temper is your own problem. Stop making this all my fault.”
Osborn dropped his stick. “Practice is over.”
“Good,” she called after him. Wishing she had something more cutting to say at her disposal. Breena wiped a tear from her cheek. Who knew she could cry out of sheer irritation? She marched back to the cabin, grabbed the soap he’d given her, hating the scent as she bathed. Breena quickly dressed, needing to get as far away from the cottage and its inhabitants as fast as she could.
Torben had showed her a path that led to the bushes where they gathered ripe berries. That sounded just as good as any place. Besides the bushes, she discovered several patches of wildflowers, and she reached down to pluck a petal from one, rubbing it between her fingers and releasing the sweet scent.
How long she waited there among the flowers she didn’t know, but she stiffened when she heard the footsteps she now recognized as Osborn’s. He rounded a tree, his hair still wet. Probably from a soaking in the lake. Her cheeks heated at the memory of what they’d last shared at the lake, and she faced the other way.
He crouched beside her, stretching his legs out in front of him. “I’ve never been in a situation such as this,” he told her after several moments of silence.
She expected this was Osborn’s attempt at an apology, and her anger dissipated. Breena had been instructed how to behave on every conceivable social situation. But her mother had definitely missed this one.
Osborn slid something big toward her, and she glanced his way. It was one of those mysterious packages he’d brought home with him after his trip into the village. “I, uh, got this for you.”
She loved gifts, and as surprising and perfect as Osborn’s first present to her was, Breena couldn’t wait to see what was inside this one. She pulled the end of the twine and smoothed the protective material away to reveal fine green fabric.
“It’s a cloak,” he told her. “The color reminded me of your eyes.”
Her throat tightened. Courtiers had said charming things to her over the years, but Osborn’s compliment was the most perfect. Because she knew it originated from his heart. Tears filled her eyes, and she blinked them back. How could one man send her emotions and the reason for her tears careening from one extreme to another? And so quickly?
Breena spread the cloak around her. The fashions she wore at home in Elden were much more elaborate, with tiny embroidered flowers and crystals and other small gems sewn right into the designs. But this was far more beautiful to her than anything she’d ever worn in the past. “I love it,” she told him.
“There’s a matching gown.”
Breena reached for it, her fingers finding something round and hard instead. She plucked it out of the package to see a golden arm cuff in the shape of a snake. What an unusual adornment for jewelry. She’d never seen such a thing. Was this an Ursan custom?
“It reminded me of your first fight. How you defeated those snakelike scouts, and saved my life.”
Now it made sense. Breena slid the armband into place above her elbow. “I will never take this off,” she vowed to him. Just like her timepiece.
Possession quickly flowed into his brown eyes.
“Thank you,” she told him as she stood. Breena clutched the gown to her chest, twirling around with the fabric. “I will wear this gown the day I return home, Osborn. The day our house is restored, and my brother Nicolai is crowned king of Elden. That’s how much your gift means to me.”
“Elden?” he asked, the color draining from his face. All traces of possession faded from his eyes. His gaze narrowed, and his shoulders tensed. “Did you say Elden?”
Breena nodded slowly. “That’s my home. My father is—” she swallowed “—was king.”
Osborn sprang to his feet. Away from her. Something icy inched down her back, and she hugged the gown closer to her chest. Needing protection. Osborn no longer gazed upon her with desire and possession in his eyes, as the man she was growing to love. No, now he looked at her with something close to hate in his eyes.
“It all makes sense now,” he threw at her. His words biting and hard.
“What does?” she asked, marveling at the newest change.
“I should have known when Hagan told me of Elden’s fall so close to your arrival. He’d even mentioned the missing heirs. You. That is why you never told me where you were from. Elden. You knew what your people had done to mine.”
“What are you talking about?”
Osborn made a scoffing sound. “Oh, you might have a problem with your memory, Breena, but not me. I remember everything. Your father chose the time of his attack well. I’ll give him that. The Bärenjagd, when the warriors journeyed to our sacred bear lands. Our village was defenseless. It’s a time of truce,” he shouted, his voice anguished.
Breena didn’t know what to say, what to do. She sucked in her bottom lip, hoping he’d continue with his story. To release all that anger before she responded to him.
“Elden was our ally. Your father saw to that,” he accused. “We arrived to a massacre. And an ambush. I killed as many of your people as I could. Enjoyed watching your dead sizzle in the sunlight when it came. I taught you to fight. I brought you into my home, I shared—” He cut off his own words. “All this time you knew. You encouraged me to share my stories of the people your family killed.” He stalked toward her. “Your lies won’t protect you now.”
Breena shook her head, backing away from him. “That’s not it at all. Something inside me said not to mention Elden, some instinct.” The evasion sounded terrible even to her. “But I swear, Osborn, it’s not because of that. My father is an honorable king. He’s a diplomat, not a fighter.”
Osborn made a brutal sound. “Tell that to my mother. To my dead sister. I swore vengeance on you. On all of Elden. And I kept my hands off of you. Thinking you were something more than…Elden.”
The way he said her homeland packed a punch of bitterness and venom. His hands fisted at his sides, and he lunged at her.
Breena stumbled backward, her feet catching in the folds of fabric of her gown. She landed against a tree; the rough bark poked into her shoulder blades. She could go no farther. The man had taught her many techniques when in battle with an opponent bigger and larger than herself. He probably never expected her to use any of those on him. Breena cupped his cheek. Distracting him. “Osborn…”
He paused. For one crucial moment.
“I’m sorry,” she told him at the same instant she kneed him between the legs. Hard.
Osborn groaned and doubled over, gripping his stomach. Breena took the opportunity to push him to the ground, grabbing from her boot the knife he’d instructed her to keep hidden. She straddled him, pushing her nose to his. “I could be running away at this moment. Your instructions were to not stick around, remember?”
His eyes blazed with something past hate.
Breena lifted the blade to the beating pulse in his neck. “I could also cut you right now. See? You did manage to teach me quite a bit.”
His lips thinned. She felt his skin chill and watched as his pupils began to narrow and focus. She’d triggered his berserkergang. But she wasn’t scared. Breena had just spent her last moment of fear. She’d die before she felt frightened again.
And that fearsome thing inside him would not hurt her. She knew it.
The harshness of their breathing blanketed around them. The sun overhead created gruesome knife-wielding shadows. “My people did not attack yours.”
Some
of his wrath cooled. “I can see that you believe it.”
It was a beginning. “You said the attackers burned in the sun?”
“Those that didn’t flee. Cold-skinned cowards.”
“Elden’s vamps can walk in the sun. My brother Nicolai is as warm-blooded as you and me. My father was arranging an advantageous marriage to secure Elden’s future. That’s how he did things. Not through battle.”
Osborn squeezed his eyes tight. She knew he was fighting her, fighting what he’d held to be true.
“They wore Elden’s colors.”
“It must have been a tactical move in case there were any survivors.”
She watched his swallow. Emotion warred in his eyes. “Clever, because I planned my own vengeance against your people.”
And with his berserker power, he would have taken the lives of a lot of her people. Although it would have been a much more merciful death than that from the Blood Sorcerer.
“I wonder if it’s the same enemy. But to wait all these years…it seems unlikely.”
She wanted to tell Osborn what she’d discovered in her dream. That the Blood Sorcerer killed her parents. But now this was all about Osborn.
“I’m going to drop this knife. Toss it out of the way.”
That was the plan she had, nothing much more than that. Breena rolled off his big frame.
He trapped her hands before she could scramble completely out of his reach. “You know I could have overpowered you at any time.”
She’d guessed it. “But you didn’t.”
He dropped her hands, and leaned against the tree. She watched as he scrubbed his hand along the back of his neck. “No, I didn’t.”
“Why not?”
His brown eyes met hers. “Because I wanted to believe you. Because I want…I want so many things since I found you in my bed.”
Her stomach dipped, and her heart began to race. Many times she imagined the lover of her future. A man with courtly manners. A man who’d kiss the back of her hand. A man who’d ask for the honor of dancing with her.
Never had she imagined the man she’d want by her side to be conflicted, guilt-ravaged and so, so fallible. And yet perfect.
As a princess, Breena had two jobs, stay a virgin and marry well.
She was about to fail at one of her princessly duties.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
OSBORN FLINCHED WHEN she stroked his arm. His hand instantly grasped hers, stilling her fingers.
She gave him an encouraging smile. “Let me.” And his hand fell away. Breena traced the arch of his eyebrow. Ran her fingers down the length of his nose. His lips. The stubble covering his cheek. The muscles bunched below her fingertips. His strong body trembled for the briefest of moments.
“Let me love you,” she urged.
The man before her tensed. Every muscle, every force of his body, tightened like her words were a physical blow to him. His eyes closed and his fists clenched at his sides. Who was he fighting now? Her or himself?
Then his lids lifted, and his gaze bore into hers. She saw all the hurt and anger he’d suffered since the attack on his home. He allowed her to see it.
“I want to love you tonight,” she whispered against his neck, and she felt him shiver.
But he didn’t push her away.
Her heart lifted in relief and she placed tiny little kisses on his neck, the line of his jaw and finally to his lips. Breena tugged his lower lip into her mouth with her teeth. Sucked on it until he moaned.
“Take me to your lake,” she invited him. Without waiting for an answer, she tugged his hand to her mouth, kissed his palm, then drew him to his feet. They walked the short distance to the place that would always be so special to her.
After removing her boots, careful to tuck her knife inside them, she turned to him. With the water at her back, she lifted her shirt and raised it above her head, drawing the woolen fabric against her skin in sensual slowness.
“You said you hated me in boy’s clothes.”
“Glad they’re off of you.”
Her nipples puckered before his heated gaze. Osborn’s brown eyes turned almost black in the dying light.
Breena walked to him slowly, loosening the pants and kicking them out of the way. He was reaching for his own shirt, but she stopped his hands of further movement. “Let me take care of you tonight.”
He swallowed. Hard. She lifted his shirt up and over his head. His pants stretched tight against his growing cock.
“These can’t be too comfortable,” she told him with a click of her tongue.
“Growing more uncomfortable by the moment,” he told her.
She smiled at this amazing man before her, feeling happy and desirable and very, very wanted. Hooking her thumbs around the material, she drew his pants down those defined legs of his, finely muscled and strong.
Osborn was magnificent. His body was honed, and crisscrossed by scars, some small, some brutal-looking. She traced a jagged one beneath his collarbone. The one on his face was new, and from the night they’d first met when they battled the creature of blood magic.
Breena ran her fingers along his fine features, his jaw, his eyebrows. He gripped her hands in his, lowering his head. A breath separated their lips, and she raised on tiptoe to kiss him. He clutched her in his arms with a groan. Osborn’s kiss was a burning, searing thing, filled with pain, hope and so much passion.
His hands turned bold, palming her breast, caressing her hip, taking a lazy path down the sensitive skin of her spine. Goose bumps formed along her arms and her nipples tightened against the rough-haired strength of his chest. She couldn’t get enough of touching him. Just running her hands over the roped muscles of his arms shot little thrills through her body.
“Look at me,” he urged, his voice raw with passion.
Her lids drifted open as his questing fingers rounded her hips and cupped her bottom. With a jerk, he brought her flush against his naked skin. The hardness of his erection left no doubt how much he wanted her, and her knees weakened.
Osborn scooped her up into his arms, and stalked to the soft sandy bank of the lake.
“I was supposed to be taking care of you,” she told him with a laugh.
“Next time,” he promised, his voice rough and filled with need.
“Yes.” She nodded. Now and quickly. She looped her arms around his neck and drew his head down to hers once more. His lips parted hers, and his tongue surged inside her mouth. Their kiss was urgent and hurried.
He drew her down with him; the gentle lap of water at their feet was warm and sensual. Osborn stretched alongside her, his mouth and hands seeking her breasts. His lips teased and tormented her nipple until he finally drew her into the warmth of his mouth. Breena arched to meet him, her body aching and slick for the joining of their bodies. She’d been ready for this man a lifetime. Across her dreams to his.
“We have to take this slow, Breena. This will be your first time, and I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Then touch me.” She ached for his hands in her most secret of places.
“Here?” he asked, skimming the skin of her rib cage.
“Lower.”
Now his hand smoothed over her belly. “What about here?”
“Lower,” she urged.
His fingers slid easily along the wetness between her legs.
“Yes.” Her voice was a moan. A wave of sensation flooded her at his caress.
“Touching is good, but I’d rather taste.” Osborn hooked one of her legs over his shoulder, then kissed where her very awareness seemed centered.
Osborn circled his tongue, ramping up her pleasure. She felt the gentle probe of his finger. He slid inside her, and her inner muscles clamped.
“This is going to be so good,” he told her, then proved it by laving her with his tongue.
A second finger joined the first, and he gave a tiny thrust that left her aching and needing release. Her whole body began to surge and tremble.
“Don’t make
me wait anymore, Osborn.”
A line formed between his brows. “I don’t want to hurt you. I’d do anything not to cause you pain.”
“I don’t care. I need you. Need you inside me. Now.”
He moved between her legs, his cock so long and thick she almost rethought her readiness. He positioned himself where his fingers had been.
“Watch,” he told her. “See your body welcoming mine.”
With gentle pressure, he thrust inside her, found the barrier of her virginity and broke through.
There was pain, but there was so much more. The weight of him on her body. The gentle kiss he placed on her temple. The pleasure shaping his beautiful face. And then the pain was gone. Replaced by a blissful frenzy. The fullness of him. The length of him inside her. Osborn began to move his hips and her tender body grew used to the motion.
“Harder?” he asked.
Breena didn’t know if harder was what she wanted but she was willing to give it a try. “Yes,” she whispered.
Osborn complied. Yes, harder was definitely what she wanted. He thrust again and again, going faster, the sensations growing more intense. Breena raised her hips to meet his hips. Needing more of him. She’d experienced pleasure with him once before. She craved that now. Her thirst for the thrill building and building.
“Wrap your legs behind my back,” he instructed.
The change brought the core of her need hard up against his thrusts. Osborn licked below her ear. Squeezed her breast. He was everywhere. Over her. In her. She breathed him inside her with each breath she took.
“You feel so good, Breena.”
The raw pleasure in his words sent her over the edge. She gasped. “Osborn, I’m—”
“Yes, Breena, yes,” and he surged within her.
A current of sensation shimmered through her body, and she squeezed the hard length of him. With a groan, his back stiffened and he poured himself into her.
Spent, he slumped against her, balancing the bulk of his weight on his arms. They lay there together, unable to move. Then Osborn rolled to his back, taking her with him, and cradled her head against his chest.
