Mother had warned me my body would yearn, that the magic binding us would twist desire into something nearly unbearable. But this … this felt different. More real. Which made it even more dangerous.
Gods, this was much, much worse than yearning, as I was damn near burning alive. My heartbeat quickened and I shifted one knee back.
The thought of his naked back when Seth had demanded he remove his shirt was enough to nearly undo me now.
“Seren?” Rykr’s voice was a low rumble behind me. “Are you holding your breath?”
I startled. “Um?—”
He doesn’t know. There’s no way he possibly knows what I was thinking.
… except he was the one person who could hear my thoughts and feel my emotions.
Fuck.
He was silent, then shifted, just slightly. “I?—”
“Don’t. Don’t say a word,” I snapped, mortification flooding through me.
Rykr rolled onto his back.
A full minute passed, then in the most insufferably smug tone, he said, “I’m much warmer now, thank you.”
Damn him, damn him, damn him.
Furious with myself, I gritted my teeth. I didn’t need daylight to see the self-satisfied smirk on his handsome face. I could sense it, practically feel it vibrating in the soft chuckle that came from deep in his throat.
He didn’t need a sword to disarm me.
Worse, he didn’t even know he’d done it.
I’m in so much trouble.
Chapter 18
Rykr
Seren barely looked at me in the morning.
The temptation to allow her to act on her thoughts in the middle of the night had been strong. So strong that I’d had to put a stop to it, before I let myself get carried away by the lust I’d felt consuming her.
In the Regulation, sex had been a pastime, just like any other. Find a warm body for the night, forget the day’s troubles, and wake up to brutal training. I’d kept to myself more than my friends had, but that only made them curious. They’d started sending young men to my room, new recruits, thinking that my preference had held me back.
After that, I made my interest in women much clearer.
But care about one?
That wasn’t something I’d allowed myself. Who I married wasn’t up to me. I was one of my father’s many political bargaining tools.
My father. Even if I’d left him on bitter terms, the loss of him—of my brothers—burned me alive. Why had they been slaughtered so mercilessly?
And now … I had no tether to any place.
If I wanted a beautiful Viori wife, it’d be so easy—especially when the lust between us seemed to be growing.
I’d better stop thinking about it. I could only blame the bulge in my trousers on the early morning for so long. We dressed in silence until Seren crossed her arms by the tent flap. “Ready to go?”
I glanced at my chains, still on the rug where she’d left them. “What about the irons?”
