“I could never hate you.” My lips skimmed her pulse as I hugged her to me from behind. “I hated myself for not being stronger, for not remaining by your side to prevent your Fall. I hate that others have touched you—even though I fully acknowledge it was your right to choose them. But that doesn’t mean I like it. And I’ve wrongly taken my frustrations out on you.”
She shivered and tried to rotate in my arms to face me, but I held her still.
“Don’t,” I said, not trusting myself to look her in the eye. Not here. Not on the bed. Not while holding her so intimately.
She stopped moving, but her heartbeat escalated beneath my mouth. Because my lips were still on her neck, tasting her in the barest of kisses. Tempting fate. Taunting my resolve. Torturing my soul.
“I’m sorry, Lay,” I repeated. “So damn sorry.”
I needed to release her, to slip off the bed and put myself in a corner as far away from her as possible.
But my body remained locked around her, my arm a heavy weight I couldn’t move. And my mouth refused to lift away from her skin. Instead, I traced the column of her throat, my kiss a vow of protection and a promise of a future we would never know.
I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t do anything other than exist.
Nora Warriors weren’t meant to take mates. We were married to the hierarchy, beings sworn to safeguard the dukedom at all costs. That left no room for romantic connections or wavering loyalties.
But this femalewasthe dukedom. The future queen. Was mating her a true deviation of my oath? Or did it just solidify my purpose that much more?
“Auric,” she breathed, arching back into me.
I hummed her name against her neck.
Fuck, she smelled so damn good. So perfect. Somine.
My muscles tightened with yearning, my stomach clenching with the need totake.
I’m stronger than this,I told myself.I can’t have her. There are rules.
Rules I hated.
Rules I longed to destroy and to defy.
But I was a Nora Warrior. A commander. The one charged with her safety. I had to be stronger than this. I had to be better. I had to release her.
Only, her arm had fallen over mine, her palm resting on my hand. Her nails dug into my skin, not to hurt but to force me to remain.
She trembled against me, her hips pressing back into my groin in unspoken invitation.
“We can’t,” I whispered.
“I know,” she replied, her voice husky and sultry and oh-so inviting. “Just hold me.”
“I am.”
“Don’t let me go.”
“I won’t,” I promised, the words a murmur against her sensitive skin. I allowed my tongue a taste, her sweet flavor a jolt to my senses.
My pants tightened.
My lower abdomen ached.
My whole body felt as though it were cocooned in flames.
“I’ve always wanted you,” I told her. “Always.”
She quivered again. “I’ve always wanted you, too. No one could compare to you, Auric. It’s why I rejected them all.”
