Page 122 of Revealing Fate

Prestyn shook his head and tried to turn. She stopped him. “Prestyn,” she said, a firm hand on his bracer. “Please. Tell me.”

Lieutenant Gore closed his eyes, a battle waging in his expression. He opened them with an abrupt exhale. “Curse me for a shit soldier,” he muttered. “King Domitan has mobilized a regiment of the army.”

Imogen’s blood turned to ice.

“Asteros is marching on the Cozened. We are taking Meress.”

Chapter 44

THRALL

FELÍNE STOOD MOTIONLESS AS A pillar of stone. Her leather-clad feet were braced shoulder-width apart. Kal’s head was next to hers, his muscled arms guiding hers on the crossbow she held tucked into one shoulder. His warm breath tickled her ear.

“Easy,” he murmured. “Eyes open. See there? Follow the line of the shaft.”

She swallowed. Shaft. Right. Easy.

“Good girl. Now release.”

The mental image accompanying Kal’s last word, coupled with his silky praise, had Felíne’s finger jerking on the trigger. The arrow flew wild.

Kal stepped back, one eyebrow cocked.

Cocked.

Goddess preserve her.

“Alright,” he said. “Tell me.”

Not a chance. It was the third time in the past two hours that Kal had asked what she was thinking. Twice since they’d arrived in the glen to test and hopefully improve Felíne’s skills with the crossbow. She shook her head.

“It’s nothing,” she insisted. Again. “I just didn’t sleep well.” How could she? With such intrusive, pervasive, inappropriate⁠—

“I don’t believe you,” he replied. “I know precisely how well you slept last night.”

Felíne’s eyes snapped to his. Did he? No. There was no way he could have known the thoroughly disheveled state of her unconscious mind mere hours before. Nor could he have suspected the rather…interesting role her sleeping psyche had assigned him. She swallowed again, remembering. Vividly.

A fresh wave of heat flooded her face.

“I’ll get the arrow,” Felíne mumbled, turning toward the brush at the edge of the glen.

“You’re distracted,” Kal called after her.

“You have no idea,” she muttered under her breath.

Last night, in her mind, Kal had been just as close as he’d been while helping her aim the crossbow. Closer. With distinctly less clothing. And he’d been guiding her through something else entirely.

Mercy. Memories of her lessons with Imogen must have mingled with visions of Kal and Felíne’s subconscious desires, resulting in the scintillating images that occupied her soporous brain.

Felíne snatched the arrow out of a low bramble. She’d woken with a sheen of sweat coating her feverish skin and her blanket tangled between her legs. Her breath had come in shaky pulls, her mind snared somewhere between a dream world and reality. It had felt so real. Her skin tingled with the memory of Kal’s phantom fingers, his conjured kiss. Felíne had been half wishing she could go back to sleep and half mortified that the object of her dreams might witness her emerging from them.

“Get a grip,” she chastised, trudging back.

She glanced up to find Kal watching her with new fascination.

“What are we gripping?”

Early morning light spilled through a break in the clouds and gilded his light brown skin, playing off the masculine angles of his face and his strong, relaxed posture. Felíne stared, mind going straight back to the proverbial gutter. Curse his acute senses.