Page 122 of Season Warriors & Wolves

I laughed.

But I shouldn’t have. Because there I was, digging up hole number thirty-six for a cute yellow daffodil when I could be digging up some enemy graves instead, trimming ears and tongues, not leaves and long roots.

I glanced at him, still elbow deep in soil, trying to dig up the roots of a thick rose bush. Dear heavenly gods. His shirt had matted to his back, sculpting every muscle so perfectly. The fancy trousers had pulled even more tightly against his thick thighs and his perfect back. I wanted to lick the thick sweat on his brow and perhaps even further down.

“Stop drooling. More planting. They better be symmetrical or you’re going to have to dig them up again.”

My smile faded. “Why do you like this stupid garden so much?”

“It helps me calm down,” he said quietly. “And it keeps Kaliantha’s presence around still. My mother built them. These gardens were hers. I never really knew her, and I’m certain whatever memory of hers that I have is made up by me. But recognizing the flowers she liked most, keeping safe the creatures that do remember her and preserving whatever tradition she’d allowed to be held in these gardens, make me feel like I do know her, too.”

I let out a heavy sigh and he turned to me with such urgence, taking my gloved hands in his, searching for something. “Did you cut yourself somewhere?”

“Yes, my black heart just bled a little. You’ve never told me,” I said, turning to lash out my anger on the soil before me, striking it down with my trowel. “I’ve ruined them every time I bolted here.”

He pried the trowel from my hand and helped me dig up a hole for the next daffodil. “They can always be fixed, my love, that is the beauty of it. You wanted to hurt me and I wanted to let you. My own hurt never matched yours, not even slightly. I could nourish my mother’s memory whenever I wanted. You didn’t have the chance.”

“I need you to start putting you first, Kil.”

He grinned, returning to dig up the rose bush. “Oh, I did. Many times. That is how I got myself the finest woman in the realm even after she tried to kill me several times, kidnaped my niblings, threatened my mother, my brother, my kingdom and all its people. So on and so forth.”

I took a pebble and hit him with it. When did he become so funny?

He rubbed his shoulder. “Ah, shit, that hurt, my love.”

It did? I quickly rushed to him. “Darling, I’m sorry.”

He tapped my nose with a rose. “When did you become so gullible?”

“Yeah, when?” I muttered to myself, returning to my post and hurrying through my duties. “I’ve been softened like manure. My enemies can smell the gullibility miles away.”

By daffodil number sixty-two, I was about to chew off my own clavicles to let my arms dangle freely and fall off my damn body. “Kill me and be done with it,” I whispered to a worm wiggling through my newly planted patch.

Kilian came from behind me and put something over my eyes. A piece of cloth of some sort. His warm breath fanned over my neck and then tickled my ear. “Turn to do this without looking.”

My body leaned onto his hard one. “I can tell you something else I can do without looking. On my knees.” I raised my hands up. “Without even touching you at all.”

His mouth ghosted over my neck, brushing so gently against my skin. “You’re definitely going to be watching me fuck your mouth. Be good for me now and do what I say.”

“And? What do I get?”

“Whatever you want. My woman always gets what she wants.”

“Fine,” I said, patting the ground to find my tools and the pots. How hard could it be?

It was hard.

I’d not done so much mathematics since the age of thirteen.

Not concentrated like this even when I plucked my eyebrows or carefully scooped eyeballs out to make sure no one bled too much or too soon.

One last time, I reached for a pot only to not find any. Did I do them all?

His fingers grazed my cheek briefly before sliding behind me to undo the cloth. “Well done, my heart. Was it hard?”

I looked over my shoulder, at the little patch I’d been working on, and my mouth parted a little in awe. My gardening skills were not exemplary and the daffodils were more or less tilting in odd positions, but I had planted them almost symmetrical to one another. Same spacing. Same lines.

This was why he wanted me to garden?