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Nightshade wants to join in the fun, but I hold him back. Even if he’s not saddled with the extra weight for battle, he’s not built for high-speed sprints and the last thing I need is for him to strain a muscle.
Alone on the trail, I know I should be reflecting on Cayson and Carson’s open and blatant betrayal. But the only thing with any traction in my thoughts is the image of Rina making those almost impossible shots with a weapon that women do not generally touch. I’m rather annoyed that there’s now more to add to the long list of things she says and does that make me want her. And I definitely want her now – badly.
I come around a curve in the road, expecting to see her near the top of the hill where the trees taper off, but she’s not there. My heartrate picks up.Could she have already made it over the rise? Or– and I search the forest around me –she wouldn’t run, would she?
I’m an idiot. Of course she would run.Didn’t I say if I gave her clothes, she’d flee?And only yesterday she risked her life climbing the wall of the stronghold. She’s not some delicate, lily-fingered maiden. Of course she’d run.
I put my heels to Nightshade, and his every hoof beat punches my outrage deeper.How dare she? After everything I’ve put up with from her.By the Father, if the woman won’t give me her obedience, I’ll take it. I’ll keep her on a leash so tight she’ll choke with every breath. She won’t move without my permission. I may not have decided what to do with her yet, but she’s still mine. I own her.
But first, I need to get her back.
The idea of hunting her down blooms hot in my belly, and rapidly oozes down into my groin. Images of chasing her through the trees, of running her to ground and gaining her submission by any means necessary consume me like a wildfire.
By the time I crest the hill, my anger-ridden lust is at a fever pitch, and all I can think of is her writhing in ecstasy – under me, over me, on her hands and knees before me – pinned down by my cock, so it takes a moment for the sight of her riderless horse to register with me.
The fervor cools.Has she been thrown?A touch of panic pings behind my breastbone as I scan the shallow valley below. Son of a twisted womb. She’s there, nowhere near her horse, with her hand outstretched to Venna.
What in the name of the Abyss is she doing?
More panic pings in my chest. Only a sliver of Venna is domesticated. The wolf could just as easily make a meal of Rina as let herself be scratched behind the ears. Not wanting to spook the wolf or the woman, I don’t call out and I hold Nightshade to a slow descent.
Venna, who blatantly ignores me, pushes her head against Rina’s hand, allowing herself to be fawned over like a lap dog. The beauty of the woman’s answering smile only adds to my ire. She has no right to be so . . .appealing.
She speaks in a whisper as if not wanting to break the spell she’s cast over the wolf. “This is incredible.”
“Incredible, you mean, that you still have all your fingers? Yes, it is.”
Venna, making a complete liar out of me, cranes her neck in an attempt to get the right spot rubbed. “You’re not going to bite me, are you, Venna?” Rina coos. “She likes me.”
“You’re both fools,” I grouse, trying to beat back the need to discipline my princess. Preferably before I lay her out and fuck her hard and deep . . . or maybe after. “The only one with any sense is your horse.”
Grimacing, Rina puts her free hand to her brow and combs the landscape. “Yes, I may have underestimated Glory’s reaction to the wolf.” She looks up and my expression catches her off guard. “You’re angry.”
“I should be.” I dismount and give Nightshade a smack on the rump so he jumps forward. “They will gradually drift together when Venna leaves and Glory is calmer. Until then, we walk.”
“Gladly,” she says, her smile returning as she gives Venna a final pat and we set off. “I never knew to appreciate such freedoms until I no longer had them.”
Her simple sincerity isn’t accusatory, but it banks some of my smoldering wrath. “You shouldn’t have gone so far,” I accuse.
She cranes her neck to see me, and the alluring contrast of her golden eyes against her light brown skin does nothing to settle me. Neither does the sight of her wetting her lips nervously under my scrutiny. I’d like nothing more than to pull her up against me and taste that mouth again.
“Luka, I told you I’m not going to run, and I meant it.”
I grunt like the barbarian she sees me as, then I ask her what’s been needling me for the last hour. “Tell me how you learned to shoot a bow so well. Do they teach ladies such things in D’heilar?”
“Not hardly. After my mother was killed, I was sent to a farming outpost in the far south.”
I wait for more but it doesn’t come, and I’m forced to prod. “And?”
“And I was put to work where work needed doing. I learned all kinds of unladylike things there; peeling potatoes, plucking fowl, emptying chamber pots, mucking stables.” Then, as if realizing her opportunity to plead her case, she goes on with, “I told you I can work. I can be useful.”
I ignore the appeal. “That doesn’t explain the shooting. You were a prisoner and yet they put a weapon in your hand?”
“Oh, well, there were special circumstances in the case of the bow and arrow.”
“Such as?”
She chews at her thumb nail as if considering her answer.
