AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You are nothing like him,” Honor assured me. She’d been listening quietly as I poured my heart out, without saying anything.
“Well, you would think that.”
She tilted an eyebrow at me. “I see that you are deciding you don’t need to take me seriously because I love you, but I would like to remind you that I have seen you very often at your worst and I love you. Because your worst, Branok, doesn’t take away from how good a man you are. I know you would do anything for your kingdom. All of you would.”
“I would do anything for you,” I assured her.
That mischievous smile rose to her lips again. “I know.”
I chucked her under the chin. “You’re every bit as arrogant as I am, aren’t you?”
“Sometimes there’s a reason for it,” she answered.
My hand was already beneath her chin, and she was so beautiful in the light of the fire. I leaned forward and pressed my lips against hers. Soft, slow kisses turned into an ache. I ran my hand up her side, under her tunic. She unbelted her sword belt and let it slide up to the grass.
I took her hand. It was calloused from carrying a sword, and probably from carrying a mop before that, but I loved the roughness of her hands. They were no noble lady’s hands. And when she slid her hands across my waist, they lit fire in a way no one else ever had.
The two of us went on kissing, and soon she gently shoved me down to the ground so that she could climb onto me. As she straddled me, the stars shone down from above, and her beautiful face looking down at me with her eyes alight, and it was the most perfect view.
“I can’t believe you’re mine,” I murmured. “I could spend my lifetime trying to be worthy of you.”
She kissed the corner of my mouth, then settled her head onto my shoulder. Every part of my body was on fire for her, but it also felt so good just to have her comforting weight against mine, to wrap my arms around her waist.
“Don’t spend your life trying to be worthy, Branok. Don’t try to prove anything. You are worthy, and I wish you would just rest in that and in my love. Because if you don’t, how can I rest myself?”
She was the strongest, best, kindest person I’ve ever met. And she was mine. I dipped my head, tracing my lips around the line of her neck, down her shoulder. A shudder ran through her body, and she bit her lower lip as if she were holding herself back as her nose nuzzled my jaw. I looked up at her curiously because we had barely have done anything. My cock was hard and straining, but we were still both dressed.
Honor tugged away my tunic and I pulled it over my head. Then she traced her fingers over the mark across my skin. “I did this to you.”
“You apparently are quite possessive,” I teased her. No matter what I said, her deep affection for me still felt like an unexpected gift.
“I learned from the best.” She smiled up at me. “I marked you because I will always love you and you’ll always be mine. Even if I wasn’t ready to put the words to it at the time. But… are you ever going to mark me?”
It was an invitation that I had been waiting for. I didn’t want to force my mark on her when my family’s legacy was so fucking terrible.
“You’ll be my love until the day I die,” I promised her. “I know sometimes it seems like I don’t love you the same way the others do, because I’m not as possessive, not as protective…it’s because you are a powerful wonder, Honor. And I admire you. I don’t ever want to take any part of that away from you.”
She kissed me passionately then, and the two of us lost ourselves into trading quick, sweeping kisses, our hands teasing over each other’s bodies. We undressed each other, the cool air caressing our skin, but both of us burned too hot right now to feel it. She grabbed me and guided me against her slick opening, then cried out, her back arching, her lips parted in pleasure as we began to move together.
The powerful need that ran through my body wasn’t just desire. She was mine, and my body cried out to make her mine in every way, to mark her as my mate. The mark she’d left on my throat throbbed, and passion burned through my blood.
I dipped my head and drove my teeth against her skin, and she let out a cry that could have been pleasure or pain or both. Then it changed, her legs wrapping tightly around my waist, and she clung to me as the two of us finished together.
As the two of us fell apart, staring up at the stars high above, I forgot to worry about being worthy.
CHAPTER32
Lynx
Branokand I had slipped out of the camp early in the morning to hunt our father. The others would know where we had gone.
We had to do this ourselves.
We met with one of our spies who had word for us, then crept through the city, seeking our father’s telltale magic. He could never resist using it for long. It was his great power over others.
Branok’s new mark was on his throat, visible creeping up from his collar. My own mark was lower, hidden on my chest.
“I suppose Honor found a way she can always tell us apart,” I said lightly.
