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But it was heartening to witness two kingdoms collide in kinship. All around the camp, fur mats, drinking horns, and washing supplies were scattered together from both the North and the guilds. No lines were drawn, only loyalty lived in these camps. Gunnar had always assured us the North would stand by our sides, but it struck me more now than before how they did more than stand with us. They’d become part of us.
We would defend them, and they would defend us, like we were all one land.
Our alliance with the Ferus royals of the North was deeper. It was made of stronger bonds. Love, friendship, respect. I liked to think those kinds of ties were made of iron, and not the brittle glass of selfish aspirations. Kinsmen earned through blood and war, not manipulations and tricks.
I scanned the space for Kase. Tor and Sol were settled beside Herja and Hagen. Halvar laughed with Gunnar, Ari, and Eryka.
Kase was the missing piece of the camp. I’d expected him to be with the king or queen, but Valen had fashioned a new burrow where he could steal away with Elise.
I doubted we would see them until sunrise. With a sigh, I looked at the private space with a bit of longing.
“I cannot bend the earth, but I am skilled at hiding in the shadows.” Kase’s warm breath brushed over my neck as he came up from behind me.
A need to touch the man tingled through my fingertips as I curled into his body, tracing the divots and shape of his arms and shoulders. “Am I so obvious?”
“You look at their hovel like you might either burn it or demand they turn it over to you.”
He curled an arm around my waist and led me toward the shadows in the trees. Beneath a bower of aspens, Kase had set up a half tent with a few sheep skins and placed a thick bear fur on the ground.
“Not fit for a queen, but it’ll have to do before we return to Felstad.”
I tugged on his hand before he could step away. “When have you ever known me to need a queen’s bed? It’s perfect.”
Kase pulled back a thick quilt. Once I was tucked beneath it, he curled his body around me, my back to his chest, and twirled the damp end of my braid in his fingers. “Last night was from the hells.” He slid one arm under my head, then kissed the top of my shoulder. “I spent too many turns away from you, and now I cannot stomach more than a day. Any time you are parted from me, the fear of never seeing you again is suffocating.”
“It is a good thing you’re stuck with me, then. For too many nights I lived life without your hands on my skin, and I plan to never go back to those nights.”
“Is that so?” Kase’s voice was dark, low, and at a wretched, yet deliciously slow pace, his hand slid down the curve of my waist.
His fingertips teased the loose band of the clean trousers Inge had given me. My next breath came out rough and ragged.
“These hands, you mean?” He pulled the lobe of my ear between his teeth and slid his hand around the curve of my hip until it disappeared beneath my waistline.
His fingertips flitted across my lower belly, sending a maddening spin to my head. “That wholly depends on how you plan to use them.”
I bucked my hips and tried to roll over to face him.
Kase tightened his hold around my body and kept me turned away. “No. You don’t move.”
I opened my mouth to protest but swallowed every word as his arm he’d tucked beneath my head bent at the elbow, and he slipped his hand down the front of my shirt. Kase palmed one breast while his other hand slipped into the heat between my thighs.
I was torn in two.
“You see, if these hands have been missed so fiercely—” Kase kissed the nape of my neck as his fingers teased and tormented my body. He grinned against my skin when a choked moan slid out of my throat. “Then tonight they will prove how much they belong to you.”
“But my hands enjoy you too,” I said, breathless. “A great deal.”
“You’ll stay them tonight.”
“You don’t command me.”
Lies. All of it was one taunting lie. In this moment, the way he touched me, Kase could command my every move, and I would obey. A whimper slipped through my lips when his fingers curled against my center. He pulled my hips back into his, holding me tightly against his body.
“Tonight, not even a queen’s word could tell me differently.” His teeth scraped over my throat. “Now stay your hands and let mine work.”
By the gods, he made good on his word. In another breath I could not form a coherent thought. All that mattered were his beautiful hands, his safe body, his demanding, almost filthy words whispered in the darkness.
No mistake, he’d had control of me from the moment he pulled me away from the others. My body was not my own, my mind no longer clear. I gave in and relinquished the desire to return the favor. The man tortured me to a blinding crest. His fingers pinched and stroked the heat of my core, then added a slow, tender attention to my breasts, my middle, my throat, as if each touch left a brand of Kase behind.
