Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 69119 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 346(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69119 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 346(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
Taron groaned low in his throat and clasped my hips, shifting me with sudden, practiced ease. One moment I was kneeling beside him, the next we were both on our knees, pressed together. My heart thundered against his chest. Our mouths never parted, but with my face over his, and his tipped up to me, the kiss deepened. And his hands. Mmm, his hands. They roamed with reckless purpose, kneading and caressing, learning what left me breathless.
Lightning licked down my spine in the wake of his touches, each pass of his fingers both reverent and ravenous, as though he couldn't decide whether to adore or consume me. Thought evaporated, scattered to ash in the heat of his hands. Only sensation lingered.
He panted a little as he cupped my cheeks with surprising tenderness and drew back. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
Though the kiss had paused, my ache remained constant, pulsing. He stared at me, his lids heavy, irises shimmering like golden honey melted into molten amber, bubbling with barely restrained need. We breathed in tandem, lips parted, the air between us thick and laced with a need deeper than desire. Dangerous. Perhaps even…fated.
I braced my palms on his shoulders, grounding myself in the breadth of him, toying with the ends of his tousled hair. “Don’t tell me that was nothing but a victory kiss,” I beseeched softly. “Or that it won’t happen again.”
His lips curved, but the amusement didn’t reach his irises. “It wasn’t just a victory kiss,” he murmured, voice ragged. “I…you need to know there’s no happy ending for us. Only a beautiful ruin. Whatever happens, I will leave this realm.”
His words seared my mind, my chest. I flinched, but not from pain. Longing tore through me, sudden and sharp. I didn’t want to be a ruin.
I didn’t want us to end.
He awakened things inside me I’d thought long buried. Hope. Connection. The kind of desire that changed the very core of your being. And I felt them more fiercely with him than I ever had with another. Even Leopold. He had won a girl’s heart, but I was a woman now, and what I felt for Taron cut deeper, sharper. As if Taron had found the most vulnerable parts of me and called them to life with his summons.
“Do you still want more from me, Lyssa?” he asked, the question a low rasp, reminding me of a falling feather being split by a blade. The sound of my nickname on his tongue was its own seduction. An invocation that curled through me like the most intoxicating smoke. “Not sex. But more?”
“Ja,” I whispered. “I do.”
Satisfaction flickered across his face, softening the harsh lines carved by battles fought both within and on the battlefield.
“I want…” My throat tightened, “a chance. Not forever,” I clarified quickly. “Just honesty while we’re still here.”
He frowned. “Honesty. That’s all?”
“Ja,” I repeated. Honesty was all I could afford. Even if he wished to stay, we couldn’t have forever. Not unless he survived my fire.
But risking Taron meant risking the last piece of myself. Watching him burn would destroy me. I knew it. I’d be fit only to fade into Mourfall, tending the dead like all the others who’d lost their mates. A new berserker royal would rise in Ashmorra, and if that royal wasn’t my sisters…
Taron swallowed hard, a cornucopia of emotions flickering in his gaze. “I crave you.”
A dark incantation of three words. The magic slipped under my skin and battered at the last pieces of my armor. He’d meant what he’d said, and it was the truth that gave the words their power. I could feel the veracity of his claim. It carried significant weight, already a living thing with a heartbeat of its own, pounding between us. And yet…
There it was. A fracture. A sliver of hesitation neither of us could hide from.
“But you’re right. The obstacles,” he rasped, confirming my certainty. “Even with sex off the table—”
“And out of the room,” I mumbled.
“Yes.” He sighed. “Any kind of physical interaction will complicate matters.”
I nodded, my voice failing before I managed to croak, “I know.”
As much as I didn’t want to risk him, he didn’t want to burn. And even if he survived, my part in the death of his loved ones was a shadow we couldn’t outrun. Like his incantation, our past was a living, breathing force. It tethered our future to doom, turning it into a constant tug-of-war.
“Can we be friends?” he breathed, stroking my hair. “At least until I leave?”
“Ja,” I muttered, leaning closer. A much safer arrangement. “Friends who do not touch. Do not kiss. Do not pretend this is easier than it is.”
He squeezed his lids shut for a moment. “And in the spirit of our agreement, I’d like to admit my mind is currently a dumpster fire, everything jumbled together and doused in confusion.”