Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 115347 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 577(@200wpm)___ 461(@250wpm)___ 384(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115347 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 577(@200wpm)___ 461(@250wpm)___ 384(@300wpm)
Panic flared, expanding and contracting. Lose her before he’d done everything in his power to win her?
Determination turned his bones to steel, and he jolted. If he did the right thing, regardless of the expected outcome, she would learn to trust him—or she would leave.
Everything or nothing.
“Micah,” she demanded. “Snap out of it, man. You’re frightening the peasants. Tell us what’s going on with you.”
He yanked his gaze to Elena and Sabot, who clawed at their own cheeks. Trickles of crimson poured down their faces. Their fault for disobeying his orders.
Struggling to rein in his aggression, Micah locked his sights on Red. Her jaw dropped, and she stumbled back a step. He lashed out an arm, snagged her by the nape and yanked her closer. Hardness to soft, lush curves.
He sniffed the length of her neck, an action he couldn’t stop. She gasped. With a throaty rasp, he told her, “You aren’t the only one who hungers.”
“Is that so?” Slowly, she went liquid, molding her body to his. Her eyelids hooded as she flattened her palms over his pectorals. “What does His Majesty crave?”
“I’d like to start with a taste of your apples.” The scent of citrus thickened around them. His heart raced. The feel of her... “Your scent drives me wild.”
“My scent? No, darling. This is your scent.”
Was it? “Perhaps it’s our scent together.”
“P-perhaps.” Her warm breath seared a sensitive path across his bare chest. He tightened his grip, desperate for her mouth to follow each exhalation. “Are you attempting to seduce me?”
“No. I’m succeeding.” He craned his head, pinning his spy in place with a glare. “Within the next thirty seconds, you will return to camp, and you will inform your brother of my return tomorrow.” He won or lost his wife tonight. “And do not think you can refuse me again. You will return to camp. There is no or else. No other option exists for you.”
Red quivered against him. Keeping her gaze on him, she snapped, “Elena, consider the king’s command an order from your much scarier queen, and do it. Now.”
The blonde huffed, and the clawing ended. The wounds healed. “Fine! I’ll go. But only because I’m no longer afraid for your life. The beast is helpless.”
“How dare you!” Red burst out, surging forward. She would have tackled the other woman if Micah hadn’t held fast. “I am far from helpless. My vengeance has only begun.”
“Of course, you’re not helpless,” Elena shouted back. “As if I was talking about you.”
“Oh. Well.” His wife humphed and settled. “There was no need to state the painfully obvious. Micah is the weak one, and everyone knows it.”
Yes, he was the weak one. But with Red, he thought he might enjoy it.
Elena mounted her centaur and vanished. Sabot quickly followed suit, leaving Micah and Red alone. He wasted no time, flittering her to the altar. With his hands on her hips, he lifted her and sat her atop the flat, upper stone, directly in front of him.
She gulped. As he returned his grip to her nape, he could only imagine the intensity of aggression he exuded. An intensity that only sharpened as locks of her silken hair wedged between his fingers.
Applying pressure, he tilted her head backward, baring her throat to him. “Do you want all of me, Red? If there were no obstacles between us, would you wish to be my cherished wife?”
Her eyes widened, and she gulped with more force. “Cherished?”
He gave a single dip of his head. “I cannot hide how much I yearn for you, and I do not wish to try anymore.”
She gulped and offered a similar dip. “Yearn?”
“You are it for me. I’ve done you many wrongs. If you’ll give me a chance, I will do right. I know you don’t trust me now, but you will. I’ll prove it. Tell me the obstacles between us.” A command from her husband and king.
Relaxing into his hold, she licked her lips. “There are four.”
“Let’s hear the first.”
“Well.” Gulp. “I killed Kaysar’s parents, as you know, so I owe him a debt I must repay.”
A statement he’d expected. “I understand.” He didn’t like it, but he understood nonetheless.
“Do you really?” A deep, shaky breath before she admitted, “Because I’m determined to oversee his victory against his greatest enemy...you.”
He drew in a deep, shaky breath, too. Deeper. Shakier. A thousand thoughts swirled, thinning one by one until a response became clear. “Kaysar is an obstacle no longer. Your husband has decided to help you pay your debt. He is agreeing to a truce.” What had once held him back no longer seemed important. A building? “It is the right move. No war, no trolls necessary.”
A gasp parted her lips. Her eyes rounded. “You’d give up your palace for me?”
He’d constructed one. He could construct another—to his wife’s tastes. “Kaysar can keep his kingdom, and I will keep mine. The people will be free to choose the king and queen they wish to serve.”