He chewed at his lip slightly. “I’ll be twenty in a few days.”
Oh, Goddess, he was three years younger than me. Young enough to worry about a first rut and an unending knot? I hoped not. “Well, I’m glad you read it. It was fascinating, and only slightly revolting. And all knowledge is useful.” He hummed in agreement.
“What do you think about the lure, Kavin?” I turned a few more pages, feeling the way his leg shifted next to mine. All the reading about knots had made me feel unsettled.
The fabric that covered his thighs moved and strained as the muscles beneath flexed. He had a lot of muscle for a scholar. For an instant, I had a wild need to see it, to touch each bit of him.
The room filled with the scent of orange blossoms and fresh grass, and I stood and rushed to the window, throwing it open.
When he spoke again, Kavin’s voice was much lower. “Some believe the lure is magic, some think it a more subtle perfume that travels long distance, and others believe the Omega herself marks everything she touches with this almost scentless, completely invisible substance—”
“Wait, everything she touches? That’s ridiculous.”
His eyebrows lowered. “Kralovna, Wulfram followed you through the forest this way.”
“You mean I lured that asshole?” I stood and began pacing the small cabin. “It’s my fault he found us? That he might have killed Valerie, or her guards?”
“He did not,” a new voice confirmed from the doorway.
“Thorn!” I threw myself across the room, my arms spread wide before I remembered. “Ah, sorry.” Damn his no touching rule. “Didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
He prowled into the room, his eyes moving from me to Kavin, then to the bed. Sniffing the air, he tilted his head slightly. I refused to flinch.
“Uncomfortable? What do you mean?”
“Well, I know you, um, don’t think of me that way.” I lifted my chin. “I didn’t mean to overstep. I won’t do it again.”
“Good. I trained you better than to throw yourself at men. Or I thought I had.” His gaze burned through Kavin’s bed, where we had been sitting side by side.
I let my eyes move to Kavin, who stood. His brows were drawn together. “Who is this man to you,kralovna?”
“He is—was—my teacher. He rescued me from King Milian, and trained me in the Guild.” I introduced them to each other, and they both circled around the small room, like dogs trying for a sniff of the other’s butt. The thought almost made me laugh, but I stifled it in case Thorn asked what had amused me.
Kavin’s lip curled when they both settled. “Thorn. Your Guild is corrupt and incompetent. It sold one of its own, and for far less than she would have earned from Mirren.”
Thorn’s voice was razor sharp. “What a strange concern. Do you think to sell her to Mirren yourself, and make your own fortune?”
Kavin bristled. “Never! I disagree vehemently with what our leader has done. Selling one of the world’s only Omegas is reprehensible, but buying her is just as egregious, in my opinion.”
“Wulfram made a deal to sell her blood back to the Guildmaster, so your warlord was doing both, in fact,” Thorn said. “And I know the Guild is corrupt. That is why I am now Anathema.”
I felt the blood drain from my face. “Anathema?”
Every assassin in the Guild would now be given the task of finding him and killing him as a priority before all other missions. An assassin who was Anathema was called a breathing corpse. Why would he have risked that—his whole life, his purpose?
“Thorn, why?”
His steps were careful, sure, and silent as he approached and took my chin in his hand. “For you, little queen. Everything I have done since I met you has been for you. I will let no man touch you, no king take you, no foolish boy draw you in with stories and sweet kisses—”
“He didn’t kiss me.” My voice was breathy and raw.
Behind me, Kavin muttered, “Not yet anyway.”
Thorn’s words whispered across my forehead. “You were given to me to protect when you were a child, and I will never stop.”
At last, at long last, he was touching me, his hand on my chin, his face so close to mine. My eyelids fluttered closed, and I let my lips purse, wondering if this first real kiss would be everything I had imagined.
I’d dreamed of this moment thousands of times over the years. We would have to kiss for days on end to run through all the plans I’d made for this man’s mouth on mine. I pushed my lips out the tiniest bit more and felt something enter my mouth.
