"I am listening. I simply disagree."
She ran to catch up to me, as I took long steps across a swing bridge with a single metal chain on each side instead of a rail. “Well, your disagreement is wrong?—"
"That is not how disagreements work?—"
She reached me on the other end of the swaying bridge with a hand on her belly and stepped in front of me. “Says the Vandar who literally kidnapped me?—"
I glared down at her. "Isavedyou."
"By abducting me!" She threw her hands up in exasperation. "You can't just?—"
I'd had enough. In one smooth motion, I bent and threw her over my shoulder like a sack of grain.
She shrieked, and the sound echoed through the corridor. Her fists immediately began pounding on my back, her legs flailing until I pinned them down.
"Put me down, you frostbitten prick! I swear to every god in the galaxy…”
I started walking again, my boots echoing loudly enough that I could somewhat ignore her continued protests. The pounding on my back was more annoying than painful since she didn't have enough strength behind the blows to do any real damage, although I had to admire her persistence.
What I couldn’t tell her was that I did want her to remain with me and with an intensity that was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore, but I couldn't risk her safety. I couldn't bear the thought of flying into danger with her beside me, knowing that every encounter with Imperial forces could end with her captured or killed. I had not saved her just to put her at risk of being taken by the Empire again.
We passed more Vandar, but each was too well-trained to do more than glance at the sight of their Raas carrying a struggling,shrieking human woman over his shoulder. They simply saluted and passed.
"This is barbaric!" Jasmine attempted to twist toward me, but I swatted her ass and jostled her so that she flopped down my back again. "This is exactly the kind of thing that makes you seem like a?—"
"Monster?" I supplied. "Brute? Savage? I have heard them all, Jasmine. I am not concerned with your opinion of my methods."
Finally, we reached my quarters. I pressed my palm to the access panel, and the door slid open. Then I walked inside, swung her down from my shoulder with perhaps more force than strictly necessary, and dropped her onto the bed. She bounced once then scrambled to her knees, her face flushed with fury and exertion. Her hair spilled around her shoulders in wild tangles and her eyes were blazing.
"What the hell was that?" she sputtered.
I shrugged, crossing my arms over my chest. "You would not stop arguing."
"We were having adiscussion?—"
"I am Raas," I reminded her, my voice hard. "My orders are obeyed, not discussed."
"I'm not Vandar," she snapped back immediately.
"You are a war bride of the Vandar,” I countered, taking a step toward the bed and her. “Mywar bride, which makes you mine in every way.”
She stood on the bed so that she was a head above me, defiant even though I was twice her size and had just demonstratedexactly how easily I could control her when I chose to. “Not every way, and if you think that’s the way to make me want you…”
I stepped onto the bed to face her and tower over her.
"—then you don't know me at all," she finished, her sharp voice dissolving to a mere whisper
The vein in her neck throbbed and her pupils were wide, blown black with only a thin ring of brown remaining. She was livid, but there was something else in her furious gaze. I wound an arm around her waist, giving her time to move away if she wanted to. She didn't. I ran one finger along her cheek, enjoying the heat of her flush before lifting her chin and forcing her face to tilt to mine.
“Then maybe," I whispered, my voice dropping to a husky rumble, "we should get to know each other better. And maybe you will learn that obeying me does not have to be unpleasant."
Her desire was written in every line of her body and felt in her soft gasp of breath, warm against my skin. Then she licked her bottom lip nervously and something in me snapped.
I crushed my mouth to hers, swallowing her gasp of surprise and pouring all my loneliness and desperate wanting into the kiss. My hands rose to tangle in her hair, holding her head tenderly even as my kiss was anything but gentle.
She froze for only a moment before she surrendered, her hands fisting in my hair to pull me closer instead of pushing me away. Her lips parted beneath mine, letting me deepen the kiss, and when she made a small keening sound in the back of her throat, I felt it all the way to my bones. She tasted of sweet wine from the night before and something uniquely her that I wanted to drown in.
I finally, reluctantly, pulled back to let her breathe. “You can hate me all you want, my little rebel. That doesn’t change the fact that your body hungers for mine or that youwillbe mine.”
