A short gasp broke free when Roark had my back to the wall in the next breath. The others had rounded the corner, but alone in the corridor, the Sentry made a hard cage over me.
His fingers traced the line of my jaw before forming his words.I could help with the distress.
I’d be wise to heed Kael’s warnings, be wise not to let up my heart so easily. I should’ve done all that before Roark’s damn fingertips traced the neckline of my gown. An ache gathered in my chest and spread lower in my belly when Roark brushed his palm over the swell of one breast.
“How would you do that?”
Wickedness burned in the gold of his eyes.On my knees with a kiss. His palm slid over my hip.
I dug my hands into the wall, feigning indifference. “I’ve had your kiss. Not certain it would be enough.”
Not here. Roark touched my lips with his. His other hand glided down my thigh, toward the inner leg. I jolted when he paused over the apex between my thighs. On instinct, I widenedmy stance, wanting him to touch me deeper. Roark’s fingers brushed over my skirt, adding pressure to my core. My breath caught when I looked down to see him forming a single word.
Here.
Damn the gods. My breaths came too swift, too heavy. His silent words bled into my pores until they pulsed the ache to the lowest part of my belly.
Roark grinned, like he knew exactly how easily he’d found the loose thread, tugged, and unraveled me.
He stepped back, one hand in front of us.Later, of course. We’re needed at the feast.
The feast. More crowds. More simple chatter. More folk wanting claws like Hundur.
More. More. More.
In this moment, all I wanted more of was the Sentry and his wicked, silent mouth.
39
Roark
When the sun faded, moonlightbrought out the darker pieces of a soul. Chaos and blood always followed a meld. No matter how privately the king kept the melding of soul bones, he still added more Stav to the walls after the craft was used, as though anticipating trouble.
It was no different tonight.
Myrdan guards were the overwhelming presence of blades in the hall. More Stav were in the towers, on foot, and in town. But since Lyra had melded Tomas’s jaw, cracked it open again, and added Hundur’s claws, there was still no hint of ravagers, no Dark Watch.
Tomas, the bastard, hadn’t shown his face, and I doubted we would see much of him until the day of Thane’s wedding. Perhaps not even then if we were fortunate. The way he’d looked at Lyra with such disdain, such dark rage, I would not mind if he scurried his pitiful ass back to Myrda like a haunt in the night.
Silence added only more weight to the discomfiting sense thatsomething was out of place in the great hall. Tension gathered in each muscle, from my shoulders to legs, but there were no horns from the watchtowers, no calls from the border walls.
And Lyra was unharmed.
Truth be told, it was one of the few nights I’d seen her laugh with her head tossed back, a few crystal tears in the corners of her eyes. Lyra had joined the great hall, silver scars mottled with dyes. A few whispers had already spread about unfortunate Tomas. Damir did not want any guests beyond the inner chambers of Myrda and his inner guards to recognize Lyra as the melder.
She sat on the right hand of Thane, but Darkwin and their folk from Skalfirth took her other side.
I could watch Lyra laugh all night.
One palm gripped the crescent moon pommel on my blade and I turned the opposite direction. Stonegate might be quiet, but the night wasn’t over, and I couldn’t soothe the sting of apprehension.
I prowled the walls, keeping sight of the high table with the kings and queens, and more than one look at Lyra. No one spoke to me, no one even seemed to realize I was there.
To be the Sentry meant becoming a man worthy of note in one moment, and an insignificant shadow in the next.
One corner had a huddle of men pounding different sizes of drums. Others plucked at strings or blew over panpipes and lurs.
There was a man standing atop the center table, with hair cropped to his scalp and a beard that was twisted in a tight knot with bone beads clicking as he spoke. The Skald had enraptured half the hall in a new tale of the Wanderer and how he defeated a Jotunn’s bear before the creature could devour one of his children.
