And there was no way to take them back. We hadn’t even known each other for half a year yet, but I couldn’t imagine my life without her in it.
She put me out of misery quickly. “I love you too.”
I couldn’t give her the reaction those words deserved because her fingers skimmed down my torso, pausing at my waistband. I thought she might use them to draw me closer again, but instead, she started unlacing them.
My hand whipped out, grasping her wrist gently but firmly. “Are you certain this is what you want,cariad? I would’ve come for you in Tir Gelida even if you swore you would never speak to me again.”
Her heated gaze lifted from her work, locking on mine. I saw the answer there before she said the one word that unleashed the chains I’d placed around my heart.
“Yes.”
And then we were two bodies, exposed and vulnerable, with nothing to hide behind, nothing to separate us.
I gave her the soap, and she explored as she washed. Isca started with the muscles of my lower back, massaging as she moved like she could smooth the violence out of me with her fingertips. Each stroke was a quiet declaration that she wasn’t afraid. She was so patient, even as my body simmered with pent-up tension.
The monster’s presence chased the path of her touches, as if its claws followed her every move from beneath my skin. Then her fingers traced the taut line of muscle descending from my hips, brushing my cock.
I groaned low, and it came out laced with a growl. The sound of man on the verge of dying—or living for the first time in a very long time.
Isca’s fingers trailed over the shaft then tightened ever so slightly around my head.Bliss wracked my body as I fought to control my shudder.
For the second time, the monster froze—but this time in reverence. As if even it had learned that she was not to be taken, only received. And just like that, its impatience dissipated. And instead of leaping at the cage I’d placed around it, it reached out for Isca’s magic. Her power and the dark thing inside me joined hands to beat a low thrum against my chest, as steady as a second heartbeat.
Before we’d fallen through the eroded section of the glacis, she’d suggested that we find a new way to feed my curse that didn’t involve killing or destruction. All this time I’d been pushing her away, running from the effect she had on me, on it. I was too blind to see that it had been seeking her affection, her and her magic’s companionship, the whole time.
As her hand worked up and down, still exploring, the beast still didn’t stir. It waited with a quiet intensity that matched my own.
How had I, more monster than man, ever gotten so lucky?
“Isca,” I breathed, entire body trembling with passion. “I want you with a desperation that borders on insanity, but I willnottake you in a freezing river.”
Her arms reached up, and her hands clasped around my neck. “Then take me to bed, Emrys.”
Chapter 59
Isca
I was scooped up once again. Before I could even take my next breath, the world turned into blurs of black, green, and starlight as the world streaked past us.
A prickle of fear slid into my chest. Had some of Maelric’s men followed us? Emrys had been so careful. Yet even the most careful could be hunted.
Unlike when Emrys had carried me in a fit of fear, this time, there was no sudden jolt when we came to a stop. Despite his racing heart, he lowered me onto the bedding like I was made of glass. And when I looked up at his face, his eyes were still half-lidded, not looking for enemies.
Impatience then.
And gods, I felt the same way. Though some small uncertainty had crept in due to my inexperience.
More light filtered into our campsite than had made it through the trees by the river, so I was able to see him better now as he crouched above me. He was, in a word, male perfection.
Yes, Emrys was covered in scars. But those crisscrossed a body honed for survival, for the protection of everything he held dear. My eyes drank in every taut line of his muscles, and his gaze mirrored my own.
Except his held the blue fire of his curse. And,gods, I loved it. My breathing picked up as my heart beat out pulses of aching want in my breasts and between my legs.
Emrys had been so tentative, so hesitant to push anything between us forward that I’d expected to be the one to act first, to pull him into another kiss. But he surprised me by lying down on one arm beside me.
He bent and nuzzled in close to my ear again. “Isca, my Isca. You test my composure at every turn. Command me,cariad.”
The low rumble of his voice sent shivers from the shell of my ear straight down to my core, stoking the heat building there to vibrant life.
