“And then loved you more and more every day since then!” His fists clenched as he stalked toward her, fury and pain etched into every movement. “Do you think this is easy for me!?” His frame shook with each word. “I’m trying to do the right thing! Trying to let you be happy! With the person you were probably supposed to be with from the start!”
She sagged against the wooden beams. “Do I look happy to you, you hell-spawned idiot?!”
“The snake has changed with you. Isawit.” He leaned in, trapping her against the fence, his arms braced on either side of her body. “Imagine all the suffering we could have avoided if I’d just given you back to him from the start.”
Given me back?!As if she had no choice in the matter.She was about to bite his fucking nose off when his next words hit her like a freight train from another world.
“What if all of this—” He clenched his teeth, unable to continue. “What if we could’ve avoided this war if he had been on our side from the beginning?”
Shattered, she watched him come undone in front of her. This wasn’t about them at all. His guilt, his endless sense of responsibility for all the lives lost, was consuming him from the inside out.
“Look at me, you stupid man,” she said, knowing pity wouldn’t help. “Look at me with that stupid wolf’s eye of yours and tell me I’m lying.”
He didn’t move, his face remaining downcast.
Enough. Rynna jabbed her hand out, and she yanked his chin up, forcing him toseeher.
“The Weaving weaves as it will.” She stared into that glowing eye. “This war, this battle...there’s nothing you or Kaelith could’ve done to stop it.”
Pain flickered across his features.
“There’s something going on here bigger than what we’ve faced. This army of the dead, as horrible as it is, is just the beginning. If it wasn’t this, it would’ve been something just as bad or worse.”
“You can’t know that.” His words were barely audible over the rumbling thunder.
“I can make an educated guess.” Rynna scoffed, her grip tightening. “And I bet if you asked your lieutenants, they’d say the same thing. This is just the warm-up unless we stop it.”
He let out a strangled laugh, one that sounded more like a sob. “You’re not exactly making me feel better about the situation.”
“I’m not here to make you feel better, Commander.” Her tone dropped. “It’s taking all my self-control not to tear your fucking throat out for what you’re trying to do to us,” she snarled. “The point, Fenn, is that there’s very little in life that’s for certain. You know that as well as I do. And it’s in times like these that we must cleave to what we know to be true, beyond doubt, or we’ll lose ourselves.”
His eyes searched hers. “What are you saying, Rynna?”
“What the hell do you think I’m saying, you big idiot.”
“Say it,” he demanded, leaning in close, his lips hovering just above hers.
“I love you, you big dumb—”
She never finished. His hand clamped around her throat, pulling her into a kiss, all heat and desperation like he was devouring her whole.
And when he finally pulled back, his grip still tight around her neck, his voice was a ragged whisper. “Say it again.”
“I love you, Fenn.” She raked her hands beneath his shirt. “Every goddamn inch of you, no matter what insane shit the Weaving throws our way.”
Fenn gasped, choking on their shared air before his hands gripped her hips and spun her back to him with a force that left her dizzy. His arms locked around her waist, and his fingers slid beneath her tunic, pulling her tight to him as if he couldn’t bear the distance. As his palms crawled up her belly to find her breasts, his lips searched her neck, nuzzling, biting, scorching her skin. She arched into him, her head falling to the side, exposing the length of her throat to the hungry, frantic heat of his mouth.
“Bend over.” His teeth grazed her ear. “For tonight, at least, you are mine.”
“Yes,” she begged, feeling the hard length of him press into her rear as she reached for the rough wood of the fence, her hands bracing against it.
And, as if answering her plea, the light drizzle that had started earlier in the evening transformed into a torrential downpour, plastering his shirt to her back as he leaned over her.
“You’ll take everything I give you.” His rough fingers found her waistband, leaving her pants to fall free into the muddy water below as he reached between her legs.
“Anything.” She moaned as first one finger, then two, slid, searching, until they found her center, swollen, wet, and eager.
“That can’t be just the rain,” he murmured against her cheek, his fingers slipping into her teasingly slow while his thumb circled the sensitive edge of her entrance. “Tell me it’s all for me.”
