She sighed and turned her face away. Carefully—very carefully—he moved it back.
“This is going to hurt, little sparrow,” he whispered, pushing her hair back from her ear. “But the pain will be a mercy compared to what my family intends for you.”
He pressed his mouth to her throat as his hand dipped between her legs. She was warm—responsive—wet—and she moaned in her sleep as he pushed two fingers inside of her. There was some resistance, which didn’t surprise him. So much patience had been necessary to lure her out this far. But she was worth the wait.
“He can’t have you.” Cal kissed her harder, making her shift in her sleep. Her breathing was heavier, the rise and fall of her breast more insistent. “Hewon’thave you. No one else will, not ever again. You’remine, Nadine—and soon I’m going to show you exactly what that entails.”
A small sound left her lips, soft and throaty. She clenched around his fingers as if her body was instinctively seeking more.His cock jerked in response and Cal had to repress a shudder as a bead of pre-come slid down the shaft.
“Soon, darling.” His voice was harsh. He already knew how he planned to take her: with his lips on that claiming bite as he painted her womb with his seed again and again, until she was marked from the inside, out. “Soon you’ll be giving me whatever I want.”
And then he bit her, sucking hard on the fragile skin of her neck. Hard enough to leave a mark that his family would see and recognize as the claim it was.
His boss had asked him how his family knew which deer to hunt at the festival, and it was because they marked them just like this. It was poor manners for one hunter to steal the quarry of another and Nadine wasn’t just his sparrow; she was the other half of a breeding pair.
Ravens mated for life.
His release was immediate; he wasn’t braced for it and forgot himself, a low groan escaping him. Nadine stirred again, in a way that he felt throughout his entire body because it suggested she was about to wake. Cal took his hand away from her thighs and his fingers skidded against his own palm as he clenched his fist.She’s soaked my fucking hand.
By the time her eyes opened blindly to the dark room, one hand clapped to the bruise blossoming on the pale skin of her throat, Cal was back in his room. The rough grains of the tapestry chafed his back as he leaned against it, heedless of its wear or age. He cupped himself through his pants and felt the stickiness of his own come kiss his fingers.
Cal breathed out hard through his nose.
“Fuck.”
C H A P T E R
S E V E N
whims of fate
The sour taste of copper clung to Cal’s tongue. For a few seconds, he did not know who or where he was, hovering suspended in time like a single bead threaded over an abyss. Slowly, his eyes cleared and went immediately to the tapestry and as he breathed in the dust and the history of this place, he remembered everything.
Everything. The dinner—the bite—his lapse in control—
He had known from a very young age what the expectations of his family were. ‘Lower thy honor and raise thy blood’ was engraved on that statue for all to see in the middle of the town square. Not all women were sparrows and those that were, were destined to submit. Toendure.
To him.
Christ, he needed to see to what he’d done before she started wandering again like a lost lamb amongst wolves. If he had any hope of convincing his family that the bond between them was genuine, Nadine needed to trust him and no one else.
With an impatient gesture, Cal flung his clothes from the previous night into the hamper for the maids to deal with before stepping into a pair of pressed navy slacks.
The decent thing to do would be to send her away but no one had ever accused him of being a decent man.
Ben had been right about one thing. Nadinewasyoung and alone. She needed protection, someone to cling to. Someone to make her feel beautiful through fear.
The air became cooler as he stepped out into the hallway. As he did so, he caught a glimpse of his brother’s departing back.
Ben’s bedroom was not next to his.
Nadine’s was, though.
He gave the door a quiet nudge just as Nadine stepped into view with a stumble and a curse. She was pulling on her jeans beneath the nightshirt she was wearing, which put an end to any suspicions he might have had over whether her shyness was a calculated fact.
Then she pulled the nightshirt over her head and his mouth went dry as all the rest of his thoughts seemed to bleed away until nothing was left butwant.
She had looked stunning in scarlet, but seeing her now, with nothing on her skin but starbursts of sunlight from the undulating voile curtains, she quite took his breath away. Her breasts were heavier than they’d looked buttoned up beneath her prim little clothes. Large, peach-colored areolae shaded into the ripe raspberry of her nipples, which had hardened to stiff points in the cool morning draft.
