The royals hire their servants from the children of servants, generation after generation. They make better salaries than most, but once they enter the king’s service, they’re expected to serve for life, no exceptions.
“I would do anything for you, Meryn. But this…”
I wince. “You think I’m crazy?”
His expression tightens. “I don’t,” he growls. The ferocity of his reply sounds like a threat against anyone who’d dare question me. “The timing is just… fucking awful.”
“The timing?”
He reaches up and pushes his fingers through his thick hair, then lets his hand drop to his knee. “There are about to be Bonding Trials.”
His words are like a punch to the gut.
Bonding Trials… a chance to become one of the King’s precious Bonded forces, and to form an unbreakable connection with a massive, vicious direwolf.
If that’s true, it means I might never even make it to the front. The Bonding Trials are just as dangerous as the war, from what I’ve heard.
A ragged rush of air chokes up my lungs. “How do you… know that?”
There’s no way he could, right? Bonding Trials happen sporadically, and are kept a closely guarded secret so as not to deter soldiers from enlisting. When one is about to happen, every newly enlisted recruit is required to attempt to bond, without exception.
“I overheard whispers in the castle. They’ve already sent out missives for the instructors,” Lee says. His brow is tight. He isn’t looking at me. And I know why.
I’ve just told him that I’m going to throw myself into the most dangerous place possible, and he knows me too well to try to talk me out of it. There’s nothing he can do, and Lee hates that. He’s always hated not being able to act, maybe as much as I do.
“I’m still going,” I tell him. “I have to.”
“I know,” he says. “Look, they’re going to make you do the first Trial. From what I’ve heard, it’s a perilous mountain climb, and the direwolves are at the top. But you don’t need to try to bond with one. All you need to do is survive. As long as you do that and avoid bonding, you’ll be sent along to the front with the rest of the commoner soldiers afterwards.”
I take a deep, shaky breath. That doesn’t sound terrifying at all. “Okay.”
His eyes find mine again, and they burn with an intensity that makes me feel powerful. “If anyone can survive it, it will be you,” he tells me firmly. Courage catches like a bonfire in my chest. “Fight, Meryn. Win. Find Saela and come back to me.”
“I will. I—I love you, Lee.”
“I love you, too,” he says, reaching out to cup my cheek gently.
We’ve said the words to each other before, but today they sound different.
Today,I love yousounds an awful lot likegoodbye.
I need to banish the sound of it from my mind, and there’s one surefire way to quiet all my thoughts. Lee catches my change in mood, stroking my cheek with his thumb, then scratching his nails lightly down my neck and across my shoulder. In a heartbeat, my desperation to have him on top of me, inside of me, gets so searing that my skin grows hot with it.
I reach for Lee and yank him to me by his shirt.
He is over me instantly, on his feet and kissing me with a scorching heat as one of his hands closes around the back of my chair and the other around my neck. And just like that, I’m no longer in control.
My grip on his shirt goes limp as his tongue meets mine, the slick heat of his kiss sinking bliss through my muscles. A needy sound escapes me as I pull weakly at his shirt, and his returning chuckle goes straight to my core.
Neither of us utters a word as our eyes meet again, the intensity in his gaze making me gasp. His big hands slide down my back to my ass, and then in one quick move he’s lifted me up and laid me out right there against the kitchen floor, bending me back, following to claim me in a kiss.
I fall backward, arms dropping from his neck to brace myself. The icy cool of the kitchen floor presses into my arms, my rear,my lower back, even as Lee’s heat warms me, making me shiver in pleasure.
Lee’s mouth licks a trail of fire from my earlobe down to the hollow of my neck, where he suckles, teasing his teeth over my sensitive skin. My head falls back, knocking against the floor.
His mouth disappears, and I prop myself up on an elbow, only for my arm to go weak as he yanks my trousers down past my hips, tearing through my underwear in a single motion. I stare at him, my breathing heavy. His lips curve in a possessive smile, and my body floods with heat.
Slowly, he rises up to his knees and undoes the laces at the front of his own trousers, and I moan as I watch his cock spring free, already achingly hard. He rubs the heel of his hand over the head, once, twice, as I squirm in front of him.
