My heart stops.
I know those eyes.
“Daak?”
Chapter Fifty-Six
“Princess?”Theurgentvoiceis low, familiar.
Wrong.
My vision blurs even as unwanted desire coils inside me. I grip his shoulders tighter.
“Where’s Daak?” the voice asks.
His words snap me out of my haze, and I focus on the man before me with the intimately familiar blue eyes.
Sorka.
Daak’s father.
My heart splinters.
I clutch his shoulders, slumping into him. He looks me over, not as a general assessing his soldier, but with the tenderness of a concerned father. His eyes widen as he notes my flushed cheeks. My torn tunic.
“Princess.” His voice is grave. “What happened to you?”
“The Dark Commander is chasing me,” I pant, clutching the shredded fabric of my tunic together. “Do you have more men?”
Sorka straightens, face drawn. A muscle twitches in his jaw as he eyes my ripped tunic again. “Yes. Our camp is nearby. Come, quickly.”
I follow him through the woods, struggling to ignore the heat in my belly or the way my eyes linger on the contracting muscles in Sorka’s back, the curl of gray-streaked hair against the nape of his neck.
“How many men does he have?” Sorka asks, slicing through wayward branches with his longsword.
“None.”
“None?”
“He, uh, killed them.”
The general shoots me a confused look over his shoulder. My eyes trace his full, parted lips and the white stubble covering his strong jaw.
Tides, I need to get a hold of myself.
This is Daak’sfather. And I haven’t even told him Daak isdead.
A broken, hysterical laugh bubbles from my lips.
Sorka’s strong brows knit with concern. “You’re safe, Princess,” he soothes. “He can’t harm you now.”
We dart through the trees for another few minutes when Sorka stops. He raises a hand in the air and snaps his fingers.
A dozen warriors emerge from the underbrush.
They’re clad in the dark browns and greens of the forest, but their eyes are unmistakably Tundrayani—icy, clear, shimmering, deep, blue.
Unbidden, my heated gaze drinks them in.
