“Impossible.” My voice comes out rough. “I can’t. It isn’t a decision I can make. When the rut takes me, my mind won’t be in charge. It’s the oldest thing in my blood, as old as my species, and no male alive can hold it back once it starts. I’ve held it back this long with a tincture my shaman made for me, by keeping my distance from you and starving myself so I’d be too weak for my body to go into heat. By sheer will. It’s all failing now. Having you here, under my roof, speeds it up.”
“Oh. I… I ran from you. I provoked you.” She covers her mouth with her hand.
“Yes. I told myself I’d stay rooted in place and not chase you. I couldn’t. The second you took off, my instincts kicked in. I couldn’t fight the impulse for longer than a moment, enough to give you a head start. Before, I could smother a click with a cough. Today, I hunted you down, pinned you to a wall, and barely stopped there.”
“So, if you sting me, I can die? Really die?”
“I don’t know for certain, and I won’t lie to you to make it sound better than it is. My shaman, Varys, believes a true fatedmate might survive it. That the bond might turn the venom instead of letting it kill her. But no shaman alive has seen it happen with a human. There’s no way to test it that doesn’t risk your life. He can only suppose. When I asked him if you’d live, all he could tell me was that you might.Might.”
“So… if I stay,” she says slowly, “and you sting me… I die.”
I close the distance between us and kneel in front of her, taking her hands in mine. I look into her eyes and let her see my pain and my shame.
“Forgive me,” I say. “I was selfish. I was desperate, dying, and I went to the bride market as a last resort, so I could tell myself that I tried. Then I saw you on that stage, and my vocal cords started clicking. I had no right to bring you here. I should have never bought you.”
I kiss her hands, my lips pressing to each knuckle at a time.
“Leave. Today. I’ll take you anywhere, I’ll give you everything I have, and I’ll never come near you again. Just go and live your life.”
She looks down at me.
“But if I go,” she says. “What happens to you?”
“The rut finishes what it started. I go feral, and it ends the way it ends for males like me.”
“You die.”
“Yes. The Elder Court will do it, or I’ll do it myself, if I’m strong enough.”
“Osric.” Her voice cracks around my name. “No…”
“It doesn’t matter. I’ve made my peace with it, and it was foolish to hope. Maybe that’s what was always waiting for me.”
She sinks down so we’re level and takes my face between her hands. Her palms are cool against my heated face. I keep still. If I move, I don’t know what I’ll do.
“Let me try,” she says. “You said your shaman thinks a true mate can live. If he’s right, I won’t die.”
“No. Absolutely not. I won’t gamble your life like that.”
I start to pull back, but she doesn’t let go of me.
She presses her lips to mine. They are warm and certain, soft, and I freeze on the spot, my mind going blank.
She is risking her life. For a kiss.
Chapter Seventeen
Esme
I can’t believe I’m kissing him, but here I am, on the kitchen floor, my mouth on his, and I can’t get enough of his taste, his heat, the hard press of his body against mine. He’s still on his knees, I am too, and I climb onto his lap, because I don’t want to stop.
My first kiss. My parents made sure I’d be a virgin through and through when they sold me off for political gain, so they’d minimized my contact with boys and men, aside from the ones they pushed on me during balls and events. But I never wanted to kiss those.
I don’t regret it now. I’m glad Osric is my first kiss. I want him to be my first… everything.
His mouth is overwhelming. His taste, the strange edge of him, all of it goes to my head like strong liquor. It seems impossible that a kiss can do this much. I fall into him and wrap my arms and legs around him. He catches me and holds my weight without effort. The hard, perfect shell covering his chest makes me want more.
We kiss for a long time, messy and hungry, and not elegant at all. I’m nothing like the young lady I was raised to be.
