He’s right, but I don’t have to like it. I shake my head. “No,” I say again. “Not until I know Sophia is safe.”
“You would die for her,” he says. His eyes appraise something in me.
I don’t think he expected me to refuse him after the ceremony, and I don’t think he knows what to do now that I have. If I were a male, this would already be over. I saw that in the jungle on the way here. Blood or submission. Nothing else. I’m certain he would have killed me for outright refusing.
I don’t back down. I’m not weak inside. The Stone learned, and now Rythar is catching up.
“You refuse my order,” Rythar says.
“Sophia is my friend. I am not leaving her.”
He steps toward me carefully, catlike.
I think,Maybe I’ve finally gotten through to him. Maybe he’s finally going to help me.
I’m wrong.
I don’t have time to flinch before his hand locks around my waist and the floor drops away. The ground blurs. It’s not the gentle, bridal style carry he used in the jungle. My breath punches out of me as he hauls me up and over his shoulder in one clean motion, my stomach landing against his shoulder, my fists against his back.
I twist and struggle, furious, fists pounding uselessly against iron muscle. As I grab for anything—armor, straps—my fingers catch in his hair. I yank hard.
His muscles stiffen, and for one frozen heartbeat, I’m sure this is where he snaps.
I’m dead.
But he makes an efficient adjustment, shifting me lower on his shoulder, dragging my hips down until my weight is pinned and my arms can’t reach.
The crowd murmurs. A low, satisfied sound rolls through the males. It’s the sound of soldiers as order settles back into place.
Rythar doesn’t say a word as I flail uselessly. He carries me through the atrium, down the stairs, through a hall full of gold and green and the spiced scent of the Reach. It’s a spice I’ve had, but can’t name.
The swaying is dizzying. My world is reduced to heat, motion, and the relentless certainty that he is taking me wherever he wants, and I havereallypissed him off.
I pound his back once more with my fists. It does nothing.
The outside world vanishes behind us, and with it goes the last illusion that this was ever negotiable.
CHAPTER 12
FEAR, FURY, HEAT, MINE
RYTHAR – RYTHAR’S FORTRESS IN THE GREEN REACH
My fortress wallswere built for war. Twisted up long ago from the roots of stone, and armored in the raw Green Reach jungle that bends to my will. Every door knows my presence. Yet for the first time in all my life, there is someone here who does not obey—the human female I carry over my shoulder. Mybride.
Her fists batter my back. Her strikes are soft, but I feel the outrage in every wild, animal thump. I have seen her kind only in the old records. Never in my arms. Never as mine.
Never with the smell of her fear blooming in the heat of her skin.
She is afraid.Why?She has seen me control the jungle. Seen me kill. I killedfor her, there is no one more powerful than I in all of Xytheos, and she is still terrified. It’s senseless.
She howls her protest down the main corridor, sounds half in her language, half wordless shrieks of feminine anger. The guards hear it and drop their gaze, bowing their heads. They defer to my dominance. I thought dominance would calm this female. It has not. I believed fury could spur mating. I am no longer certain of anything where she is concerned. Her mate bond already dimmed. Mine only amplified. Inside me, it roarswith hunger. This is as close to losing control as I’ve ever allowed myself. This is not who I am.
How long until her desire for pleasure outweighs her fear? No female has ever refused me. Never wanted to refuse me. And I brought them great pleasure, long ago.
But they weren’t human. Elena is different.
The passage to the Mating Chamber opens to my left. Elena is wriggling now, fury rekindled by the new corridor, kicking so hard her foot nearly catches my ear. It makes me want to laugh. Almost. But I don’t. Her resistance rubs against me relentlessly. It makes control over my urges harder, not easier. She is soft, brown-eyed, fierce in her stubbornness, and more alive than anyone I have ever held.
