Chapter 14

CHAPTER 14

That night, while Reid and Kosana were engaged with one of Dominik’s men discussing lodging for their carts and unit, Vaasa slipped into a first-floor room in the High Temple of Mireh. Knives strapped to her thigh, she tried not to be afraid.

Standing next to the large, purple-curtained window was Ozik, his cloak thrown over a distant chair, the lapels of his jacket neatly pressed. His elbow rested upon a stone banister jutting from the wall. At her entrance, he smiled and crossed one ankle over the other.

To his right, on a blue velvet chair with his long legs crossed, sat Dominik.

“Sister,” Dominik said in smooth Asteryan, not deigning to rise but rather gesturing to the sibling blue chair placed across from him. Upon his middle finger was that ring, pointing for him. “Please, sit.”

A very real part of her lifted at letting her Asteryan out to play again. Like her tongue stretched and sighed, she said, “Brother, Ozik,” as she sat down.

“How are you settling into Mireh?” Dominik asked, eyes carefully gauging her response.

If she wanted to keep them all safe, it was imperative Dominik believe her slighted. A little unhinged. Out of control and unwilling to admit it. So she let the magic on her fingertips dance along the arm of the chair—random swipes of mist that to someone who hadn’t spent every day with Amalie would look like a lack of control. “Are you asking if I enjoy being married against my will to a brute from Icruria?” She tilted her head and inspected him just as thoroughly. “Or if I am still on the verge of death?”

For a few moments, silence coursed between them. Would he buy her little tantrum? She’d already decided her best plan of attack was to make him think she was far closer to death than she really was. The best lies were rooted in truth, and as Ozik had already said, she could be anything in a room that she needed to be.

The advisor spoke from the window, gold eyes narrowed upon the black mist. The more she looked at him, the more she noticed his age. It had only been a few months, but he seemed to have lost years to Dominik. “So, you did master the magic?”

She summoned more of the power, but also dug her nails into the blue velvet like it caused her pain.

Golden eyes caught the movement. “How does it feel?”

“To have unknowingly inherited the very thing that killed my mother?”

“Perhaps you will control it better than she did,” Ozik said, a bit of sadness dripping from his voice. Vaasa didn’t believe it was genuine.

With each simmering word, the magic slithered along the chair a little further from Vaasa’s control. Or so it seemed. Stubbornly, she held the advisor’s eyes with all the unleashed fury she possessed. How long had he known of her mother’s magic? His sheer comfort with it contrasted with Dominik’s apparent disgust. While her brother wrinkled his nose, Ozik examined her with wonder.

“I didn’t think you would be comfortable settling for this heat,” Dominik said, revulsion thick in his tone as he eyed the places the magic touched.

Vaasa snapped her head to him. “And yet you sent me here anyway.”

The black stone of his ring glared at her as Dominik lifted his wine goblet to his lips and drank. Setting it down, he shrugged his left shoulder. “You seem to have made him your bitch as quickly as I expected.”

To speak that way about Reid… “I am Asteryan. These Icrurian men don’t scare me.”

“Hmmm.” Dominik considered for a moment. “It seems even the hiccup on the night of your wedding could not discourage him from you. Did you enjoy Dihrah?”

The magic in Vaasa’s gut roared a warning, snake coiling and hissing. His spies shouldn’t have been able to reach this far—how did he know about her time at the sodality?

Raising his hand, he waved it casually. “There are no happenings on this continent I am not aware of. Not to worry, it has worked in your favor. Reid of Mireh is enthralled with you. It seems these Icrurian men enjoy a challenge.”

Crossing her own legs and leaning back in her chair, she said, “That little hiccup is the reason I am alive.”

Lies.

“It was always up to you whether you lived or died. It seems you wanted to live,” Dominik said. The confidence in his eyes made her think he didn’t believe a word that came out of his own mouth.

“What I wanted was to not be married.”

Something wicked pierced his gaze. “You can blame Mother for that.”

Was that… resentment?

Just as quickly as it was there, Dominik’s fury folded neatly back into control. “The only reason you would stay here is because he offered you something to make it worthwhile. So, sister, what did he promise you?”

Dominik hadn’t come here to pretend, then. She shook off what she’d just seen in his eyes. She could deny his assumptions about her, assumptions that were entirely true. That was why she’d come back to Mireh. And it was working in her favor, so what was the use? “A legal divorce,” Vaasa confessed after a moment. “And the arrangement to start somewhere new.”

Brows rising, Dominik ran his tongue along his teeth. “In how long?”

“Three years, give or take.”

“You can stand being in his bed for three years?”

Vaasa said, “He’s giving.”

“Has he won you over with his giving tendencies?”

“Do you believe a little curve to the left is all it takes to domesticate me?” she snapped, letting the magic circle her neck like it thought to choke her. As if she was scared of it, she visibly tried to dismiss the mist.

But she did not let it disappear entirely.

Dominik leaned back in his chair again, eyes glittering with amusement at her outburst. At her apparent lack of control. He took another sip from the goblet upon the wooden table next to him.

“Do you believe he will be elected?” Ozik asked, pushing a strand of his snow-white hair from his face.

Turning to face the advisor, she said, “Only if he can make them believe my presence is an advantage rather than a threat.”

“But you don’t want that?” Dominik asked. “You’d rather have this new life than be their high consort?”

“High consort of what? A nation with no water or influence?”

“Oh, it can’t be that terrible.”

“You weren’t exiled here.”

“Exiled!” Dominik laughed. “I gave you a nation; it is certainly not my fault you haven’t chosen to claim it.”

“With what forces, Dominik? I can fuck Reid of Mireh all I want, but that won’t give me an army.”

Dominik paused, looking to Ozik.

“If you’re going to say it, Ozik, do so out loud,” she growled.

Ozik chuckled by the window, toasting them both as if he found their sibling spats to be humorous. Yet when he looked upon her, it was with a slice of pity. “Your sister believes she was sold to Reid of Mireh and sent here to die, and therefore her allegiances do not lie with you. He is proposing her freedom, Dominik, and unless you can beat that offer, she is not likely to bargain with you.”

The goblet froze at Dominik’s lips. “Freedom?”

“Yes, freedom,” Vaasa confirmed.

“And if I offered you a life back in Asterya?” He said it with a casual neutrality that dragged nails down her spine. “An ambassadorship to any of the nations you studied so intently, and all the rights and privileges that came with it?”

At one time, that had been a dream of hers. Dominik knew the impact of those words—knew she would leap at such an opportunity.

“So you can kill me later?” she asked outright.

Dominik paused before drinking, lowering his glass to his knee. “I don’t have to kill you if Reid of Mireh is dead.”

Hatred sewed into the caverns of her chest, but she curled her lips like a starved animal smelling blood. Like her foot was caught in a trap and she was moments from chewing it off with her own teeth.

Dominik ate up her desperation. “I’m not foolish enough to underestimate what you can give me, sister. Mother may have wasted you on this foolish marriage, but I won’t be making either of our parents’ mistakes.”

There it was again, that veiled resentment she’d never known existed in him. “That sounds a lot like freedom,” she deigned to say.

“Is it better than what he’s giving you?”

She stopped speaking for a moment, lips pursed, pretending to contemplate. “If I swear to never marry again, you’ll let me live?”

He nodded. “There would be no reason to kill you.”

Vaasa let herself flinch at the words, as if she were still scared.

Dominik seemed to revel in that. “Icruria will fall, and these people will bow to me. So if Reid of Mireh won’t give you an army, perhaps I can.”

Her magic bubbled in warning, her gut telling her not to trust a word that came out of Dominik’s mouth. But she uncrossed her legs and leaned forward anyway. “I’m listening.”

Like a predator gazing upon injured prey, Dominik’s eyes glimmered with power and ambition. It must have been all he saw—he was drunk with it. “Get that husband of yours elected. Give my men half a year to establish what looks like peaceful trade along the route to the fang, and our commanders will take care of this new capital with your insight. Within the year, you will have your freedom and I will have Icruria.”

Dominik’s plan wouldn’t work. The Icrurian forces were loyal to their nation based on principle, where the Asteryan forces were motivated by money alone. Hazut and Wrultho were already insurmountable to him without another angle, and the Icrurians would fight longer and harder than even Dominik’s purse could maintain. Even if they did bring the capital closer to Asterya by Reid winning the election, Dominik would still have more military force to contend with than he understood.

The far smarter strategy would be to stay truthful to his first few bargains—to set up the trading post and wait a few years, so at least one or two of the territories were economically dependent on its existence. By then, at least a fraction of the population would consider war with Asterya to be foolish. Then he would have all the leverage in the world; to take their salt, steal their ships, and use their own reserves of steel against them in a swift and brutal attack.

But Dominik was greedy and brash, and by the whispers of resentment she’d seen, he had something to prove.

“One year?” Vaasa confirmed. “And I live?”

“One year and you live.”

She looked to Ozik, raising a brow. The advisor nodded. She thought it odd that he’d advise such a brazen move, but by the look of the expensive fabrics draped over his shoulders, Vaasa wondered if Ozik cared for this particular endeavor at all.

“I will be in contact with you directly. If you have so much influence over your husband, be sure he does not translate the letters from your dear brother,” Dominik instructed.

Vaasa snorted. “Is that all?”

“That is all. For now.” Pouring her a goblet of wine from the tray between them, he passed it to her and lifted his own. “A toast, to family.”

Cool metal fell into her fingertips and she raised it to her lips, sniffing carefully.

Like honey and wine, though with a tiny twinge of an acidic note.

So subtle, she may have never smelled it.

Her heart thudded against her ribs.

She paused.

Put the goblet down.

Leaning forward in his chair, Dominik gripped his own wine tighter, malice swimming in the ocean of his eyes. “I know you will do as our father raised you to, so I may do as he raised me to.”

A threat, not at all veiled in subtlety, and an insult all wrapped into one. “Poison?” she dared to ask.

“Just seeing if you’re still on your toes, sister.”

Hatred, cold and glowing, grew bright within her. She hated them both—and in that moment, she hated Asterya, too. “Dancing on them.”

“Good.” Dominik tilted his head. “Because as it stands, there is no one better situated to bring about the fall of a nation than you. And no one with so much to lose.”

He’d played the battle as their father had raised them, in true Asteryan fashion. By preying upon the things she wanted more than anything, he had done exactly as he’d been taught.

It was sickening.

Dominik smiled.

Running her tongue over her teeth, she nodded in understanding.

Sauntering out the door without a look over her shoulder, Vaasa waited until she was well down the hallway before she smiled to herself.

He had misjudged her loyalties, believing them to belong only to herself. Perhaps a few months ago, she would have taken his offer. A few months ago, she didn’t have anything but her Asteryan name.

She’d since dropped that name and traded it for something new.

He still believed this city useless. Defenseless. Easy to conquer.

He did not know of their ships or their armies or their magic.

But he was right about one thing: there was no one better situated to bring about the fall of a nation than her.

Which, at the very least, bought her a semblance of time.

The moment she got to their room, Vaasa turned and faced Reid. “I was right. The trade route is only a way to clear the path to Mireh.”

Reid went rigid, then seemed to force himself to relax. Leaning against the door, he asked, “What did he offer you?”

“A year and then an ambassadorship to any nation of my choosing.”

This time he froze, all traces of comfort draining from his features.

“What?” Vaasa asked.

“That’s a better offer.”

Her brows knitted together. “Excuse me?”

“One year, and you could have more than what I offered to give you in three.”

“Reid.” She paused, took a small breath, and then turned to escape deeper into the bedroom; her footsteps echoed with the sounds of her pounding heart. “You are making the same mistake he did.”

Silence.

When Vaasa finally turned, Reid was still leaning back against the door watching her. Insecurity threaded between them, and she wondered for a moment if that was fear she saw laced in his eyes.

“And what is that?”

His voice curled down her spine something fierce and jostled the already ill-tempered magic. It paced like a jungle cat again. It was too intense, the way he looked at her.

She slid behind the dressing screen. Took a long, deep breath.

Vaasa’s jaw set as she looked down at her clenched fists—at the little stirring of mist there.

Footsteps padded along the floor and she froze. Reid didn’t cross the threshold of the screen. Instead, he stood directly in front of it and out of her view. “You’re hidden now. Talk to me.”

The moment she saw Dominik dismount his horse, she knew she’d been a fool. How Reid had guarded her only confirmed what she should have realized the moment he found her in that library.

He was her best chance at survival. He always had been.

Hidden from anyone’s view, truth seemed to slither along her tongue. She’d told Amalie, hadn’t she? But knowing Reid could read her so easily, knowing that she needed him, lit up her nerves. She took the opportunity to untie the knot of fabric at her waist, ignoring his shadow on the screen’s fabric. Stepping out and brushing the hair away from her neck, she looked over her shoulder and met his gaze.

With a flick of his eyes downward, he moved to the spot behind her and began unlacing the impractical bodice of her formal wear. They were entirely silent as he undid the last string.

She stepped behind the dressing screen and let the fabric fall to the floor. Next came the pants.

His shadow started to move.

Spine straightening, her breath hitched.

A drawer opened. Closed. Steps echoed on the hard stone. In a moment, his shadow returned, and soft gray fabric draped over the top of the screen.

It was another one of his shirts. He’d begun switching them out and laundering them himself, never once mentioning the routine. She should have gotten her own night clothing by now, but she hadn’t, and… damn him. “Thank you,” she said as she pulled his shirt over her torso and wiggled out of the constricting panties he’d never find out she wasn’t wearing.

As she stepped out from the screen prepared to speak, he ducked through the curtains into the bathroom. What compelled her, she didn’t know, but she followed. Leaning against the doorframe, she watched as he dragged his drapes up and over his arms. Her eyes scanned the plane of his chest, down the depiction of armor inked upon his shoulder. Dropping his hands to the buttons of his pants, he raised a brow. “You here for a show, Wild One?”

Her eyes snapped up. “I didn’t think we’d finished our conversation.”

“We haven’t. I was just letting you decide when you’re ready.”

“I’m ready.”

He spun his finger in a circle, a wicked, mocking grin stealing each of his features.

“Oh, now you care for modesty?” she asked.

“Two can play at this game.”

With a heavy roll of her eyes, she turned around and stared out at the bedroom, her hip leaned against the doorframe. Faintly, she heard him balancing and changing out of his pants.

Something in her wanted to turn around, and she didn’t know what that instinct was or where it came from. With a full breath, she pushed the thought away. This, she could do. The harmless flirtation was just how they got along.

“I think we should speak with Wrultho anyway,” he finally said. “Persuade them to at least attempt a peace.”

A plan like that was idealistic and foolish. “I think we should persuade them to move their army farther east and prepare to strike,” Vaasa countered.

“That’s awfully violent of you.”

“It’s practical of me.”

“It’s the opposite of peace.”

“They should not leave themselves defenseless,” she argued, staring at the wall in frustration. “Dominik will think his plan is working, and all the while we’ll be building our forces under his nose.”

With the sound of three steps, Reid sauntered up behind her. “I thought you were a courtier, not a war general.”

“Who wouldn’t want both in a wife?”

“A fool.”

She grinned, even though he couldn’t see it.

Suddenly, his body came a little closer, his bare chest hovering behind her back. “Why not take his deal and run?”

She still struggled to find the right words, to confess something that took any power and control directly from her hands. “I don’t want his deal.”

“Why?”

“Because it isn’t real. When his soldiers march in, he will ensure I die in that conflict.”

“And how do you know that?”

Bluntly, she confessed, “He tried to poison me tonight.”

Every muscle Reid had must have frozen; she could feel his rigidity behind her. “He did what ?”

“I smelled it before taking a sip of the wine. It was a threat, a reminder of what he intends to do if I don’t behave.”

There was the smallest of pauses, just a second. Enough for her to feel the charge of his anger.

And then the warmth of his chest against her back disappeared.

“Don’t,” she warned, but Reid didn’t stop moving.

Her newly trained reflexes kicked in and she swept her leg out and caught the lift of his back foot. His steps stuttered just enough for her to leap in front of him. He grabbed at her shirt and she rocked her hip outward, skating just past the pads of his fingers on a spin. And then she threw her back against the door. Both hands grabbed at the handles behind her, and when she caught her balance, he was suddenly there.

The air turned warm as he looked up and down the length of her body. “You know I can move you, right?”

“You won’t.”

His jaw ticked like he contemplated proving her wrong. “This ends in his death. Give me one reason I shouldn’t do it tonight.”

“Because we are smarter than he is, and that would be an act of war. We would lose both countries.”

Reid didn’t uncoil, but he didn’t try to come closer or move around her, either. “What do you mean both countries?”

Menace tingled on her tongue, a twisting anger stealing the parts of her that wanted peace. The parts of her that thought there was some way to avoid Dominik’s ambitions.

But there was no way. For as long as he served on that throne, the world was in peril.

She was in peril.

She didn’t know a thing about trust, but she thought if she had to put a name to it, it was whatever she felt when Reid looked at her just then. It was enough to give her a voice, one that spoke truth. “For years, my father killed off every distant member of our family. Few still survive, only cousins who keep the Kozár name because of the fear it strikes in the men they lead. He was obsessed with it, ensuring there would never be a legal challenge to his throne. Dominik has inherited that obsession, among other things.”

Watching her carefully, Reid waited for her to continue.

Letting out a strong breath, she relaxed against the door. “There has never been a female monarch of Asterya, only male, regardless of bloodline. Generations ago, a man won his throne by marrying a Kozár daughter because she was the only sibling left. And while my father has changed every border and grown a kingdom into an empire, that is still, legally, how it works in Asterya.”

“I don’t understand,” he said.

“A Kozár daughter cannot claim the throne alone. She must be married. She must be the only option left.”

Shifting his weight in front of her, his large shoulders almost brushed hers. “You have claim to the Asteryan throne?”

“No, Reid. You do.”

Confusion came first in the furrow of his brow, then understanding tumbled across his widening eyes. “What?”

“If Dominik dies, any husband of mine can take it.”

“Then why did he make this arrangement? Why would he ever allow you to get married?”

“Because he didn’t make this arrangement, he was only forced to live with it. My guess is that the lords who fund his border disputes and land expansions wanted your salt badly enough that he would have lost more by severing the agreement. He expected this magic to kill me.”

“But it didn’t.”

“So now he will.”

Reid’s fingers curled into her shirt, low on her hip, and he stepped forward into her space. “Then let me make you an empress. Tonight.”

Nervous heat rushed over her. She’d considered this already, but to do so would be detrimental to Reid’s ambitions. “And explain to the voting councilors how you murdered the Asteryan emperor? I thought you wanted to win the election, not throw it away.”

“Surely you don’t believe he is the only one who can make death look like an accident.”

“No, but if I know you like I think I know you, you’d look him in the eye as you killed him.”

Reid’s hand remained on her hip as he gritted his teeth. But he couldn’t argue that point. He knew it. “Why am I only hearing of this now?”

“Because in three years, neither of us will have a claim to the throne.” Her hands tightened on the golden door handles digging into her back. Would he believe her, or would he think she was only playing a game with him? “I told you the truth: I don’t want it. So it didn’t matter until Dominik waltzed in here and threatened Icruria. It isn’t his to take.”

“And now it matters?”

“Now it matters.”

“You sound awfully defensive of Icruria.”

“Should I not be?”

“Oh, you should. I just didn’t realize how much I would enjoy watching you defend what is mine.”

Charged silence coursed between them, and she forced her eyes away.

Reid paused for a moment, still not asking her to look at him, and not as angry as she suspected he may be. Slowly, the hand at her hip stroked her side as he considered what he wanted to say. As he, too, calmed himself. “Did you think I would force you to stay? That I would see the potential for an empire and renege on our deal?”

Her body went taut at that question. “Yes, I feared that at first.”

“And now?”

Her eyes closed so she couldn’t see his face, couldn’t see the reaction to her words paint across it. “Now I think you are more worthy of the Asteryan throne than anyone else I have ever met. And if you want it, I will give it to you.”

All sense of his breath seemed to stop. The hand upon her side stopped, too, and something about that absence of movement made her open her eyes.

He wanted her to look at him. “What are you suggesting?”

“I’ve already told you.”

“You subtly hinted. Tell me with authority, Vaasa.”

“Why?” she asked. “Why must you insist on making an event out of this?”

“Because I have learned not to make assumptions when it comes to you. Tell me exactly what you want, so I can stop guessing and just give it to you.”

Letting out a frustrated sigh, she tipped her head back against the door. “My father consolidated power in his empire. I’m suggesting you disperse it once more. Put in place local foremen who will be honest and loyal to you as their headman, and whoever serves after you.”

“You wish?”

Swallowing, she dove headfirst into her treason. “Yes.”

“That—” He stopped. Faintly, she felt him shift his weight; it was in the way his fingers subtly rocked. “That land would change everything. Those resources.”

“You’ll solve a drought and prevent a war, all in one fell swoop.”

“Where does that leave you?”

An answer glowed on the edges of her mind, distant like a horizon but visible nonetheless. “Free.”

His body relaxed in front of hers. “That was the mistake Dominik made, assuming your mind hadn’t changed about Mireh. About Icruria. About me.”

“He asked if I could stand being in your bed for three years.”

Reid grunted. “Now that’s just insulting.”

A small laugh slipped out of her.

Still not moving away like he should have, like she should have insisted he do, Reid tilted his head. For a moment, she wondered if he would speak at all or if he would ask some unanswerable, foolish question.

And then his accent floated between them, doing just that. “Why would you help me take everything your father built?”

He always found a way to pry straight to the root of things.

For some reason, she felt she owed him this truth, too. The one he had asked for weeks ago. She wanted him to understand. “Years ago, there was a man. His name was Roman. I loved him, and Dominik had him killed.”

Reid froze, his fingers curling into her shirt. “Vaasa—”

“Don’t. It’s long over. The point is this; I hold no loyalty to Dominik. If you believe one thing about me, let it be that.”

He loomed in front of her, close enough to give the unmistakable air of intimacy. Of the protection of her words, her secrets, because they were the only two in the world who could hear. “I believe you.”

His words settled into a crevice of her chest that she didn’t want to admit often felt empty. One that had started to feel so much fuller since coming here, in ways she didn’t understand. “He’ll be sending letters. I’m under strict instructions not to let you read them.”

Reid only smirked. “I believe we can find a way around that rule.”

Something about the way he said it caused the knots in her stomach to tighten. The skin beneath his fingers to rise. His words from the first night she’d followed him into the bathing chamber rolled through her mind.

It wouldn’t technically be breaking our agreement if I took you in here.

She subtly squeezed her thighs together. That was somewhere she would never go, so she began to move, to create space so she could think properly.

But his arm shot out and blocked her path, his hand on her hip gathering in the fabric of her shirt to hold her there. “Sleep in the bed tonight.”

Her breath caught.

Looking from his arm to his pleading gaze, she said, “If you get too close to me, Dominik will kill you, and he will make me watch.”

“I am not afraid of your brother.”

“You should be.”

He shook his head. “I’m not asking you to love me. I’m asking you to sleep.”

Refusing to drop her gaze, she said, “What if I like the couch?”

“You don’t like the couch.”

He was right, and her heart started to pound harder. “I don’t like the couch.”

Both corners of his mouth turned up and he dipped his voice to a whisper. “And if I say there are monsters under the bed and I am desperately afraid of the dark?”

Her lips threatened a smile. “It doesn’t seem you’re afraid of anything.”

“I have fears, Wild One. You just don’t know them yet.”

She fought herself relentlessly, and yet with a flick of her eyes to the warm fur blankets of the bed, her resolve crumbled. They were walking a thin line.

It was only sleeping.

“All right,” she conceded, wanting to be angry with herself and yet finding nothing but a contentedness in her belly. For once, her magic was silent. “But only because of the monsters.”

He released the grip he held on her shirt, but his fingers crawled to the small of her back as he nodded slowly. “Only because of the monsters.”

Desire formed deep in her abdomen. She didn’t think she’d ever allowed someone to remain this close, not in years, if ever. The right thing to do would be to pull away.

Neither of them moved.

After a moment, Reid chuckled. Releasing her slowly, he dragged his touch down her arm again and curled his fingers inside of hers, leading her to the main room and gesturing toward the bed.

Months ago, she would have strangled him before obliging.

This time, she crawled beneath the sheets and pulled them up to her chin, letting their softness and warmth swallow her. As she blew out the lantern on his bedside table, darkness bathed the room. He slid into the spot next to her, his large body emanating warmth even as he kept a terrible, respectful distance.

Just as he had promised.

She tried to slow the beating of her heart.

“Why do I get the feeling you preferred us up against the door?” he whispered into the space between them.

With reckless abandon, she said, “Because I did.”

The bed dipped once more as he turned, his body sprawled in front of her, their breath mingling. His touch returned to her hip. “Was it the proximity, or was it my hands?”

Looking up at his far-too-confident grin, she placed her own hands against his bare chest and curled her fingers just slightly against his skin. Leaning a little closer so their foreheads touched, she whispered, “I’m not going to answer that.”

And then spun so her back was to him.

Pride washed over her at besting him, but then her breath stuttered as Reid slid his arms under and over her, dragging her waist against the crook of his body. As she froze there, she couldn’t breathe, not as he started doing those damn circles on her abdomen that he’d done that first night in the Lower Garden.

He rumbled with a little bit of laughter. “Then I’ll do both, and you can tell me when you’re ready what you prefer.”

No witty remark came to her, no clever rebuttal. In every language, she was out of answers. Even with his hand firmly above the shirt, with each pass that almost touched the sensitive lower curve of her breasts, her breathing became less even. The line between her instinct and her mind was muddled.

This was dangerous, but her body roared to push further.

Her back arched just a small bit and she told herself it was an accident, that she was merely adjusting her position. But when she brushed up against him, he went rigid.

“Sleep, Wild One,” he breathed into her ear. “Or I won’t let you.”

It was an invitation. She knew it was.

She shouldn’t do this.

She forced her eyes closed, the undercurrent of his words doing unfathomable things to the muscles in her stomach, and tried to center herself. Tried to control the foolish instinct she felt to ask him to make good on that promise.

She would never forgive herself if she messed this all up. If she started something she couldn’t finish and ended up without a home or a dream again.

She would never give someone the power to leave her desperate.

So she evened her breathing and turned her magic to water, drifting to sleep with the rhythm of his hands.