Lord of Rage & Primal Instincts (13 page)

“How do you want to do this?” he asked.

Her lips turned up in a grin. “Not a lot of space for you,” she said, eyeing the broadness of his shoulders and the length of his legs. When she looked at him like he was the strongest, most powerful man in the world who could best anything, he wanted to be exactly that for her.

“I like it when you stretch against my back,” she told him.

And cupped her breast. And fit his cock against her curves. He liked it, too. A lot. And it was starting to show. The bed creaked under his weight as he settled in beside her. Osborn wanted to bury his face in her hair. Lose the nightclothes that separated her skin from his. He settled for draping his arm over the rounded curve of her hip.

He closed his eyes. Forced his muscles to relax. Imagined smelling rotten food to chase away the erotic scent of her. Anything so that he could doze.

“I can’t sleep,” she whispered to him after a few moments of silence.

“Nor can I.”

“Talk to me. Tell me a story.”

She wiggled against him, and he quietly groaned. Every one of her soft curves cupped his body. Osborn concentrated on her request, but could come up with nothing. “I don’t know the kind of stories you do. No fairies. No wolves hiding in the woods with their eye on a girl in a red cloak.”

“Then tell me something real. From when you were a little boy,” she suggested.

Osborn tried not to think of those times. Warriors didn’t feel sad. They pushed those emotions to the side. Obliterated them. “There’s nothing to tell.”

“What about a grand party? Tell me about one of those times when you wore fancy clothes and musicians played.”

He breathed in the scent of her hair again, and tried to remember. His people preferred a simpler way of life. Little politics, few dignitaries and lords. They were all just Ursan. They prepared for battles, for when their allies called. Few dared to go to war directly with the Ursans. At night they built large fires. Their entire village would talk and sing along with the drums. A smile played about his lips. He’d forgotten about those nights when the elders pointed to the skies and taught how to use the stars for navigation. He’d forgotten about the songs. Osborn should carve a drum and teach his brothers some of the old Ursan songs. Maybe one day his brothers would marry and teach those songs to their daughters and sons, and hope flooded his chest.

For the first time, guilt and pain didn’t rush right behind the memories.

“No banquets,” he told her, “just families around the campfire.”

“Not even marriage feasts? At home we took every
opportunity to host a celebration. My father told us the work in the fields and in the trades could be rough and sometimes bleak. It was our responsibility to provide as much joy and brightness as we could to our people.”

“He sounds very wise.”

Breena nodded. “He was,” she said, her voice quiet and low.

“We didn’t celebrate marriages openly,” he told her, trying to pull her away from thoughts of her dead father…until she forced herself to dream of him tonight.

“You didn’t?” Shock and a trace of scandal laced her voice, and Osborn couldn’t help smiling again.

“When a man wished for a woman, he’d ask her to seal her life with his. On a full moon, they’d go, just the two of them, into the woods that surrounded our village. There, with only the stars to see, they’d share the vows they’d written for each other.”

“That sounds beautiful. And meaningful.”

The yearning in her voice made his gut ache. “That’s not the kind of marriage you would have?” he asked, needing to remind himself she was for someone else.

“No,” she said on a heavy sigh. “My marriage will be of alliance. It will be an honor to serve my people that way.”

“And just how many times have you been told that?”

Breena’s muscles relaxed against him. “A lot,” she confessed. “In fact, my father was to do the choosing the weekend of the attack.”

“Do you think that had something to do with it? An angry suitor?”

“More like a disappointed negotiator. I’ve never even met any of the potential husbands. Less for them to object to that way.”

“And what could they possibly have to complain
about with you?” He was incredulous at the thought. Breena was perfect. Perfect for hi—

She only laughed. “I seem to remember you complaining a lot about me. The danger I brought. The added expense.”

“My socks are nice.”

Breena laughed again, the sound of it thrilling, like he wanted to make her laugh again and again. Forever.

“Stick to fighting, Ursan. That kind of compliment will never suit you at court.”

Another warning. He’d never belong in her world.

After a few minutes, Breena’s breathing deepened, and he knew she’d soon be entering her dream. And then his.

B
REENA WAITED BEFORE
the two doors.

The plain door stood in front of her, no longer forbidden. It was even slightly ajar. For a moment she was tempted. Only pleasure awaited her on the other side.

Reluctantly she tore her gaze away and over to the ornate frame. With its jewels and promises of wealth, this would be the door most often chosen. But she knew what awaited her once she crossed the threshold. Death and destruction.

She made herself reach for the handle, turn and walk through.

This dream didn’t have the usual haze, every deathly image and sound and smell was clear and stark. The zipping wisp of a razor blade caught her attention. Made her shake. She remembered. The hideous spiderlike creature that only blood magic could create. Breena swallowed back the nausea, forced herself to relearn every detail her mind had earlier wanted to reject. She looked to the stairs and saw herself there, as she was, the night of the attack. She was dressed in the beautiful gown she’d woken up wearing in Ursa. It was perfect, no longer ripped and shredded. The Breena on the stairs tried to be brave and show no fear, but each new terror, all the horror she saw before her, left its scar.

Then she saw him. A sight so frightening, so grotesque, she was almost pulled out of her dream. The
Blood Sorcerer. The man responsible for it all. He was speaking to her parents, taunting them. They lay near death, their blood fueling his strength. She saw them touch hands, and she knew before she felt the zap of energy that they’d sent her away. With their combined magic, they’d planted the commands that rang in her mind more like a curse: survive and avenge. The force of her father’s will and the power of her mother’s magic overcame the Breena on the floor and she disappeared.

And Breena was now in Osborn’s dreams.

He was waiting for her, his features no longer obscured by the dreamhaze. His firm lips, long brown hair and dark eyes familiar. She ran to him, and he caught her in his strong arms, spinning her in the air, and then allowing her to slide down the firmness of his body. She had to touch him now. Wanted to chase away the dream from behind the other door in her mind…just for a few moments.

Before, Osborn had been the aggressor. But she wasn’t the same Breena that had crept into his dreams in the past. She slid her fingers into the hair at the back of his neck and pulled his lips to hers. Breena parted her lips and sank her tongue into his mouth.

Osborn groaned, holding her tight against him, meeting her forceful kiss with a growing need of his own.

“It’s been so long since we’ve been like this,” she said against his mouth.

“Too long,” he echoed.

“Your choice.”

“I’m an idiot,” he said, and lowered his lips to hers once more. The kiss they shared was raw and passionate and filled with everything they’d denied themselves away from this dreamworld.

Breena tugged the shirt from his pants and slid her
hands to his bare flesh. He sucked in a breath when her fingers trailed over his stomach. Her hands grew restless, caressing and seeking every part of him. When her palm cupped his cock, he went completely still.

“Does that feel good?” she asked.

He could only nod.

“I want to make you feel amazing. The way you made me feel by the lake,” she told him as she reached for the drawstring of his pants.

Osborn stilled her hands. “No, I want to pleasure you.”

“Let me,” she urged. “I need this. I need to give right now.” His pants loosened and she pushed them down the strength of his legs, the hair of his thighs tickling her palms. His erection sprang forward and she reached for him. He shuddered when she wrapped her fingers around his shaft. She circled the head of him with her thumb.

“Does that feel good?” she asked, loving that she already knew.

“Yes.” His voice was a tight groan, and Breena felt the same kind of thrilling power that only a surge of her magic could give her.

“But it will feel better with my mouth.”

His eyes flew open. The ache and the yearning for what she could do to his body was stamped on his every feature.

With a gentle push, she sent his back against a tree trunk in their dream clearing, then she sank to her knees in front of him. “Tell me if I’m doing this wrong.”

“You won’t.”

She smiled against the soft skin of his shaft. Kissed the tip. His legs trembled for a moment, and then he locked his knees.

Breena’s hand shifted when he moved, and he grew harder between her fingers. She glided her hand up and down his rod, then found a steady rhythm, bringing the tip of him back into her mouth.

She circled him with her tongue the way he’d circled her. His harsh breath told her that no, she wasn’t doing this wrong.

Breena had never seen a man so powerful, so strong, as her warrior, but he was like melted wax before her. It was exhilarating. She worked her mouth faster, and Osborn threaded his fingers through her hair, pushing himself deeper past her lips. “Breena…”

His voice was like a strangled cry, and she quickened her pace. “Breena, you’ve got to—”

She awoke suddenly in her new bed.

Osborn sat on the edge of the mattress, his feet on the floor. He cradled his head in his hands, his breaths rough and uneven.

She brushed his shoulder. “Osborn?”

He flinched from her touch. Shot up from the bed like she’d zapped him with her anger-charged energy.

“Did I do something wrong?”

He shook his head, but he still wouldn’t glance her way. Bracing his hands along the trim wood of the door, Osborn kept his back to her. “We can’t do that again.” Then he pried open the door and left her alone.

Breena pulled the covers tight under her neck and crawled into a ball. Sleep took a long time to overcome her, but when it did her dreams bordered on nightmare.

L
ATER THAT MORNING
she found Bernt and Osborn building a new bed. “Are we going to practice?” she asked.

“Tomorrow,” Osborn grunted at her, not bothering to look up.

Bernt flashed her a look that said something like “Save me” and she nodded. The frame they worked on appeared sturdy and solid. Unlike the chair in the kitchen from…just a few days ago? It felt like a lifetime away.

“You do good work,” she told them both.

“After about thirty tries,” Bernt mumbled.

“Shut it,” Osborn shot at his younger brother.

“I’d rather be practicing, too. We’re not meant to be woodworkers.”

“You are now.”

“If you want to take a break, I wouldn’t mind scabbard practice,” she suggested, trying to defuse the situation, although she looked forward to scabbard practice just a little above balance work. Which was none at all.

“Breena, go away,” Osborn said, his teeth gritted.

He’d never spoken so rudely to her before. Prickly, she could tolerate, but not this.

“Bernt, if you’d please excuse us. I’d like to talk with your brother in private.”

Bernt dropped his hammer to the ground as if it were on fire.

“Come back here,” Osborn called after his brother, but Bernt pretended not to hear. Good boy.

“One day you’re going to push them away for good. Bernt and Torben look up to you. They want your approval. Why they still want that from you, who knows? Especially since you’re always such a grouch to them, but they do.”

Osborn’s mood soured more, and his frown deepened.

“Would it hurt you to give them a smile? To say
something more than just orders?” She rounded on this fuming man of hers. “Why are you so angry?”

Osborn stalked toward her, grabbed her hand and pushed it down between his legs. “This is why. Because all I can think of is shoving my cock into your mouth. Driving it into your body. Me on top. You on top. You on all fours like the beasts in the woods.” He dropped her hand. “Don’t be alone with me. Again.”

The warning had returned.

“Be ready to work after lunch,” he tossed at her as his long strides took him into the privacy of the woods.

Breena began to tremble. All those things, every word that she knew Osborn meant to sound as a threat…she desired them, too.

O
SBORN HADN’T BEEN
exaggerating when he’d told her to be prepared to work. Sweat ran down her temples and covered her back. He sparred with her, parrying and thrusting his sword. Expecting her to block his blade.

“You just died right then,” he told her as his stick touched her shoulder. “Again.”

She raised her stick, holding it in the position he’d taught her, but he powered through her defenses, his mock blade at her neck. “You’re dead.”

Breena shoved him away and whacked him across the legs with her stick. Then stopped and held her stick at a point just above his heart. “One plunge and you’d have taken your last breath.”

“True, if you’d awoken from the dead. But it was a good surprise attack. You need more.”

They bouted again and again with Breena losing every battle. “How do you expect to render justice with skills like this?” His voice was almost a taunt. He was trying to make her give up.

“My opponents won’t all be Ursan warriors with a thorn in their side.”

“Oh, it’s way bigger than a thorn,” he told her crudely.

She shoved him away. “Cool off, Osborn. Your temper is your own problem. Stop making this all my fault.”

Osborn dropped his stick. “Practice is over.”

“Good,” she called after him. Wishing she had something more cutting to say at her disposal. Breena wiped a tear from her cheek. Who knew she could cry out of sheer irritation? She marched back to the cabin, grabbed the soap he’d given her, hating the scent as she bathed. Breena quickly dressed, needing to get as far away from the cottage and its inhabitants as fast as she could.

Torben had showed her a path that led to the bushes where they gathered ripe berries. That sounded just as good as any place. Besides the bushes, she discovered several patches of wildflowers, and she reached down to pluck a petal from one, rubbing it between her fingers and releasing the sweet scent.

How long she waited there among the flowers she didn’t know, but she stiffened when she heard the footsteps she now recognized as Osborn’s. He rounded a tree, his hair still wet. Probably from a soaking in the lake. Her cheeks heated at the memory of what they’d last shared at the lake, and she faced the other way.

He crouched beside her, stretching his legs out in front of him. “I’ve never been in a situation such as this,” he told her after several moments of silence.

She expected this was Osborn’s attempt at an apology, and her anger dissipated. Breena had been instructed how to behave on every conceivable social situation. But her mother had definitely missed this one.

Osborn slid something big toward her, and she
glanced his way. It was one of those mysterious packages he’d brought home with him after his trip into the village. “I, uh, got this for you.”

She loved gifts, and as surprising and perfect as Osborn’s first present to her was, Breena couldn’t wait to see what was inside this one. She pulled the end of the twine and smoothed the protective material away to reveal fine green fabric.

“It’s a cloak,” he told her. “The color reminded me of your eyes.”

Her throat tightened. Courtiers had said charming things to her over the years, but Osborn’s compliment was the most perfect. Because she knew it originated from his heart. Tears filled her eyes, and she blinked them back. How could one man send her emotions and the reason for her tears careening from one extreme to another? And so quickly?

Breena spread the cloak around her. The fashions she wore at home in Elden were much more elaborate, with tiny embroidered flowers and crystals and other small gems sewn right into the designs. But this was far more beautiful to her than anything she’d ever worn in the past. “I love it,” she told him.

“There’s a matching gown.”

Breena reached for it, her fingers finding something round and hard instead. She plucked it out of the package to see a golden arm cuff in the shape of a snake. What an unusual adornment for jewelry. She’d never seen such a thing. Was this an Ursan custom?

“It reminded me of your first fight. How you defeated those snakelike scouts, and saved my life.”

Now it made sense. Breena slid the armband into place above her elbow. “I will never take this off,” she vowed to him. Just like her timepiece.

Possession quickly flowed into his brown eyes.

“Thank you,” she told him as she stood. Breena clutched the gown to her chest, twirling around with the fabric. “I will wear this gown the day I return home, Osborn. The day our house is restored, and my brother Nicolai is crowned king of Elden. That’s how much your gift means to me.”

“Elden?” he asked, the color draining from his face. All traces of possession faded from his eyes. His gaze narrowed, and his shoulders tensed. “Did you say Elden?”

Breena nodded slowly. “That’s my home. My father is—” she swallowed “—
was
king.”

Osborn sprang to his feet. Away from her. Something icy inched down her back, and she hugged the gown closer to her chest. Needing protection. Osborn no longer gazed upon her with desire and possession in his eyes, as the man she was growing to love. No, now he looked at her with something close to hate in his eyes.

“It all makes sense now,” he threw at her. His words biting and hard.

“What does?” she asked, marveling at the newest change.

“I should have known when Hagan told me of Elden’s fall so close to your arrival. He’d even mentioned the missing heirs. You. That is why you never told me where you were from. Elden. You knew what your people had done to mine.”

“What are you talking about?”

Osborn made a scoffing sound. “Oh, you might have a problem with your memory, Breena, but not me. I remember everything. Your father chose the time of his attack well. I’ll give him that. The Bärenjagd, when the warriors journeyed to our sacred bear lands. Our vil
lage was defenseless. It’s a time of truce,” he shouted, his voice anguished.

Breena didn’t know what to say, what to do. She sucked in her bottom lip, hoping he’d continue with his story. To release all that anger before she responded to him.