Authors: Inez Kelley
Rough bark scratched into her behind as she pressed down against a sudden ache deep in her hips. Her fingertip left the warmth of his mouth too slowly. Another firm fruit rose and she felt powerless to refuse it. Mimicking him, she flicked her tongue over his skin as the berry entered her mouth. Taric drew a harsh breath. Against her lip, his finger strayed, tracing the fullness along the bottom.
“I like the chilled berries.” She didn’t know she spoke until her voice whispered out. The sound broke whatever haze surrounded them and he dropped his hand. Loss rushed around her like a winter’s breath.
Taric avoided her face and tugged his boots over his wet feet. “I’m glad. I wanted to leave on a pleasant note. I ride for Claverham tomorrow.”
His words chilled her, an icy river on her sun-heated flesh. “Yes, I know. The treaty is vital to ensure the safety of the southland border but I do not trust the Lutas. How many men do you take?”
With a weary sigh, he cupped her elbow and drew her back into the meadow. “A half crew I believe will be enough. It doesn’t seem fitting to ride into peace talks with a full war battalion.”
Myla reviewed the men mentally and nodded her approval. “Yes, it should. I shall be on guard as well.”
“When aren’t you?” he laughed. “Half a crew in full regal dress and a series of long, boring meals, chess games and archery exhibitions when fifteen minutes of frank conversation could accomplish the same. Sometimes it just seems like a waste of energy, doesn’t it?”
“Perhaps, but the civil tone will be aided by the formality. You like the pageantry of the crown, do you not?”
“Most times.” Taric plucked a stray stalk of grass and whirled it idly while they walked. “The rituals are…grounding, familiar. I know what’s expected, what’s been done by a hundred generations before me and my role in the play. Sometimes that’s exactly what I feel like, a performer repeating lines and scenes cast long ago and known by everyone. It’s not me, Taric the man, speaking then, but Prince Taric Batu, Heir Apparent to the Segur throne. He’s the one who wears a diadem and speaks with formal tones and civic duty. I’m just along to swing the sword and clean up the blood.”
“Would you cease to be prince if you had a choice?”
“It’s not a choice I was ever given. No, I like the role enough, have been taught from birth what’s required of me and don’t know any other way. I just wonder what being a prince in a time of quiet is like or will I always be a ruler in wartime?” He flung the blade of grass, now twisted and limp, far into the wind. “But enough war talk. Tell me about you.”
“Me?” Myla halted abruptly and he walked a pace ahead before turning to her. “You know all there is to know of me.”
Tall butter-yellow wildflowers danced in the breeze and he ran a skimming hand over the tops, stirring them further. A bright orange-and-black butterfly flitted about his head and he batted it away with a flick.
The play of colors around him—the shading of a single hue into a million dimensions—captivated her. Somewhere in her breast a fire grew, cast from those same brilliant tones from copper to cream. It warmed her from within like the sunbeams warmed her flesh. Taric was beautiful, golden among the yellow.
One delicate bloom plucked from a willowy stalk appeared before her eyes, held in a hand she longed to feel touch her once more. She took his offering with hesitant fingers.
“I know nothing about you, Myla. Well, I know you’re fierce and stronger than any man. You’re a beautiful woman or a massive cat. Strawberries and blackberries make you close your eyes in pleasure. If needed, you have and will kill to protect me.” His curious eyes searched her face for more. “But tell me about you. Do you dream, Myla? When you’re part of me, do you miss the sunshine? Are you ever apart from me without my knowing? Have you ever thought of me in any other way than a duty?”
Words locked in her throat and choked her. She existed for no reason other than to serve as his guardian. She knew everything about him yet nothing of what made him how he was. They were closer than two beings ever should be and yet separate and alone. Sadness touched her, a butterfly of rainbowed beauty drenched by a sudden rainfall. Steeling her face to hide her emotion, she cocked her head to the side.
“I do not dream within you. I accepted this duty and I stand guard. Sunshine touches your flesh and I know of its warmth through you. I am with you every minute, Taric, even if you do not behold me with your eyes.”
Something close to anger colored his face and he jumped in front of her, his chest brushing her breasts. Vehemence emanated from his body in sheets of blistering heat.
No, not anger, something…close…burning…needing.
“But have you ever thought about me as other than a prize to be protected?”
Myla didn’t have the ability to lie to him but strategic maneuvers could be employed. The wilting flower became a tool of distraction and she twirled it between her fingers. The spinning buttery color quivered with her fraud. “I do not allow those thoughts to linger in my mind.”
A dimple appeared above his jaw and the right side of his lip inched upward. “But you have felt…something for me other than protectiveness?”
Lips parted, she remained silent. For all the strength in her supernatural structure, she couldn’t break from his gaze. She saw herself reflected in pools of burnt umber, reminding her she belonged within him. Then the image was gone as he angled his head. His mouth pressed to hers, the burst of blackberry vivid and potent.
So this is how his kiss feels…like magic.
Without thought, she mimicked his motion, tasting his lips and then allowing her tongue to touch and stroke his. Heat arced between them, a power she didn’t recognize but one that consumed her. He nibbled the lip he’d touched earlier, his fingers straying to her cheek, firm and gentle. A quiver grew from her marrow and spread, wracking her bones, and she trembled in sudden fear.
The pale yellow flower fell to the ground. Taric was her charge, her responsibility. She should not behave in this manner with him. Only the magnetic lure of his touch held her within this realm, halting her escape. He felt so…right. It was so wrong.
Taric shifted and tried to pull her closer, his arm around her waist, but she pushed away from him. “Do not. I should not have allowed that to happen. It can not happen again.”
“Why?”
The question threw her.
Why?
Because… She floundered, searching for why his touch should be forbidden, why she could not submit to the raging beat of her pulse, why she could not bask in the taste of his kiss. He was long past the age of manhood and could choose his own path. If he wanted a woman, he had the right to take her be she willing. Myla reluctantly admitted she was most willing to step into his kiss once more. But she was not a woman. Not really.
“I am not real, Taric. I am an enchantment, a spell designed for your protection, not your pleasure.”
Flushed color drained from his face at her breathless words.
“I bid you farewell, my charge.” She drew on every smidgeon of control not to zing back inside his mark. A tiny breath of lilac vapor swirled regretfully through the yellow blossoms before it too trickled into his body. Sorrow turned the last wisps to dark violet.
a
b
“What crawled up your ass?”
Taric speared Bryton with a scorching glare but the affable man shrugged it off like a silk cloth.
“Come on, Prince Crabby, what’s wrong?”
“Bryton, don’t you have something to do besides be a pain in my ass?”
“Not at the moment, no.” Nudging his horse closer, Bryton dropped his volume. “Tar, don’t worry. We’re all well trained here. The Lutas won’t be able to—”
“I know what my men are capable of.” The venom in his voice burned his throat and Taric firmed his lip in irritation. It wasn’t Bryton or any other of his men he was angry with, it was himself. He reached for a blustery jest to ease his bodyguard. “Look, let it drop. I have enough on my mind without worrying about hurting your pansy-assed feelings. We’re coming up on Luta’s land now so be ready.”
Not the least appeased, Bryton sarcastically saluted before riding away. With a frustrated sigh, Taric twisted to watch him canter to the men. Myla with her damn sharp tongue had him spoiling for a fight just when he needed a cool head, and Bryton’s pinched ego didn’t help any.
He surveyed his men, each one wearing the royal blue of his station with the Segur family crest embroidered in silver.
A bunch of warriors playing dress-up
. He snorted. These troops were used to armor and mud, not woolen finery and polished boots. Swords that had gorged on blood now hung, shined to a gleam and scabbarded on fine leather belts. Even the horses had been brushed to a gloss.
We prance like dancers on a stage, costumes ready and lines rehearsed to battle a war of words.
Urging his mount faster, he sprang ahead of the half-platoon, sending shards of earth from beneath the four shod hooves. His heart banged with bruising force and the weight of his family’s ceremonial sword thudded against his hip. The echo of rumbling behind him let him know that Bryton might be peeved but was still doing his job, commanding the men to follow suit. The prince would never be allowed to get out of eyesight of the guards.
Fuck
.
They should have been spotted by now and word of their rapid approach relayed to Delmas Luta. He scouted the outlay of land, looking for everything from snipers to wild animals. The green of his homeland faded here, to more brown scrub than lush beauty. Thick copses of trees and snarls of bushes lined the dirt roadway, allowing for man or beast to lie in wait for any passing traveler. Along his neck, a prickled itch grew. The forest had many eyes and not all topped four legs. They kept his mind occupied and banished all traces of Myla and her berry-sweet mouth…for a moment.
Before the incident with the barmaid, he hadn’t seen Myla in several months. Something had changed in him in those months, it must have. Why else would he suddenly look at his guardian and be seized by steel bands of lust? The manacles she’d once removed from his wrists seemed fragile in comparison to the grip of his desire for her. Any time they’d spent together was always tinged with danger or in the heart-pounding aftermath of rescue. Grateful as he was for her protection, Taric still hated that his guardian was female. If anything, she’d made him feel less of a man. It had been easier to think of her as a magic thing, like a bag of herbs, than as a woman.
Now he couldn’t think of her as anything but a woman.
Now, she made him feel every inch a man.
Why had things changed? Was it because he’d put his arms around her? Was it the way her hair had fanned along his pillow? Could it be that for the first time, their roles had been reversed and Myla needed him? Maybe it was her blood, seeing her so uncharacteristically weakened that had sparked some strange male response.
Not that getting an erection at the thought of lips like pomegranates or skin like cream was odd. No, that was normal enough. But to be mesmerized by the thought of burying himself inside a woman made of purple smoke?
Yeah, I’m definitely touched in the head.
Your protection, not your pleasure
.
Those words, so coldly stated, had chilled his overheated blood. She made it seem like he treated her no differently than the barmaid she’d knocked unconscious. He knew who she was, what she was—as much as he could understand it. How could she think he would treat her so arrogantly?
Snorting in sardonic realization, Taric slowed to a trot, allowing the men to cluster around him. No, she hadn’t shied from him, she’d shied from herself. Myla had kissed him back.
The memory of her timid tongue’s caress had an instant and powerful effect on his body. The saddle bit painfully into his growing hardness. Why would she respond at all if she didn’t want to? There was no way he could have made her feel threatened. Myla could physically rip his limbs from his body without a damper of sweat lining her brow. She’d kissed him back because…she wanted to. That had to be why. Was it just curiosity, like the strawberries and salad greens? Or did she feel something for him? Something other than responsibility because of her honor-bound promise?
“’Lo to the envoy of King Balic!”
Words of ceremonial greeting plucked him from his ponderings. Nimon Luta rode astride a great ebony warhorse, a full platoon of armed men surrounding him. Barely over eighteen summers, the boy looked like a stiff wind from a fat cow could blow him away yet he had more arrogance than a rooster. Easy to be brave with the military backing he had accompanying him.
What was supposed to be a peace talk took on an ominous air. Taric turned his head and caught Bryton’s arched brow.
So much for friendly displays of trust.
“’Lo to the company of Delmas Luta!” Bryton called loudly. “You little dog turd,” he muttered, settling back in his saddle.
Lips twisted to hide his laugh, Taric spurred Falcon ahead at a slow trot. Nimon rode forward and the two men met in the road. Taric had never liked the bowing that came with his position but somehow pasty-faced Nimon made the move seem a mockery more than a customary step of protocol. Too low for horseback and too grand for decency, the upswept arm and flourishing hand made Taric clench his teeth.
Fine, be a shit and meet Prince Asshole. You want to make jabs, be prepared to take them.