When Aiko slipped into the cellar to get something, Torrance continued working on her own. I sat myself upon a stool and watched her. Her back was to me, and I let my gaze drift over her form as she moved. She was dressed in creamy Sionnachan silk britches and a matching blouse. Aiko had tailored the clothing to fit her properly, accentuating the shape of her hips and the nip of her waist. Her hair tumbled down her back in a rich red-brown river, and I remembered what it was like to wind it, like shining rope, around my fist.

My gaze followed the line of her hair downward, until it settled on her backside and stayed there. The skies take me, that was a delicious curve. My erection, which had begun to subside, returned in full force, my shaft thick and throbbing just from the sight of my betrothed. I wanted to go to her, to bend her over the counter, pull down the silk and rut her from behind.

No penetration, she’d said.

Fine. Between her thighs, then. Where her wetness could drench the top side of my shaft. I palmed my bulge, trying to ease the pressure there, fighting the flaming desire to take out my cock and stroke it.

It was shocking, and pathetic, this need to touch myself in the middle of the kitchen just from watching Torrance walk around and cook, fully clothed. Maybe even dangerous. I wanted my own bride far too much and it could not lead to anything good.

But at least she wants me, too.

Of that much, I was certain. She never would have proposed this new agreement otherwise. And I could feel it in the way her sweet mouth had opened under mine, begging me inwards.

I bit back a groan when Torrance reached up for a stone ladle out of reach, her back arching in the most exhilarating way. She was far too short, but she tried anyway, making little huffing sounds of exertion that made my cock pound. It was undeniably erotic, watching her strain, her fingers trembling and tiny, her breath quickening, rising up on the balls of her slender feet in her thin little socks, her boots abandoned by the door.

I could have come right there, without a single stroke, just from watching her struggle.

Torrance swore loudly, adorable in her frustration.

No, I hissed internally. Not adorable.

My bride was not adorable. She was proud and irritating and strangely, startlingly, for some unknown reason, desirable. But not adorable.

Trying to put us both out of our misery, I raised a hand and levitated the ladle down to her. She took it out of the air and lowered onto flat feet with a relieved sigh. Then, as if it had taken a moment to fully register what had just happened, she jumped and spun around.

“Wylf! You’re still here!”

There it was again. Wylf. The nickname she’d come up with. I could not tell if the informality of it was insolence or intimacy. Either way, I found that, oddly, I did not mind it.

“Never left,” I said simply.

“You nearly gave me a heart attack,” she said, pressing the ladle to her chest and closing her eyes. They snapped open again a moment later. “What are you still doing here, anyway? Don’t you have stuff to do?”

Why, I was merely bringing myself to the edge of climax, completely untouched, by watching you flail about trying to grasp that ladle.

“I’m supervising,” I grunted.

Her brown brows rose.

“Supervising? Why’s that?” She smiled, her eyes glittering, and swung the ladle through the air like a sword. “Afraid I’m going to poison you?”

My wings rustled in warning.

“Should I be worried about my bride poisoning me?”

She moved her shoulders up and down in a movement I’d come to recognize as meaning very little. A vague non-answer.

“You may be immortal, but I know that you can be killed.”

“Not by poison,” I informed her. “Sorry to disappoint you.”

She did the shoulder thing again, then did something so strange and unexpected it nearly knocked me off the stool.

She laughed.

I froze, watching her in amazement.

I’d seen her laugh before, but never like this. It was always tinged with bitterness or defiance or, like when we’d been with the sontanna, undercut with shades of sorrow. This was the first time I’d seen her so open, so easy, the laughter as joyous and full-throated as a song.

She’s happy.

At least for the moment, anyway. It may have taken joking about my death to get her there, but by the stone sky, she was happy.

“Ah, well,” she said, still chuckling. “I still have that dull little butter knife you left me with. Consider yourself warned.”

“I will take that under advisement,” I said slowly, entranced by the glow of colour in her cheeks, the smile that still pulled so seductively at her lips. She was looking at me and smiling like that.

I was not entirely sure, but I was beginning to get the sense that my false bride was flirting with me.

But no, that could not be. Just like she could not be adorable, she could not be flirting. Because that would imply something more than simply wanting me while hating me. Something beyond raw attraction mixed with loathing. Something warmer, something deeper, something that made my brain feel like it was unspooling inside my skull.

Something I’d already begun to notice in myself even as I tried to bury it.

Aiko, who was unnaturally good at knowing exactly when she was needed, re-entered the kitchen at that moment, distracting Torrance and saving me. The two of them finished dinner preparations, and Torrance began ladling stew into bowls.

“Are you eating here?”

It took me a moment to realize my betrothed was addressing me.

“Are you?” I asked.

“I was planning on it,” she said. “I’ve gotten used to eating here with Aiko and the others when you’re away.”

Aiko watched the two of us, reminding me to take up the role of adoring husband. Adoring husband to my adorable bride, skies save me.

“That is fine, beloved.”

Torrance’s eyes got huge in her small face. I was almost as surprised as she looked. I hadn’t intended to say that. But, much the same as her calling me Wylf, it seemed to have just slipped out. Well, I suppose that’s the fake pet name I’ve chosen for her. I’ll just have to go with it. Can’t take it back now.

I cleared my throat and rose, turning away from both of them so Aiko wouldn’t notice the obvious bulge still pressing outward in my trousers.

“I have some small matters to attend to. I wish to fill Ashken in on news from the villages.” I glanced back at my bride over my shoulder and wing, finding her still wide-eyed, clearly struggling to recover. A dark satisfaction rose in me at that. That I’d thrown her and her flirtations so wildly off-kilter. “I will meet you in our room, beloved.”

I said it with relish that time, emphasizing every sound, watching crimson creep up her neck.

Then, I faced forward once more. I walked out of the room, leaving my bride, beloved and reeling, behind.

OceanofPDF.com

OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE Torrance

I ate slowly and silently in the kitchen while Shoshen and Ashken chatted and occasionally told off Brekken for trying to steal food. Eventually, the alien hound was given a massive sotasha femur to chew on, which he took gleefully over to the space in front of the fire.

I ate my stew in the tiniest spoonfuls possible, trying to delay the inevitable. Delay going up to our room, and being alone with Wylfrael. But even as I tried to stall, my body kept reminding me of the fact that I wanted to go. I wanted to pull away from him and run to him, all at the same time. I wanted to hide from him and undress in front of him. To have him look at me the way he’d looked at me that night when he’d ripped my robe away.