“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.
CHAPTER TEN
BREENA 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.
LATER 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.