He paused. For one crucial moment.
“I’m sorry,” she told him at the same instant she kneed him between the legs. Hard.
Osborn groaned and doubled over, gripping his stomach. Breena took the opportunity to push him to the ground, grabbing from her boot the knife he’d instructed her to keep hidden. She straddled him, pushing her nose to his. “I could be running away at this moment. Your instructions were to not stick around, remember?”
His eyes blazed with something past hate.
Breena lifted the blade to the beating pulse in his neck. “I could also cut you right now. See? You did manage to teach me quite a bit.”
His lips thinned. She felt his skin chill and watched as his pupils began to narrow and focus. She’d triggered his berserkergang. But she wasn’t scared. Breena had just spent her last moment of fear. She’d die before she felt frightened again.
And that fearsome thing inside him would not hurt her. She knew it.
The harshness of their breathing blanketed around them. The sun overhead created gruesome knife-wielding shadows. “My people did not attack yours.”
Some of his wrath cooled. “I can see that you believe it.”
It was a beginning. “You said the attackers burned in the sun?”
“Those that didn’t flee. Cold-skinned cowards.”
“Elden’s vamps can walk in the sun. My brother Nicolai is as warm-blooded as you and me. My father was arranging an advantageous marriage to secure Elden’s future. That’s how he did things. Not through battle.”
Osborn squeezed his eyes tight. She knew he was fighting her, fighting what he’d held to be true.
“They wore Elden’s colors.”
“It must have been a tactical move in case there were any survivors.”
She watched his swallow. Emotion warred in his eyes. “Clever, because I planned my own vengeance against your people.”
And with his berserker power, he would have taken the lives of a lot of her people. Although it would have been a much more merciful death than that from the Blood Sorcerer.
“I wonder if it’s the same enemy. But to wait all these years…it seems unlikely.”
She wanted to tell Osborn what she’d discovered in her dream. That the Blood Sorcerer killed her parents. But now this was all about Osborn.
“I’m going to drop this knife. Toss it out of the way.”
That was the plan she had, nothing much more than that. Breena rolled off his big frame.
He trapped her hands before she could scramble completely out of his reach. “You know I could have overpowered you at any time.”
She’d guessed it. “But you didn’t.”
He dropped her hands, and leaned against the tree. She watched as he scrubbed his hand along the back of his neck. “No, I didn’t.”
“Why not?”
His brown eyes met hers. “Because I wanted to believe you. Because I want…I want so many things since I found you in my bed.”
Her stomach dipped, and her heart began to race. Many times she imagined the lover of her future. A man with courtly manners. A man who’d kiss the back of her hand. A man who’d ask for the honor of dancing with her.
Never had she imagined the man she’d want by her side to be conflicted, guilt-ravaged and so, so fallible. And yet perfect.
As a princess, Breena had two jobs, stay a virgin and marry well.
She was about to fail at one of her princessly duties.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
OSBORN FLINCHED WHEN she stroked his arm. His hand instantly grasped hers, stilling her fingers.
She gave him an encouraging smile. “Let me.” And his hand fell away. Breena traced the arch of his eyebrow. Ran her fingers down the length of his nose. His lips. The stubble covering his cheek. The muscles bunched below her fingertips. His strong body trembled for the briefest of moments.
“Let me love you,” she urged.
The man before her tensed. Every muscle, every force of his body, tightened like her words were a physical blow to him. His eyes closed and his fists clenched at his sides. Who was he fighting now? Her or himself?
Then his lids lifted, and his gaze bore into hers. She saw all the hurt and anger he’d suffered since the attack on his home. He allowed her to see it.
“I want to love you tonight,” she whispered against his neck, and she felt him shiver.
But he didn’t push her away.
Her heart lifted in relief and she placed tiny little kisses on his neck, the line of his jaw and finally to his lips. Breena tugged his lower lip into her mouth with her teeth. Sucked on it until he moaned.
“Take me to your lake,” she invited him. Without waiting for an answer, she tugged his hand to her mouth, kissed his palm, then drew him to his feet. They walked the short distance to the place that would always be so special to her.
After removing her boots, careful to tuck her knife inside them, she turned to him. With the water at her back, she lifted her shirt and raised it above her head, drawing the woolen fabric against her skin in sensual slowness.
“You said you hated me in boy’s clothes.”
“Glad they’re off of you.”
Her nipples puckered before his heated gaze. Osborn’s brown eyes turned almost black in the dying light.
Breena walked to him slowly, loosening the pants and kicking them out of the way. He was reaching for his own shirt, but she stopped his hands of further movement. “Let me take care of you tonight.”
He swallowed. Hard. She lifted his shirt up and over his head. His pants stretched tight against his growing cock.
“These can’t be too comfortable,” she told him with a click of her tongue.
“Growing more uncomfortable by the moment,” he told her.
She smiled at this amazing man before her, feeling happy and desirable and very, very wanted. Hooking her thumbs around the material, she drew his pants down those defined legs of his, finely muscled and strong.
Osborn was magnificent. His body was honed, and crisscrossed by scars, some small, some brutal-looking. She traced a jagged one beneath his collarbone. The one on his face was new, and from the night they’d first met when they battled the creature of blood magic.
Breena ran her fingers along his fine features, his jaw, his eyebrows. He gripped her hands in his, lowering his head. A breath separated their lips, and she raised on tiptoe to kiss him. He clutched her in his arms with a groan. Osborn’s kiss was a burning, searing thing, filled with pain, hope and so much passion.
His hands turned bold, palming her breast, caressing her hip, taking a lazy path down the sensitive skin of her spine. Goose bumps formed along her arms and her nipples tightened against the rough-haired strength of his chest. She couldn’t get enough of touching him. Just running her hands over the roped muscles of his arms shot little thrills through her body.
“Look at me,” he urged, his voice raw with passion.
Her lids drifted open as his questing fingers rounded her hips and cupped her bottom. With a jerk, he brought her flush against his naked skin. The hardness of his erection left no doubt how much he wanted her, and her knees weakened.
Osborn scooped her up into his arms, and stalked to the soft sandy bank of the lake.
“I was supposed to be taking care of you,” she told him with a laugh.
“Next time,” he promised, his voice rough and filled with need.
“Yes.” She nodded. Now and quickly. She looped her arms around his neck and drew his head down to hers once more. His lips parted hers, and his tongue surged inside her mouth. Their kiss was urgent and hurried.