Page 4 of Urn My Love

He put the car in drive, but before he could let his foot off the brake, the left rear door opened and August slid in beside me.

“What are you doing here?” I demanded, scowling at him.

He leaned back against the seat and looked straight ahead. “I’m coming with you.”

No, he absolutely wasn’t going with me here or there… he would not be coming with me anywhere.

“I didn’t invite you,” I snapped, shooting a look at the front door and hoping Ryls wouldn’t make an appearance.

She was overly protective of me and wouldn’t want me to leave alone, but I refused to risk her or the baby.

“I don’t care. Either I come with you, or I will go tell Amaryllis you are ill and trying to sneak off on a strenuous misadventure.” August kept his gaze straight ahead, not looking at me as he waited for my decision.

He was blackmailing me, and I wanted to fry his sexy backside for it. The only issue was my powers wouldn’t truly harm him if he was a fated mate, or at least that was how it worked for phoenixes born outside of Cucalas.

It was easy to put on an act and pretend my heart wasn’t aching for my soulmate for a few minutes. But how was I going to keep up the facade of not caring for hours in his company?

“Why?” When he didn’t answer, I told the driver August was going with us and collapsed against the back seat of the car in defeat.

Now, looking at the muscles rippling under his shirt, as he guided his horse up the trail in front of me, I knew I’d been right to worry. Every hour in his company made it harder to convince my heart he didn’t belong to me. I’d been able to avoid him on the long plane ride, but now that we were alone on a trail, it was impossible.

Why had he forced his way on this trip? When he’d first met me, he couldn’t get away from me fast enough. Now he refused to let me out of his sight.

I’d never been so confused in my life.

My thighs hurt, my back hurt, and worst of all, my balls hurt from bouncing in a saddle for hours. It had been years since I’d ridden a horse longer than an hour or two in a single day.

Now I was on a trip that shouldn’t have taken more than a day at most, but at the pace Iolani was moving, it was going to take two full days. You’d think she’d never seen rocks or flowers before, by the way she stopped to admire them. Despite my annoyance, the fascination on her face when a new bird called from the forest depths was something incredible to behold.

She was breathtakingly gorgeous, and I hated myself for noticing.

It was a special kind of torture, and I couldn’t figure out why I’d pushed myself into her trip. Why had I rushed to her room when I’d heard her cry out? Why had I stayed with her while she was sick?

It was as though she’d pulled me to her like gravity, and now that I was in her orbit, there was no escaping.

But why did it have to be her? I’d known for years I would never take a mate. My heart was too cold, and while I cared for the gryphons, I did it from a sense of duty rather than a sense of love. I wasn’t even sure I was capable of love.

I was a great guard for the gryphon pride, because I could kill and sleep like a baby a few minutes later. Inside, I felt nothing. Not happiness, guilt, joy, or sorrow. I’d never even experienced lust, let alone love.

Until her.

It wasn’t like a dam had broken and let feelings burst free inside me. No, it was more like a tiny crack had appeared, allowing emotions to trickle through it. But even that was more than I’d experienced before, and I blamed my curiosity for not allowing me to walk away.

Fear wasn’t something I was familiar with. It was a trait that made me an excellent killer, since I wasn’t distracted by concerns about dying. Yet, when I’d heard her cry, and then rushed into her room to find her sheets soaked with sweat while her body felt as though she’d been submerged in icy waters, my chest had tightened.

It was uncomfortable, and I’d hated it.

When she’d sat on my lap, emptying her guts and shivering, my stomach had twisted with concern. It was not a sensation I enjoyed.

But when her body pressed against mine as she brushed her teeth, and then when she bent over to get the backpack from beneath the bed and her gown had slid up, flashing her perfect butt, I’d experienced an awakening of something I had enjoyed.

It had only increased when she’d grown annoyed with my stubbornness to leave the room and changed in front of me. The gown had rippled down her curves before hitting the floor and leaving her in nothing but the blue thong. My erection had strained against my jeans and I’d realized with a shock that she’d made me harder than I’d ever been with nothing more than a flash of her milky skin.

I should’ve stormed from the room, shifted and taken to the skies to put as much space between us as possible. But I hadn’t.

Because as soon as I’d realized she was planning a solo trip into the wilderness, my chest tightened and a thousand ways she could be hurt or killed flashed through my mind.

I’d decided to escort her to the lodge to make sure she got there safely, and reassure myself she wasn’t going to have another episode like the one I’d found her in while alone on a trail.

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