Page 159 of A War of Three Kings

“Yes. Yes, it is,” Cyprien growls, shoving at us, but we don’t move. “Damn it, Aldrin, at least get some privacy.”

Cyprien grabs Aldrin’s arm and drags him multiple paces away from me. An almost animalistic snarl tears from my lips. The next thing I know, Aldrin is tossing me over his shoulder and carrying me up the hill like a spoil of war, while Cyprien continues to force him away from the crowd.

I pound at Aldrin’s back with my fists, because I want to get lost in his lips again. A deep part of me revels in being treated like a claimed prize. Aldrin slaps my rump and laughs.

From my precarious position, my gaze falls on Caitlin arguing with Drake. Diarmuid has a hand on his head.

“What is happening to them?” Caitlin demands.

Drake looks everywhere but at her. “Ah…well…they need to solidify a bond.”

“Solidifywhat? How? Make sense, man!”

Drake’s eyes dart to his wife. “Ah…this is awkward. Klara? You’re the healer. Care to explain?”

I lose focus on them as Aldrin rounds a bend. Cyprien gives him one last shove, then jogs away toward the others. I am placed back on my feet in front of a greenhouse surrounded by a skeleton of a rose garden. The walls are white marble columns interspersed with large, cloudy windows in need of cleaning. They mostly obscure the view of the interior.

I grab Aldrin’s arm and drag him toward it.

It is warm and mostly bare inside, with two rows of potted plants hugging the walls and moss growing in the grout between the stone pavers.

Aldrin immediately pushes me up against one of the marble pillars and unlaces the front of my silk dress. My breasts spill out and he cups one, running his thumb across the hardened nipple as he trails kisses down my neck. The most sensual kind of bliss radiates out from each little touch, shooting straight down to the heat pooling between my legs.

“Aldrin,” I gasp out. “Mirror ward the windows.”

“Already on it.” His voice is hoarse.

I can’t help moaning as he presses his long, hard cock against my stomach. He lifts me up so my feet hang above the ground and holds me in place as he lines his hardness over my core, then he grinds against me through the layers of our clothing.

I almost lose my mind.

The extreme pleasure cascading through me is devastating, making my entire body shake as he rolls his hips and drags his erection over my most sensitive parts. His rhythmic, throaty groans fill my ears, driving me higher.

My hands roam over him hungrily, undoing the buckles of his armor and tossing his breastplate and shoulder guards to the ground. I drag his tunic over his head and gasp as the bare flesh of our chests collides, the hard planes of his dragging over my tender nipples.

As my hands trail across his leather pants, from his hips to the laces at his crotch, Aldrin freezes in his tormenting thrusts. At first, I think he does it to allow me space to release him from his clothing. The gods know I ache for him to fill me up.

Then he catches my wrist and holds it a hair’s breadth from his cock. I writhe to get more of that maddening friction against him, but he pins my body to still me.

Aldrin lets out a shuddering breath through clenched teeth. “I need to make sure you understand what is happening before we go any further. What this means.” He trembles with the effort to stop. Aldrin presses his forehead to mine, our noses touching, his eyes closed from the strain.

“I—I don’t—I have never felt this way before, Aldrin.” My hips, my hands—they try to move again, to take more from him, but his grip on me tightens almost painfully. “I am going to combust if you don’t take me soon?—”

“You are my mate, Keira,” he grinds out.

Those words ricochet through me.My mate.

“You are the other half of my soul. It is why I can find you anywhere. Why we can hear and feel each other in our heads.”

My heart races so hard against my ribs it hurts. It swells and swells with love for him.

There is nothing else.

No one else.

Aldrin is my everything.

“Oh…” That simple syllable is all I can manage.

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