Page 47 of Great Falls Cadet
“Och, he isn’t.” Tye grins, swinging back and forth with increasing speed. When the male lets go, I barely have time to pull the pitchfork away before he lands a foot from me, his powerful thighs flexing slightly to absorb the landing. “But if he happens to stop by, I’ll just claim I came for this.” Leaning forward, Tye impertinently presses his warm mouth over mine.
4
Lera
Igasp, and Tye deftly brushes his tongue between my parted lips, inviting himself in. His warmth, his taste, are achingly familiar. My mouth tingles, the sensation racing through my nerves and spine. The male’s exercise-kindled heat spreads over my skin, his clean masculine scent filled with pine and citrus. Before I can consider the wisdom of what we’re doing, my treacherous body responds to Tye’s provocation, mouth opening to let him take me deeper. Pulling him against me until our bodies are flush, his breath hitching at the invitation.
But he takes it no further than that, simply sweeping through my mouth with slow, savoring strokes. A sweet kiss. Kind. Delicious. Polite. But not predatory. The Tye my soul calls to claim my mouth and body—this one aims to please. Nothing more.
I pull away, clearing my throat. “What was that about?”
“A thank-you. For standing up to River last night.”
I feel a flash of reflexive indignation—that Tye should give a kiss as a thank-you gift, assuming it’s wanted—but it sputters out just as quickly at the memory of Tye’s bruises. “It was too little too late.” I shake my head. Nothing I can say will make up for the stripes Tye wears because of me. In fact, probably the less of me he has in his life just now, the better. “I am sorry about your back. It looked painful.”
“Lass.” Raising his hand to my face, Tye brushes a lock of hair aside, his thumb coarse as it scrapes my cheekbone. “It wasn’t my first thrashing. Or third. Or last. I little mind it once it’s over. And given the choice, I’ll take a thrashing over mucking stables.”
I pull back. “I mind.”
“I noticed.” The mix of concern and incredulity in Tye’s eyes—as if despite his own protective nature, the male can’t imagine another caring for what happens to him—tightens my chest. Shaking himself, Tye puts a knuckle under my chin and lifts my face, his mouth twitching mischievously as his tone lightens. “I also noticed you can’t move to save your life just now.” The thumb that traced my cheekbone moments earlier now presses against a neck muscle so sore that I rise onto my toes, a sudden exquisite pain rippling from Tye’s touch.
“Stars take me.” I glare at the male. “That was a low blow.”
Tye whistles. “Forget sore. You’re halfway crippled, lass.” Easing the pressure, Tye’s fingers spread to my shoulders, finding a whole field of agony-filled balls beneath my skin. Ignoring my yelping, Tye works the knots for a few minutes before shaking his head with a sigh. “There is no chance in hell you will be moving like anything resembling a human by morning training. That said, I think we might get you to be a slightly better imitation of a stick figure before Coal has a run at you. Come, I’ll stretch you out a mite.”
“Oh no, you won’t.” I step back. The last time Tye stretched me—at the Council’s orders to lead serious training—the pain was enough to bring tears. As sweet as the male can be, he also takes anything athletic to absurdity. In an odd way, Coal is more gentle.
A frown skitters over Tye’s perfect face, and for a second, I wonder if he’s remembering the same exercise. Then he shakes his mane of red hair, and the memory, if it was ever there, disappears from his gaze. “You’ll thank me later, I promise,” he says, his long arms collecting me easily. Turning me around until my back is toward him, Tye slides his hands down over my arms with tantalizing slowness.
“Deep breath,” Tye says, pulling my arms open like wings, his hard body pressing into my back. His lips brush my ear, the hypnotic whisper tickling the sensitive skin within. “Twenty. Nineteen. Eighteen.” The pressure grows with each heartbeat, shifting between pain and molten pleasure. “Seventeen. Sixteen.”
A soft moan escapes me. Then a hiss as the pressure keeps growing. Pain. We are definitely heading into pain. My shoulders. My arms. My chest. Everything. “That hurts.” I struggle against Tye’s hold, discovering it as unyielding as iron. “Let me go.”
The bastard chuckles. “I’ve seen more flexible stones, you know.”
“Then go torment them.” My words come between clenched teeth, only the solid feel of Tye’s body against my back grounding me to safety.
“Breathe, lass,” Tye murmurs, a firm note of command beneath the sympathetic tone. “Halfway there.” Tye’s hips press into my lower back, arching me like a bow. “Nine. Eight. Sev—”
“—tree was watching you?” a male voice calls from the outside, the noise getting closer to the stables. “Did it chase and bite you as well?”
I jump away from Tye with a muffled yelp, suddenly painfully aware of how little I appear to be working right now—for all I know, River too actually measures the change in manure levels.
“That’s not what I said,” a younger man answers, his adolescent voice breaking and strained. “I just felt watched. And then this happened.”
Releasing me, Tye massages my arms as he returns them to my sides. By the time the barn doors open, the male and I are both busy distributing flakes of hay to the horses, my chest and shoulders tingling through recovery. They do feel better—though I won’t be telling Tye that.
“Tell me one thing, Rusty, why is it that thingsjust happenonly to greenies?” A tall black-mustached guard in his forties steps aside to let Rusty through, their horses following. The young guard’s blue eyes glisten, his whole body hunching around one of his arms while he struggles to keep a stoic face. His reddish-blond hair is drenched in sweat, and his face is a sickly gray. The older guard whaps the back of the boy’s head. “You’ll find that no one here takes kindly to wild stories, so you might as well speak the truth. What are the pair of you doing here?” The last is barked at Tye and me.
“The lass is here on punishment detail from Headmaster River,” Tye says, dropping the last of the hay in his arms into Sprite’s stall. “And I’m around to try and get under her skirts.” Tye grins so broadly that for a moment, both the guards and I only stand blinking like owls. By the time we return to our senses, Tye has already taken Rusty’s horse and subtly maneuvered his body between him and the older guard, creating an illusion of privacy. “What happened to ye, lad?”
“N-nothing.” About sixteen, the boy shifts his weight from foot to foot, plainly mapping an escape route that I know Tye doesn’t intend to give him.
“Stupidity,” the other guard calls, huffing as he goes about putting away his mount. “Mix a lack of wit with an abundance of imagination, and you can brew up anything.”
Tye raises a brow, his gaze intent on Rusty’s tight face.
Coming up on Rusty’s other side, I feel a sharp tang of corruption tickling my nose, similar to what I smelled on the sclices two days ago—when their own stench of rotting garbage wasn’t overpowering it—but different too. Something all its own. A quick glance at Tye shows his own nostrils flaring delicately, his emerald gaze concerned behind a mask of cavalier ease. Thenothingthat happened to Rusty doesn’t belong in the mortal realm. Another symptom of the cracking wards and ripping fabric. My heart pounds.
