Page 24 of Returned to the Vissigroth
I should have been horrified. People were dying. The sounds of screams pierced the night. The air reeked of blood and fear and burnt leather. But all I could do was watch him—watchmywarrior—as he carved his way through the chaos.
My thighs clenched.
The heat that flooded through me had no place here. It was primal. Wrong. And yet, it bloomed inside me. His strength. His fury. The way his body moved. The way heprotected.
It was a visceral pull.
My lips parted without my meaning them to. My breath came too fast. I was trembling, but not from fear. Gods, what was wrong with me?
But even as I asked the question, I knew the answer. Somewhere over the last two days, he had become… something. A tether. A presence I reached for in the dark, without realizing it. It wasn’t just attraction, though that was there too, strong and undeniable. It wasn’t just safety.
It washim.
He was more than a protector. His voice. His hands. His grief. It had burrowed under my skin, left a mark in places I hadn’t even begun to name. Watching him now, this force of nature, as he cleaved through enemies like he was born for nothing else, I felt it deep in my gut. If he died, something in me would die with him.
I stood frozen in the open tent flap, the sounds of battle roaring around me like a storm, but all I could hear was the thud of my own pulse. All I could see was him.
Mallack. My mate.
Even if I didn’t remember him.
Even if I never remembered him.
Something inside me alreadyknew.
The scent of blood coated my tongue. Long-honed instinct kept me fighting, muscle memory kept parrying blows, I moved with my sword, slicing, boots steady, body locked in the rhythm of killing. One Renegade lunged; I sidestepped, drove my blade into his ribs, and ripped it free. Another came low with a curved axe; he missed by a breath when I pivoted. As I came around, I swung wide, fast, brutal, and lethal. He wasn’t prepared for the counter, and my sword shattered his jaw.
Most of these males weren’t trained. They were the worst of the worst. Males who’d been cast out of their towns because they committed heinous crimes of one sort or another. They were hungry, desperate. And that made them especially dangerous.
A flicker in the corner of my vision made me pivot, but it wasn’t an enemy. It was Daphne. She stood by the mouth of the tent, the flap clutched in one hand, her hair wild around her face, lips parted, eyes wide. The light of a few dying embers caught the side of her cheekbone, the curve of her throat, and made her hair look like flames.
She didn't look afraid at all—she had always been a brave seffy. The look on her face, gods, it knocked the breath from my lungs harder than any blade ever had. I knew that look all too well. I had seen it a thousand times before and thought I never would again. It was a mix of awe, hunger, andpossession. Like I already belonged to her, and she just hadn’t decided what to do with me yet.
It hit me low in the gut, hard enough to forget all rules of engagement, hard enough to stand there frozen like a besotted youth rather than a male in his fifties. Mistakes are never forgiven—least of all on the battlefield. I missed the shadow moving to my left. Steel hissed.
Korran’s blade blocked the blow meant for my spine, sparks flying as the two swords collided just inches from my back.
“Focus, you arrogant bastard!” he snarled.
I grinned. “Didn’t know you cared.”
“I don’t want your Vissy watching you die,” he growled, ripping his sword free and taking the kill himself.
I didn’t answer. Just turned, jaw tight, eyes locking back on Daphne. She hadn’t moved. Gods, she looked sofragilethere, barefoot, standing alone with nothing between her and the chaos but a scrap of canvas and the mercy of the gods.
I wanted to go to her. But I couldn’t. Not yet.
More Renegades were falling now. Some tried to run, stumbling over the dead, tripping over their own desperation. My dragoons surged forward with renewed fury, cutting them down as they broke rank.
We were winning.
Almost done.
And then somethingchanged.
I felt it before I saw it. A shift in the air. A sharp, metallic tang that didn’t belong, like the breath of a forge just before it ignites.
A scream went up near the riverbank.
