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“Faen,” he bites out. And then he calls out to the others up ahead. “Ride on. We will follow.”

They don’t question him, though Zeha glances back through the frigid gloom, her eyes sharp with suspicion.

The Warlord pulls to a halt and dismounts. He takes a flat bottle from one of his saddlebags and hands it up to me. “Drink.”

I gulp eagerly—and then I release a faint shriek, because the liquid inside isn’t water. It roars through my mouth and throat, scorching my insides. “Oh gods,” I whimper. “What was that?”

“Something to keep you warm.” Maybe it’s my imagination or the play of clouds across the moon, but it looks as if the Warlord is smirking. “Move forward in the saddle.”

I try, but I nearly tumble off. He grunts in frustration, propping me up while he mounts again, this time behind me. “You weak little scrap of flesh.”

“But I helped,” I murmur. “Back there, with the ice-wyrms. I was useful.”

He settles in at my back, and I let myself relax against him with a sigh of relief.

His body stiffens, and then he says, low, “I am not your safety. I am your captor.”

“But you like me.”

“I hate you.”

“Of course you do. And you like me as well. Both.”

“You’re talking nonsense. Maybe you lost more blood than I thought.”

“Maybe it’s the drink you gave me. I do feel warmer now.” I snuggle deeper against him. “Why didn’t you give me some of that on the night you captured me?”

“I didn’t want to waste it on you.”

“And now?”

“Why can’t you ever be quiet?”

I pinch my lips shut for what feels like forever, and then I say, “You touched my breasts earlier. But the other night you said you didn’t like them, that they were too small.”

He groans, adjusting himself behind me. “Stop.”

“I’m only existing, and riding. I can’t stop either of those things.”

“Stoptalking.”

“I was just wondering if you’d changed your mind about my breasts. That’s all.” The hazy warmth of the drink is swimming through my veins, humming in my head. “If you like them, you can touch them.”

“I’ll touch any part of you whenever I want,” he says, ragged. “You’re my captive, my prize. I don’t need your permission.”

I tilt my head back on his shoulder, looking up at him. “Do it then. I’m too weak to resist you anyway,” I say softly.

“You think I haven’t considered it?” His words drag through his teeth, rough and dark. “Most Warlords would set their mark on you, send you back bruised and used. You would look so lovely with the prints of my teeth and fingers on your pale skin, with my seed filling you up. I’d deliver you to your husband-to-be just like that—marked by me, bred by me. He would know that you’re mine. Mine.”

He tears one hand from the reins and wraps it over my throat—not a constricting hold, but a possessive one. Through the haze of the drink, my body flares with a panicked craving—half terror, half lust. The way he was talking—those primal, brutish words sent a flood of liquid desire between my legs. If he touched me now, he’d find me slick and trembling, eager for him.

32

My body has been simmering with reluctant desire for the Warlord, and now, with the aid of that fiery drink, my flesh ignites. My breath puffs short and hot, white wisps in the frozen dark. My very skin feels alive, awake, crawling with fevered lust, screaming to be touched.

My head still lolls on his shoulder, and his massive hand cups my neck. I turn my face toward him, warming my nose and lips against the hot skin of his throat. He swallows hard.

Slowly his hand drifts down my throat, over my collarbones and lower, moving across my breast. Despite the layers I wear, I feel the pressure like a brand on my naked skin. I release a quiet moan into the still air of the night.