Page 82 of Warrior's Reign
Her full mouth softened, though her eyes hardened. “You have intel that someone is going to try and—do what with me? How can I be wielded? I wouldn’t betray Ibu, not even if I got snatched and threatened with death.”
Yes, he knew that in his bones. Her loyalty was as frightening to him personally as it was gratifying. If they both survived their service, they would make the next generation of Obe’shan-Rhyksai heirs strong.
“As you protect your sources, I must protect mine,” he said.
Her mouth quirked. “Fine. Anything else besides a warning and vague threat to not rampage through the city and embarrass you?”
She understood him well. “I value your life as much as I value little sister’s. If you are careless with either, you will answer, Reign. To me.”
This time she grinned at him, a full open expression, her eyes crinkling at the corners. “You want another round in the circle, huh?” A low, throaty, suggestive croon.
He stepped back, the temptation to draw her to him, to claim those lips. . .to claim more. . .too much.
Control. Silence. It wasn’t time. When she was ready, she would come to him. She would speak the words. That was the promise he had made to himself for permission to take her as his—that he would not impede her path, that he would restrain himself and wait for her to set the pace until he was certain her feet were so firmly planted not even he could sway her from her chosen course.
“Dismissed,” he said quietly.
She saluted with that odd heel click, the flick of her fingers mocking, and walked past.
A ghost of the old demon inside him reared at the insultingly relaxed, jaunty sway of her hips. He snatched her wrist before he thought, jerking her against him.
She does not fear me,the hiss of a thought slithered through his mind.She should. In so many ways could I make her scream and beg.
“Vykhan?” She rested, quiescent, against his chest, her head tilted back.
Was he a fool to wait for her? She’d accepted him, they were as good as wed by the old ways. His arms sparked with energy, the jolt firing through his blood. He could end this wary dance now, with her so subtly subservient in his arms.
Vykhan stroked her soft cheek, his thumb swiping a little too hard over her bottom lip, a growing thunder in his ears. Such a delicate female, really, under the training and fearlessness and ruthless ambition. A small thing he could break to his will if only he let himself be who he truly was.
Who he used to be.
He braced against the shudder of revulsion that ran through him.
“Vykhan, are you good?” Reign took his face in her hand. “Ere—what’s wrong?”
He released her and stepped back. Then stepped back again. “Dismissed.”
If his tone was brusque, she didn’t appear bothered. She studied him for another long moment, then nodded and strode from his office.
After the door slid shut he gasped, and made his way to his seat. Closed his eyes, and began to chant.
28
Reign stumbledacross the main floor.
“‘Scuse me,” she slurred.
Faces glanced at her, turned away in irritation. The few times irritation slid towards actual anger, a flash of her eyes suggested picking a fight wouldn’t be worth the trouble.
She held a tankard in her hand, a quarter of it already soaking her bottom sleeves. Some of the patrons in this fine, upscale establishment were from planets were people could actually shift into animals, and had the noses to match.
She must—andmust—smell foul.
A booth in a darkened corner beckoned. She squinted. A single person sat, half cloaked and hunched over his own tankard. Hands too broad to be female, plus the width of the shoulders.
The interesting thing about the shifter’s half cloak wasn’t that it was made from the skin of a rare earth species protected from hunting, or even that he bothered to wear a hood when the lights were dim and the air a thick miasma of smoke.
The interesting thing about the half cloak was the nearly invisible brown embroidery on the hem in hieroglyphs uniqueto a culture on a moon orbiting a planet several light years away, which didn’t see much trade with outsiders. This was a clan cloak, not a fashion statement.
