Page 16 of All's Fair in Lion and War
Saul’s voice dropped to a deadpan. “I intend to kill Rivian. I intend to kill every warrior with him. He is prince of a tribe that was greatly feared on our planet. They are cruel and dangerous and do not deserve to live.”
“I hope you do kill him.” The words slid off her tongue so easily. She wanted Rivian to die. All of them to die. Somehow they’d stolen her from Tallix. Killed him? She couldn’t remember and it would eat at her soul until she did. She wanted her revenge.
“If you feel capable, we should leave now. They will be closing in.”
She nodded and rose to her feet. “I can go.”
He pulled off the coat he was wearing and handed it to her. “Wear this. You don’t have enough on for this weather.”
She leaned forward and grabbed the coat, put it on and pulled it tight around her body. Everything inside her settled in an instant as his scent enveloped her. Warmth and male and musk and pine and safety were all wrapped up in that coat with her.
It wasn’t fair that another male’s scent brought comfort. It wasn’t fair that she’d lost Tallix a year ago and couldn’t remember what’d happened. Tears welled again. She wiped them away quickly, but not fast enough to evade Saul’s ever-present watchful gaze.
He opened the front door and led them outside into a white land. The air was so cold her face hurt. It was so different from the jungles and deserts of Reylea. How could he stand this?
“What is this?”
“Snow. Frozen water that falls like rain. This is what the cold season looks like in this land.”
She shook her head, still not truly understanding, but accepting yet another truth about the world she’d woken up into.
He closed the door behind them and then the air shimmered and immediately she was face to face with a huge lion instead of an enormous mountain of a man.
He padded closer and she didn’t move at first, but he waited, giving her the choice. It was better this way. She needed to touch him. Thesoul callmade it that way. But not as a man. Not with the memory of Tallix in her mind. She couldn’t.
Lorelei reached a hand toward Saul’s snout. Her hand trembled.
Her fingertips grazed his black nose. The skin was so soft. So velvety and delicate.
Then a familiar sound happened.
A purr.
She remembered Tallix purring for her. How it comforted her.
Now this strange male did the same and it comforted her as well. So soothing against the painful and newly realized losses. She wanted to go back to the bed inside and stretch out and listen until she passed out, pretending she didn’t have a worry in the world.
Pretending that she hadn’t lost everything and everyone that she’d ever loved.
Maybe she could. Not go to bed. But maybe pretend. Just for a few seconds.
That everything was okay. That Tallix was at home waiting for her. That she wasn’t on a brand new world hunted by her mate’s brother. That she didn’t hurt.
Maybe.
For a few moments she could breathe the cold pure air surrounding her and believe that all was well.
5
Lorelei
Saul stepped down from the wooden platform in front of the structure he’d called a cabin. Into the white stuff. The frozen rain—snow.
It was nice to know what it was called, though if she’d been here as long as he claimed, she should’ve already known about snow.
But that piece of information was missing as well.
Everything before today was a massive blank space in her mind. It frustrated her and made her angry and she wanted to rip Rivian to shreds for what he’d done to her life. He’d separated her from her mate.
