Kisri: ... and the Beast, Book 2 (8 page)

The satisfaction was nothing compared to the tenderness that suffused him. “That’s it, darling. Nothing to fear in this submission.”

“Just to you.” She bit his jaw, a quick teasing nip followed by a low laugh. “As long as you earn it every time.”

He would, with every breath. “Every time.” He punctuated the promise with a hard thrust.

A moan escaped her, unchecked, as she spilled forward. Onto her elbows at first, then lower, muffling her noises against her forearm as the sharp angle of her hips let him take her deeply.

Deep, and every thrust hit a spot that made her clench around him. Ennon gritted his teeth and slowed to a careful, intense rocking grind. “Every time, love.”

Her pleasure spilled free and he felt it, her giddy joy and her sharp relief, emotions that flashed through him in the moment of total acceptance. The ache inside him vanished, replaced with
her
, prickly and warm, then wild as her muffled cries filled his ears.

His self-control couldn’t stand against such an onslaught of ecstasy. One more thrust and his body tightened, spilled with a pulsing, helpless pleasure that made his head pound with the echoes of both their hearts.

He pressed his forehead to the back of her shoulder and panted for breath. “Kisri?”

Turning her head, she rested her cheek against the rumpled blankets on her cot. “Is that what it felt like for you the first time?”

“Yes.” There were no words for it, no way to describe the completion of it.

She didn’t try. Instead, she made him a promise that warmed his heart and brought peace to his soul. “When the army has disbanded, come to the palace. I’ll marry you.”

He said it because the words felt good on his tongue. “You’ll be my wife?”

“Until you cannot stand another moment in my presence.”

He laughed. “That will never happen.”

“So confident.” Smiling, she twisted up to press her lips to his. “We’ll talk again in fifty years or so.”

“A hundred?”

“So you plan to chase me into the next life as well?”

“I’ve been chasing you from the beginning, Kisri. It’s become something of a habit by now.”

“Then perhaps I’ll let you catch me from time to time.” She arched lazily and all but purred, the satisfied rumble of a lioness who had been tamed…for now.

He would never tame her completely, and that suited Ennon just fine.
She
suited him, perhaps more than she knew, and he would gladly use every one of the hundred years she’d promised him showing her how much.

Epilogue

Sweat stung her eyes. Her arm ached, fingers very nearly numb from their desperate grip on her practice sword.

Across from her, Mal held his own weapon easily. “Your fingers are going to fall off if you keep clutching the hilt like that.”

If she admitted that it was the only way she could keep it in her grasp, he might call a stop to their sparring. Not that there would be shame in that—she’d lasted several rounds against the High Lord himself, for all that he’d pulled his more punishing blows. But the nervousness twisting in her belly would only be relieved by physical exhaustion.

So she eased her grip—just a little—and launched her attack.

Mal met it easily. “If you’re too tired to spar, we should stop. You could injure yourself.”

“I’m not going to injure myself,” she ground out between clenched teeth. But after he parried her next three swings with equal laziness, she had to admit that being too tired to spar and being too tired to spar with a warrior trained from birth might be two entirely different things.

Besides, her pride was beginning to sting as wickedly as her eyes. “Very well,” she panted finally, lowering her sword to the dirt. “I admit defeat.”

He plucked the dull blade from her hand and shook his head. “Never. This was practice, you know. No one loses here.”

“I always lose,” she countered as she began to pace, stretching her legs out so they wouldn’t grow stiff. “But I don’t mind so much. There’s no shame in losing to someone of your skill.”

“You flatter me, cousin.” But his tone made it clear he had no doubt her words were truth.

Arrogant ass.
Even as she thought it, she knew the words as a lie. The only man who could hope to best Malrion in single combat was Ennon. And
he
was the reason butterflies had taken up residence in her midsection, tormenting her with their wild, giddy dance.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow, he would reach the palace and put an end to the tedious month of worry and longing. If missing her family had been heartache, missing the man whose magic had twined with hers was a pain that grew day by day until every sleepless night was an agony of loneliness.

“He’ll be here, Kisri.” All traces of teasing humor had faded from his voice. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you. He would let nothing stop him.”

“Because we’re mated,” she whispered. “I didn’t know it would hurt so much, to be apart. How do people tolerate this, over months and years? All of your soldiers who went to war and left mates behind…”

“Everyone sacrifices in times of war,” Mal said matter-of-factly. “You were lucky, yes? To discover your mate in a time of newly minted peace?”

She had been lucky, fortunate in ways that she unspooled in her mind a hundred times. If she hadn’t escaped their uncle… If her charm hadn’t broken in Ennon’s camp, with one of his trustworthy soldiers close enough to summon him quickly. If she hadn’t found the courage to ask him for something insane at a time when sanity was returning to their people.

So many
if
s, and the biggest one of all stood before her. “Thank you. Thank you for forcing the family to give me freedoms, and for letting me choose the man I’ll spend my life with. Thank you for everything.”

Mal’s eyes went suspiciously bright. “You’re welcome.”

Her resolve broke, and she threw her arms around her cousin and hugged him. “And promise me that you’ll spoil your own daughters just as much. I want unmanageable nieces.”

“That will be a long time yet.” But his arms came around her, and he hugged her tightly.

“Looks like I missed sword-fighting practice.”

Kisri jumped so quickly she knocked her forehead into Mal’s chin. A curse spilled from her lips as she whirled and found Ennon standing there, a growth of beard on his jaw and his pack on the ground.

She was in her worst leathers, covered in sweat and dust. Her hair was no doubt frightful, with flyaway strands stuck to her face. All her careful plans crumbled into ash. No soaking in her tub tonight, no dressing herself in silks and satins and pretending, if only for a few hours’ time, that she had it in her to be a great lady.

No, Ennon had come home to find her every bit as grubby and uncivilized as she’d been in the midst of an army camp, and now there would be no pretending. Her feet carried her two steps forward before she checked herself, unaccountably shy. She had to wet her lips twice to speak. “Ennon.”

“Come here,” he rasped, moments before sweeping her off her feet. His smile turned to a laugh, and he pressed his lips to her ear. “I missed you.”

Nervousness broke in a rush of relief as he silently filled all the aching, empty places inside her. Warm magic, twisting and beautiful, until she wanted to laugh at how glorious it was to be a lioness in the arms of her mate. “I missed you too.”

About the Author

How do you make a Moira Rogers? Take a former forensic science and nursing student obsessed with paranormal romance and add a computer programmer with a passion for gritty urban fantasy. To learn more about this romance-writing, crime-fighting duo, visit their webpage at
www.moirarogers.com
, or drop them an email at
[email protected]
. (Disclaimer: crime-fighting abilities may appear only in the aforementioned fevered imaginations.)

Look for these titles by Moira Rogers

Now Available:

Red Rock Pass

Cry Sanctuary

Sanctuary Lost

Sanctuary’s Price

Sanctuary Unbound

Southern Arcana

Crux

Crossroads

Deadlock

Building Sanctuary

A Safe Harbor

Undertow

Wilder’s Mate

Sabine

Coming Soon:

Cipher

Hammer Down

A curse can erase her from his mind, but never from his heart.

Sabine

© 2011 Moira Rogers

…
and the Beast, Book 1

After three years at war, the High Lord of the Forest returns to his lands, a victorious wolf leader intent on claiming his mate. Instead Ciar finds an empty bed and a court with no recollection of the woman he loved. Following her long-cold trail proves far easier than facing what awaits him at the end.

Sabine’s first instinct is to beg her beloved to leave. The High Lord’s mother hired a witch to curse Sabine, desperate to wipe the lowborn wolf from her son’s mind. But the spell worked too well, and Sabine has vanished from the thoughts of everyone who sees her. Including her own family.

The edges of his memory already blurring, Ciar and Sabine must race to find a way to reverse the spell. Yet every searing moment together is not enough to stop the curse’s inexorable progress. His only chance is to bind Sabine to him too tightly to be forgotten, before she disappears once and for all.

Warning: This story contains cruel betrayal, destined love, vile curses, smoldering reunions, wicked deeds between wanton shapeshifters and a happily-ever-after worthy of any fairy tale.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Sabine:

When the innkeeper had gone, Sabine wrapped her arm around one of the bed’s four posters and smiled ruefully. “He probably thinks I’m another man’s wife, you know.”

“Perhaps.” Ciar closed the door and turned the giant brass key for good measure. If Nadia arrived and found the door locked, she would leave the food, knowing better than to disturb him. “Were it mine to choose, you’d be naked already.”

Her breath hitched. “You are the High Lord, leader of all the wolves. I imagine everything is yours to choose.”

“Is it?” Oh, what a dangerous game he played—but what could brand her in his memory more fully than the sight of her lost in ecstasy? “You never bent to me unless it pleased you, sweet Sabine. And you never let me forget the power you could wield from your knees.”

She toyed with the end of one blonde curl. “Was that what enchanted you, Ciar? That I never gave a damn about your birthright? That I only wanted you?”

Enchanted him, bewitched him. “It’s a heady thing for a lord, to be craved as a man.”

“Yes, I craved you.” Her fingers trailed from her hair to the laces of her bodice. “I dreamt of you. Your hands on my body.”

He couldn’t have the triumphant homecoming he’d dreamed of, but he could have her. He backed up, dropped onto a padded chair and reached for the laces on his left boot. “Show me,” he commanded. Not the High Lord to a subject—a man to a woman. A strong wolf to his mate.

“You will not touch me?” She seemed torn between relief and disappointment.

“You will touch yourself at my command. Your hands, my will.” He smiled at her as he tugged his boot free, a wicked smile with a feral edge she would recognize. He had taken her so many ways, and this was just one more. A game to be played, until the pleasure made the rules irrelevant. “Unlace your bodice, my love.”

She swayed as if weak-kneed, though it took her only a moment to steady herself. “Say it again,” she whispered as she unknotted the lace.

“My love.” He traced her features, studied the sweep of her pale brows and her high cheekbones, how color flooded her cheeks when he watched her. It was impossible to believe that magic could erase this beloved face from his memory when the years and endless bloody battles had not.

Her bodice loosened, and she let the dress billow to the floor before reaching down to gather her gauzy shift in both hands. “I remember your smiles,” she whispered. “The way you held me. Even the way you would stroke your thumb over the back of my neck as you rested your hand on my shoulder. Everything. And you’re beautiful.”

She kicked off her slippers, stripped the shift over her head and stood there, naked and waiting.

Three years had changed so much and yet nothing. She was still gorgeous, lush and desirable. But her curves were more pronounced now, her hips more rounded, her breasts fuller. He ached to touch, to trace his fingertips over every inch of her. To taste her. To possess her.

Instead he stripped off his other boot and reached for the fastening on his leathers. “I’m not as beautiful as you are. No one could be.”

Her gaze lingered on him, a caress that she echoed by skimming one hand lightly over her own skin. “I don’t believe you. You’re…Ciar.”

“Only with you.” His sturdy vest hit the floor, and he nearly snapped the ties on his shirt in his haste to pull it over his head. “Kneel on the bed. Facing me.”

She did, moving gracefully. When she knelt, her knees parted wide, he could see the wet glisten of arousal. He remembered how it felt to slide deep into her cunt, to have her hot and tight around him.

His cock strained against his pants as he reached for his belt. “Lick your fingers.”

Sabine touched her mouth, and her tongue snuck out to slick over her fingertips. “Can I see you?”

“Soon.” Not too soon, though. He slowed his movements. “I would take your nipple between my lips. Tease you until your back arched, then use my teeth.”

She held his gaze and caught her nipple between her fingers. “How hard would you bite me?”

“Until you whimpered, and I knew it was close to too much.”

She twisted the hard peak and moaned. “Never too much, Ciar. Never
enough
.”

He dropped his belt and reached for his pants. “Now the other one.”

Her back arched as she squeezed her other breast. “You don’t even need to touch me, do you?”

Oh, he needed to touch her. Needed it more than his next breath—but he’d never pain her with that knowledge, wouldn’t break the spell and make tonight
not enough
. “Do you want to see how hard I’ve grown from watching you?”