Royal House of Shadows Box Set: Lord of the Vampires\Lord of Rage\Lord of the Wolfyn\Lord of the Abyss (24 page)

Bernt looked more boy now than youth. She had him. A boy’s sense of adventure was universal.

“It’s a magical world out there.”

Torben’s eyes focused. “You’ve seen magic?”

She lowered her voice and leaned forward as if
she was about to impart a great secret. “I can do magic,” she told him.

“Show me,” he demanded.

Now she had him, too. She only had to draw out his curiosity until her missing magic reappeared.

She stretched her arms above her head. “Oh, I’d love to,” she told them. Was she going overboard with the reluctance lacing her voice? “But it seems I have to be on my way.” She aimed her steps in the direction of the door.

“Oh, but—”

“Maybe you can stay a little longer.”

She flashed them a smile. “You did say something about clothes.”

“And we have something that will take away the pain of your cuts and sunburn.” The boys left her side in a sprint, Bernt rummaging through an old wooden chest by the window, while Torben vanished into the bedchamber. They both returned with well-worn but clean pants and shirts. About three sizes too big. But if for some reason she was back out wandering the woods again, the rugged material of her new outfit would protect her from the sun and the tree limbs.

“Tell us about what you’ve seen,” Torben urged.

What would intrigue him besides her magic? Food always worked for her. “My favorite day is market day. All the tradespeople and farmers bring t heir wares and set up booths. Of course everyone
gives you a little sample of their food so you’ll buy. One walk down the aisle and you’re completely full.” Or so she’d been told by one of the maids who’d helped her dress. Her parents would never have allowed her to go to market day, so she had something in common with these two brothers who longed to experience something new and different.

“What kind of food?” Torben asked, licking his lips. “All we get here is porridge and meat. Burned meat.”

“To a crisp,” Bernt added. “Osborn is not a very good cook.”

“And if we complain, he’d make us do it. Can you cook?”

She didn’t exactly cook, but she knew how to direct a kitchen staff. “My favorite is stew.” That wasn’t a lie. She didn’t specifically say she’d cooked it. “Thick with lots of vegetables and fresh baked bread.”

Both boys closed their eyes and moaned.

“But there’s more than just the booths. There’s singing, traveling acrobats and minstrels and dancing bears.”

Bernt’s face grew angry. “Bears shouldn’t dance.”

She’d forgotten she was in Ursan lands. “It was only one time. I’d love to tell you more, but I
better change clothes and start walking before it gets dark.”

Torben slumped in disappointment. “I’d like to try that bread.”

Breena began to finger the frayed edge of the pants they’d given her. “I’d hate to put on these fresh clothes when I’m so dirty. Is there somewhere I can take a bath?”

She’d only suggested a bath to stall time, but now that she’d said the request out loud, Breena actually longed to be clean. To wash the grass from her hair, the dried blood from her knees.

“We usually just hop in the lake.”

“There’s no bathing tub?”

The boys just looked at her blankly.

“I’m guessing you wouldn’t have shampoo?”

Torben only nodded.

“Okay then, point me in the right direction.”

Bernt’s brow knotted. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”

“Technically I’ll be out of the house, so he can’t get mad,” she assured him.

“Oh, he can get mad.”

She just bet he could.

Osborn stalked through the woods, crashed though the tall grass and avoided the areas where the bears slept. Sweat slid down his back as he pushed himself to keep going. Away from his home and away from her.

He swiped at a branch closing in on his eye. Clearly he was going crazy. The isolation of his lonely life was making him want things he had no business wanting. What a fool he’d been. He’d clung to the woman who visited him as he slept. He hadn’t realized how much until what he’d been fighting so hard to hold on to had been ripped away from him. At first he’d try to force his thoughts to something else during the day. Keeping the area around their cabin clear. Ensuring there was enough food and clean water. Taking care of his brothers. But finally he succumbed, and he’d work to remember those dream moments with her throughout his day. Although, truthfully, it wasn’t very hard. Those moments drew him to his bed at night so he could dream.

But it wasn’t special like he’d thought. He’d never imagined her to be real; otherwise, he would have dredged hell to find her. The elemental pleasure that tore through him the moment he’d realized his dream woman slept in his bed, lay in his arms, was alive for him, rivaled only by the primal satisfaction of joining the ranks of Ursan warriors.

Only the woman in his dreams just wanted him to kill for her. Like all the others who thought coin would keep them clean from the dirty work. Special? What in the hell had he turned into?

The heat and exhaustion finally took him over. Osborn stripped off his shirt to cool down, and his
steps slowed. But the sun overhead beat down on him. He changed his course to the lake. How many times had he sought refuge from his thoughts, his responsibilities and the weight of the lives he’d taken in those chilly waters?

The splashing was what put him on guard. He sunk to his knees, reaching for the knife he always kept tucked in his boot. He quietly followed the trail of the intruder. They hadn’t worked hard to cover their tracks. Or to be quiet. It sounded like…

He shook his head, but no… It actually sounded to him as if…

Osborn heard the beautiful sounds of a woman singing. His muscles tensed and his cock hardened. He cleared the brush blocking his view, the weapon in his hand forgotten. There, swimming in the blue water of his lake, was Breena. Naked.

Her ripped and worn clothes lay discarded in a heap by the bank. He spotted the pants and shirt loaned to her by his brothers neatly folded and waiting for her on a rock. The long blond strands of her hair floated around her shoulders, billowing in the water like something otherworldly and beautiful. He took a step, ready to touch it, touch her, before he stopped himself.

She’d had him under her spell for too long.

Breena let her feet land on the bottom, standing waist deep. With a smile, she reached toward the light filtering between the leaves of the trees that
protected the lake he’d once thought idyllic. Now she’d invaded it, stamped her impression in this place that was once all his own. Sunlight glinted off the water drops rolling down her skin, and her wet hair plastered against her back, almost long enough to reach the most beautiful ass he’d ever seen.

This was how she was when he was alone with her in his dreams. She turned in the sunlight, beautiful and utterly delectable. Her nipples stood out between the wet strands of her hair, tempting him, drawing him closer. His for the taking.

Why was he the one walking away?

She was
his
.

He reached for the button of his pants, and they joined the clothes she’d tossed aside.

The water chilled his overheated skin as he chased her in the water. Breena turned toward him with a little gasp of surprise. Her cheeks were rosy from her exertion in the lake, her green eyes sparkling from the pleasure of her swim. He knew that pleasure. Now he would know another. In her arms.

She hadn’t left his lands. Surely it would be easy enough to find another mercenary to kill whomever she wanted dead. There were plenty after his neck. But she’d stayed. She wanted him. Now he needed to know why. Needed to know almost as much as he needed to find the pleasure her sweet
body offered. He grasped her chin, forcing her to look up at him.

“You put yourself in my dreams. Tell me the truth. You did it. You made me think of only you. Want only you.”

Her nod was slow in coming.

He squeezed his eyes shut tight at her answer. Even now, some small sliver of hope, desire that she wanted him for more than a sword, still ached in his soul. Idiot. He sucked in a large breath of air. Then his gaze met hers. She pulled her chin from his grasp and shrank lower into the lake, the water sloshing over her lips. She looked more afraid of him than ever.

Good.

He always hunted best when his prey panicked.

B
reena bit back the urge to scream. What good would it do, anyway? From the looks of him, he’d only laugh. Osborn seemed to be pleased by her growing unease. As if he grew stronger from her fear.

Then she just wouldn’t be afraid of him.

Ha!
Impossible.

Her first, and really her only, instinct had been to shrink away from him, and shield herself with the water. And she wasn’t exactly getting the reaction she wanted from him—to back away from her. Still, she wouldn’t
show
her fear of him. She was a princess, and one of her singular skills was acting. “Why are you so angry with me?”
she asked, deliberately keeping her voice low and laced with the confusion she felt.

“You ask that?”

The man basically roared at her. A pair of birds took to the trees, and the leaves rattled. No one had ever dared to raise their voice to her. Not once in her entire life. Breena found she didn’t much care for it.

“Your bellowing is scaring the wildlife.”

His lips thinned, as if he were forcing himself to calm. “I don’t bellow.”

She almost destroyed their uneasy truce by lifting an eyebrow and replying with something verging on sarcasm. Her mother would be appalled at that kind of tone, but she’d learned it from her brother Nicolai. Her parents would be shocked at some of the stuff her brothers shared with a girl who was supposed to be a gently raised bridal prospect. Another wave of homesickness racked through her. Breena’s throat tightened, but she quickly swallowed away the stiffness along with the sadness.

She needed this man’s help. Desperately. Everything else she’d attempted to do to gain his attention had failed. Well, not everything. Her body had his full notice. Breena felt herself warm despite the coldness of the water. But he’d already proved she couldn’t change his mind with kisses.
Neither did the logical approach of simply asking for his help.

But this was her warrior. There was no denying it. Why dream of him? Why did he dream of her, if he were not chosen for her?

Breena smiled sweetly. She’d get him to help her. Somehow and some way. “Of course you didn’t bellow. My apologies.” Even if she had to lie to make it happen.

His eyes narrowed. His gaze searched hers, obviously looking for signs of deception. Breena held her breath, willing every muscle of her face to remain slack.
I’m completely truthful.
His broad, tense shoulders began to relax.

Either he wasn’t very good at spotting deception, or he scared everyone around him so much, no one dared to lie.

Or maybe he knew she was lying, and enjoyed the idea of making her think he believed her every word. She could go around and around with conjecture but what she needed was action.

“I never meant to upset you,” she tried again.

The warrior made a scoffing sound. “You didn’t upset me.”

Yeah, he’d have to actually care in order to be upset. This hard man in front of her didn’t appear as if he cared about much.

“Hurt?” she offered, enjoying going farther
down the path of “upset” when he clearly expected her to go the opposite direction.

He crossed his arms.

“Sad?”

His expression told her she was pushing it.

“Angry?”

“Closer.”

“Enraged?”

“Closer still.”

But his dark brown eyes no longer held a trace of ire. The tension never returned to those big shoulders of his, and his hands hadn’t fisted at his sides. What do you know, the warrior in front of her had a sense of humor.

“Irritated?” she finally questioned.

“Irritated,” he said with a nod.

Yes, she just bet he was. If she’d ever been allowed to bet.

“I apologize if I irritated you,” she said formally.

Surprise flitted in his gaze until he promptly masked it.

Her mother wouldn’t have been able to find fault with her apology. Except the part where she was naked. Wet. And standing in front of what she assumed was an equally naked man with only her hair as any kind of covering.

A princess at the Elden Court was seen but rarely heard.

“Your power comes with marriage,” her mother
would often instruct Breena, “and the best marriages are arranged with a man who knows nothing about you. Can’t know anything about you because you’ve been silent your whole life. Conduct yourself right, and there will be absolutely nothing any potential bridegroom can object to. Nothing his ambassadors can negotiate over on the marriage contract.”

Even at the young age of eight, her mother’s tutoring sounded bleak and lonely. Breena hadn’t been very good at neutralizing her features then. The pout was already forming, the need to argue quick on her lips.

The memory played on. Queen Alvina squeezed her hand gently. “Once you command your own palace, your own kingdom, then you’ll be the woman you were meant to be. Until then, observe. Watch the servers and the cooks and the seam-stresses. Listen to their conversations, what concerns them. Learn to read the faces of the hunters and soldiers before they ever report to the king. Knowledge and understanding…that is how you rule.” A girl could almost be forgotten when she lived among the shadows. Instincts alone told her when someone’s words didn’t match their expressions, as often happened with the visitors and foreign dignitaries who spoke with the queen and king in chambers.

Over time, she’d also grown to know the
feelings and emotions of her people with only a look or from a few hushed whispers. Such as when a kitchen maid was sad or one of the young hunts-men was in love. Her family might be vampires or wield powerful magic, but she could uncover what most people wanted to keep hidden. Like the proud man in front of her. Breena suspected this man held a lot of secrets. And she wanted to know all of them.

And wasn’t she just bemoaning the dullness of her life not so long ago? Since then she’d been awakened, raced through her home in search of her brothers, been captured and brought before—

Something searing and painful lanced across her mind. Breena blinked back tears, either from the pain or from the memory, she couldn’t be sure.

Avenge.

Survive.

The two conflicting commands battled inside her head, until she doubled over, gasping for breath.

“Are you all right?” He grasped her arm with his big hand a little too painfully. Perhaps her warrior was unused to touching females. A tiny thrill shot through her. The warmth of his fingers soothed and actually stopped the commands echoing in her mind.

She looked up at him. A sense of urgency filled her, and she suddenly grew desperate to make him
understand. To
want
to help her. His touch could block the pain of her memories, could block the words echoing in her mind.

“What we talked about before…it’s all true. My magic led me to you.”

He made a scornful noise. His hand fell to his side, and the corner of his lip curled up in disgust. He didn’t trust her. She sensed the man didn’t trust many. What had made him, his life, so very hard?

But she’d seen him with his guard down.

In her dreams.

There he’d smiled. And laughed. And desired. And shared himself with her. The hard man in front of her now would hack off his own arm before baring his private thoughts, his soul, to anyone. Least of all to her. He probably viewed her as the woman forcing her way into his sleep, when he was most vulnerable. No wonder he didn’t trust her and was so very angry with her. But she had to make him believe her.

It seemed her very sanity depended on it.

Breena reached for his hand again, needing the warmth of his touch, even if it wasn’t freely given. “Please, you have to believe me. I didn’t even realize you were real until I woke up…”

“Nearly naked in my bed.” There was his growl again, but it didn’t hold the kind of anger as before, but something was definitely pent up inside him. This was more to the man she’d opened her eyes
to see earlier today. Much more to this warrior of her dreams. For some reason, that was even scarier.

She took a step backward.

“Good move.”

She held her breath.

“But too late.” He jerked her closer, and their bodies rubbed together.

Osborn lowered his head. The harsh line of his lips just an inch away from her mouth. Her gaze clashed with his. Fierce anger and hot desire burned in those brown eyes. An anger and desire she suspected simmered just below the surface of him.

“Use your magic on me now, Breena. Make me stop.”

“I…I can’t.” She didn’t want him to stop.

His mouth came down hard on hers, and her lips parted. His tongue pushed past her lips and found hers. Osborne’s thick arms wrapped around her, and he drew her into the heat of his hard body. Her nipples pebbled against the hairy roughness of his muscled chest, and Breena’s heartbeat kicked up to a runner’s pace.

He smelled of chestnuts and the earthy scent of the deep woods. Her dreams never detailed how wonderfully he smelled. Or how he tasted of the sweetness of apples, and something unrecognizable to her she could only label it as man.
Him.

Just when she was about to sink into heaven, Osborn took it away. His lips left, and he rested his forehead against hers. Panting. “Why can’t you make me stop?” he asked, pulling away to see her face. His fingers grazed the back of her neck, and sweet sensation tingled along her damp skin.

“My magic…it’s gone,” she told him with a shrug.

Disappointment flashed across his eyes before it quickly faded. Or he masked it.
Come on, Breena, you’re supposed to be good at reading people.

He placed the barest of kisses against her mouth, and her bottom lip trembled. “Then
tell
me to stop, and I’ll stop.”

How could she when she ached to be in his arms? To draw his mouth down to hers? To finally
live
every emotion and sensation the Osborn of her dreams promised right now in real life.

She shook her head. “I can’t.”

His fingers began to caress the skin below her ears, never thinking how sensitive she was there. She watched as the muscles lining his throat worked. Something dark and slightly possessive flashed across his face, turning his features stony. But this wasn’t scary. Oh, it was dangerous, and should be a warning, but it was so, so tantalizing.

He lowered his head, and this time she met his kiss, unafraid, and as an equal as when she lay on her bed and joined him in her dreams. The fear
and the hunger and the pain of the past few days faded from her mind. Osborne took over. The delicious scent of him filled her. The harsh sounds of his ragged breathing pervaded her ears. The taste of him on her lips…

Breena wanted more.

Standing on tiptoe, she twined her arms around Osborne’s neck, drawing him down as close as she could. She sunk her fingers into his long, damp strands of hair and she pressed her mouth to his with equal force.

Osborne groaned, the sound rumbling through his chest. His desire for her made Breena’s stomach feel hollow, the way it did in her dreams. His hands began running up and down her back, and when she teased his tongue with hers, his hands finally stopped their quest and grabbed her backside, lifting and fitting her against the hard swell of his arousal.

Breena shivered as a wave of powerful desire sped through her. This incredible sensation was what the chambermaids giggled about at night when they didn’t realize they could be overheard by their princess. What the young men of Elden fought battles over in the practice fields outside the castle walls.
This
is what drove her back to her dreams with him whenever she could. For the first time, Breena felt like she was living. Living
what
she
wanted to live. Every sense, every pore, every part of her body, ached for more and more.

A harsh gust of wind blew through the trees, rustling the leaves and startling the birds. A shadow fell across the lake as dark clouds barred the sunlight. An eerie chill poured over her exposed skin, despite being wrapped in Osborn’s arms.

He lifted his head, and she glanced toward the sky.

Something black and snakelike streaked over the treetops. Breena had never seen its like before, but her stomach tightened and grew queasy at the sight. “What is that…?” she began, but couldn’t continue. Another formed in the sky, aiming toward them. She began to shudder, every part of her rejecting the horrifying entity charging for them. The vile thing oozed evil. It swallowed the sanctity of this soothing place, returning only fear and pain and a promise of misery.

Osborn swore, and glanced behind her back toward the pack he’d discarded on the bank. “My weapon,” he whispered. “On my count, run toward it. But stay behind me.”

They wouldn’t make it. The bleak thought appeared in her mind out of nowhere. She shook her head, rejecting the hopelessness invading her soul. She knew the grim conviction in her mind had to be planted by the monsters in the sky.

“Now,” he urged, still keeping his voice low so as not to alert the creatures coming for them. He jolted in front of her, spinning her around, and aimed for the bank. This water had once welcomed her, took away for a few moments all the pain she’d felt since she’d awoken in the strange land. Now that lake seemed to turn hostile. Heavy water swirled around her waist, tugging at her feet and dragging her down deeper into the depths.

“Resist,” Osborn ordered over the harsh crashing of rushing water. “It senses your fear, but that thing has no power over you.”

Breena propelled herself, pushing for each step she took. She had to be slowing Osborn down, preventing him from reaching his pack. “Keep going,” she told him.

He shook his head, instead gripping her arm tighter, pulling her behind him. But it was too late. The tip of the entity began to wrap and wind itself around Osborn’s free arm. His breath came out in a pained hiss, and she felt his body stiffen.

He dropped her arm and shoved her away from him. “Go, Breena. Get out of here and warn my brothers.”

He turned and faced the creature, landing a blow with the kind of force that would have felled a large man. With one last burst of energy, she managed to drag herself onto the bank. The sound of the battle behind her was horrific. The creature
shrieked as Osborn rained blow after blow along its snakelike skin, but still the beast never fully released him. His face grew red as he fought with nothing but his brute strength. Vines grew from the snake creature’s sides. Osborn hacked at them with his bare hands.