Consort by Kim Knox

Author:Kim Knox
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Ellora's Cave Publishing Inc.
Published: 2012-04-26T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Five

I grabbed a couple of towels on my way out of the bathroom. Stalking across the bedroom, I struggled to wrap one around my body, but only succeeded in tangling myself up in the soft, white material. I swore and lashed the bloody things to the floor, kicking them for good measure.

The towels landed with a soft thump on the tangled sheets of the bed.

Warm, damp hands landed on my shoulders and I jumped. “Those evil towels,” he murmured. He wrapped a soft towel around my back, tucking it under my arms and over my breasts. His hands slid down, gently rubbing the towel against my wet skin.

Tears leaked again. Damn him. I didn’t want his humor or his kindness. Affection from Jager made everything worse. “Is this what you do when you’re with your escravo? Treat each fallen queen as if she still has some remnant of her power?”

Jager pressed his lips to my shoulder, the light prick of his teeth pulsing fresh need through my veins. His tongue curled over the shallow wound. He sighed. “I freed them. My new year’s gift to them and to you.”

“You freed them?” My heart twisted and the bloody man had me crying again. “Really?”

Jager turned me to him, his hand smoothing the towel soft down my spine. His gaze fixed on my mouth and a muscle jumped in his jaw. “We’ll never have the bliss of children, Tate.” His hand stilled and his gaze flicked up, the shine to his eyes telling of his own pain. He let out a slow breath and began a slow stroke over my waist, my hip. “And I will always curse my mother and Zara for robbing us of that but I can make it, and keep it, just…us.”

I wanted to believe that. Everything in me, my beast included, didn’t want to share Jager with anyone else. Then reality reasserted itself. “Until the new Queen orders you to remove the threat of yet another reiver.”

“Sons deal with that threat, not brothers.”

“That’s not the law, Jager.”

The fire of his beast flickered in his stern gaze and my own beast stretched in my gut, reminding me why I’d hunted him in the first place. Strength of will surged around him. “It will be.”

A smile twitched across my mouth. “You’re sure you can force the Queen into doing what you want?”

Jager snorted. “Zara isn’t strong. Not as strong as the Queen should be.” His hand framed my jaw, his thumb playing with my lip. “Not like you.” He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “My mother has done all of our race a disservice by denying you.”

“Flattery?”

“Maybe…” But the hardness to his face, the barest touch of a smile on his mouth said that he wasn’t humoring me. He stepped back. “As you said, it’s time to welcome the new year.”

I snatched up one of the towels on the bed and rubbed it hard over my hair. The pain diverted me. I padded to the window to stare down to the lawns, lit now by the soft, golden glow of lamplight.

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