F. E. Heaton by Winter's Kiss

Author:Winter's Kiss
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2012-07-02T13:43:45+00:00

Chapter 10

Winter stared ahead, always ahead. Since leaving the barn at nightfall, he hadn’t looked at Nika once. It was a conscious decision. He had fallen asleep shortly after making love to her, slipping into blissful dreams that had felt like torture when he had awoken to realise that they weren’t real. Reality was far harsher and far gloomier. He moved with the motion of the horse as it walked along the lane, following the tyre tracks of the vehicles that had passed this way and had compressed the snow into ice.

His mind ran over his moment with Nika on a continual repeat. It replayed every action and feeling he had experienced this morning, only this time, it was sheer torture. What had he been thinking? What she had proposed had been nothing but a sweet fantasy. He had known that this would affect them. He couldn’t touch and taste her and not be affected by it, not be hurt. Leaving her would have been hard enough without having kissed her or felt her body against his, now it seemed impossible and he didn’t know whether he had the strength to go through with it. He craved the taste of her and it wasn’t just his hunger speaking. Her blood was sweeter than any he had tasted before, sweeter because she gave it freely, because she wanted him to drink from her. Never in his thousand years had anyone willingly given him blood.

Closing his eyes, he cursed his weakness and turned his face to one side, ashamed of himself. He was a commander, a Watchman of Validus, a trusted soldier. Many of his kin had commended his pride and sense of duty. His lord had rewarded his strength with the position of commander, a rank that few held.

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He no longer felt strong, proud, or dutiful. He felt weak. He hadn’t been able to protect Nika. He couldn’t take the risk that she was willing to by standing up with her and telling the world to go to hell if it wouldn’t allow them to be together. He had betrayed his family with his affection for Nika, unchanged as it was now that she was a werewolf, but that no longer meant a thing to him. There was only one constant in his world, one thing that ruled him.

He loved her.

He still wanted her to be his.

But above all else, he wanted to protect her. To do that, he had to leave her, even though it hurt him to just think about it. He wasn’t leaving her so he could play the dutiful son to his bloodline and repay the debt he owed his lord. He was leaving her because it would ensure her safety. If he could find a way to be with her without exposing her to the danger of the Law Keepers, then he would return to her. Deep in his heart, that was his greatest desire. No matter how long it took him, he would find a

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