Sword and Lute by Cate Rowan

Author:Cate Rowan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cate Rowan
Published: 2012-11-25T00:00:00+00:00

As dawn lit the horizon, Amara woke slowly, feeling the rise and fall of Taso’s chest along her spine, comforted by the muscled arm draped over her. She closed her eyes again and sighed, wanting to imprint this in her memory.

His warm breath drifted over her ear and he squeezed her hand, still clasped in his. “Pleasant dreams, I hope?” His baritone rumbled deliciously through her.

“I don’t remember them,” she said, rolling over to face him. “I was probably too… um…”

“Sated?” he offered, with a wicked gleam in his eye.

Oddly shy, she dropped her gaze and it came to rest on his healed arm. She touched the scar, still awed by the transformation.

“You did that,” he murmured. “With love—the sweetest gift.”

Her fingers stilled, and she curled them back into her palm. Loving you is my sweetest mistake.

“Something wrong?”

She shook her head, but kept her face averted.

“Our meeting was fortune at work.” His gentle fingers brushed a stray lock off her brow, caressed her cheek. “Fate. Even Kismet.” He smiled then, his eyes shining over the jest—though since his brother was immortal too, maybe it was true.

And maybe her father was right, and she couldn’t change her fate, no matter how she tried. Just like her mother.

Taso stirred and stretched. “It’s morning, and now that I’m healed, I should go make myself useful. Hunt some more food for us, perhaps.” He rose, splendid in his unashamed nudity.

It took all her will to smile back at him with barely a tremble in her lips, concealing the breaking of her heart and the fresh abyss in her plans.

Last night she’d been her mother’s daughter… With the romantic sky of stars above them, the future had been silenced. All she’d needed was to feel. To bask in Taso’s light, to live in that moment with him.

But this morning, under the bright and unforgiving rays of the sun, she recalled her father… His pain, his wasted talent. His years of yearning for an immortal who’d left him behind.

All because of love.

Amara stayed quiet as Taso wrapped his toga about him and donned his sandals.

Finally, looking perplexed, he touched her cheek. “No regrets about last night, surely?”

“Of course not,” she lied. Feeling entirely too exposed under the morning sky, she wriggled into her gown and yanked on her sturdy walking boots, the ones that had carried her mile upon mile.

Wouldn’t it be better to depart now, before Taso could? Before she fell harder for him?

Her immortal mother had left her and her father had passed away. She couldn’t bear the loss of another loved one, or the suffering that followed in its wake.

Her father was the best man she’d ever known, but how could she let herself repeat his mistake—squandering his true gift while he waited in vain for his lover to return?

Her gaze caught on her backsack.

“Thinking of going somewhere?”

Her head snapped up; she felt the guilt smear her face before she could conceal it.

A breath, then two. “Where?” he asked, his voice tightly wound.

Her gaze plummeted to her boots.

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