Wifed by the Warlord (Curvy for Keeps Book 5) by Annabelle Winters

Author:Annabelle Winters [Winters, Annabelle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rainshine
Published: 2020-09-29T16:00:00+00:00

7

TAUR

My heart pulls like it wants to escape, and I stand beneath the light of the desert moon and watch Scarface’s three-truck convoy fade into a cloud of dark dust. Tina’s camera feels heavier than a boulder in my hand, and the weight of that image presses down on my soul, creating a mark that will remain with me for all days.

Here is the test. I knew it would come and now it is here. How foolish of me to believe that I had passed the test when I sent her away without giving in to the pull of my loins. Now I am faced with an impossible choice. Devan’s men number past a hundred, and although I storm into battle without body-armor and somehow the bullets still miss their mark, I cannot take on a hundred men on my own. Even if I could, it would not guarantee Tina’s safety. Devan could slice her throat before I ever got to her. In fact she may already be dead . . . or worse.

I jam my fist between my teeth to hold back a roar that might wake the dead and certainly rouse my warriors. I turn and survey the tents, my gaze following the serpentine rise of smoke from the evening’s fire. I know my men would follow me to the underworld, march past the gargoyles of the netherworld, storm the battlements of hell itself if I command it. But how can I order men into a battle for my own selfish needs? How can I send scores of men to their deaths to save one woman?

I pace the cold sand as the moon watches me from her perch above the dunes. I consider offering myself to Devan, but that would serve no one. Devan’s word can no longer be trusted, and clearly he does not want to negotiate. He wants revenge for the way I broke him and his men, humiliated them in front of the other warriors. He wants everyone to see that I am not a god but a man, that although I do not bend to gold I am still vulnerable to that other great temptation, that other need that lives in the flesh and keeps the soul bound to the dirt even though it yearns to rise beyond.

I pace like a caged leopard, my head hot beneath my helmet, hair matted and moist even though the night is dry and cool. Then my blood chills as the answer slowly forces its way into my consciousness, and I shake my head and grit my teeth as I fight back the sickening solution:

“I have to turn my back on her,” I whisper, cold dread seizing my throat as my airways constrict and my vision blurs. “That is the final test. If I yield to the temptation of trying to save her, everything else will unravel. The gods knew I would not yield to the simple temptation of lust, and so they posed a greater challenge. After all, rescuing an innocent from evil appears to be a heroic task.

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