A Return to the Ashes by Nadina Popoviciu

Author:Nadina Popoviciu [Popoviciu, Nadina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781637302897
Publisher: NewDegreePress
Published: 2021-04-24T10:18:33+00:00

TWENTY

JASPER

* * *

Tracing the white scars that laced over his unwrapped forearms, Jasper tried yet again to see if he could replicate the feeling Onyx had given him when she’d accidentally brushed up against them a few nights before. Nothing. They remained white, but didn’t glow and didn’t send the same pulsing energy tingling through them and into his veins as she had.

Was this a side effect of accidental skin-to-skin contact? It couldn’t be. He’d probably had some sort of accidental brush with other people like that, whether in grappling or sex, but he was sure he’d remember that sort of feeling if he’d had it before.

And he realized that he had on that first night with Onyx. He’d attributed the strange feeling to just an intimate sensation, and perhaps it was. But the second time he’d ever felt that way had been this accidental brush with her, not in grappling. What about her triggered such an intoxicating response? As he tightly wrapped his forearms in the silk, tying them up past his elbow this time to avoid slipping, he resolved to find out.

The day was a casual and slow one. Jasper had some of his men bring in hay bales from the local stables and paint targets on them for archery practice, stratifying the practices by difficulty, as usual.

“Any soldier who hits to satisfaction on the ground will graduate to shooting from the second-story windows,” he instructed, pointing to those windows that faced the targets in the courtyard. “And once you’re good on the second story, you may go to the third.”

Meanwhile, the more experienced archers kept guard in the castle’s archer towers, with the order to practice a bit by aiming at the hay bales they’d placed on the ground there, taking turns running up and down the stairs to the tower and out to the bales to retrieve the arrows. Jasper figured it wouldn’t hurt to have them brush up on their skills as well, especially since it was unheard of for people to dare to attack the castle in peacetime. The job could get boring, so they might as well make themselves of some use.

Back in the courtyard, however, he observed Onyx. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary with her. She remained focused on refining her skills as usual. Jasper couldn’t help but watch her gracefully pulling the string back over and over as if it were a mindless instinct, those dark eyes narrowing as they fixated on the target, those slender fingers swiftly releasing the arrow to lead to a thwang.

To no one’s surprise, she had graduated to the third-floor practice within the first hour. Jasper knew she would remain there at the window for the rest of the day, or at least until he ordered her to do something else, but he didn’t want to send her to the archers’ windows in the castle. He wanted her here, so he could observe her more closely. But there was no reason to have her down

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