Wicked Reckoning (Guardians of the Bones) by K.J. Jackson

Author:K.J. Jackson [Jackson, K.J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: AWD Publishing
Published: 2023-10-22T18:30:00+00:00

{ Chapter 16 }

Magnus took another sip of the brandy, staring at Daphne.

Hell, she was a goddess—her dark hair loose around her shoulders, her skin glinting in the moonlight. The sheet she’d wrapped around her naked body falling off her right shoulder, just barely covering the nipple of her right breast. Her lips still plump from the way he’d held them between his teeth hours ago.

Just looking at her, he was hard as stone, ready to fill her body with more of his seed. Ready to have her writhe under him, those delicious lips parted, screaming as he made her come.

She wasn’t wrong—this thing between them—their bodies did react to each other in some primal way he didn’t care to explore.

It was why he needed to escape her after every time he came deep within her body.

She was a fireball that was going to scorch him to ashes if he let her, and neither one of them could afford that. Not with what he had planned and how badly it could turn for him.

It wouldn’t be fair, promising her the world and then dying before he could make any of those promises come true. Plus, he didn’t think he could do it—truly let her into his life. Love her. That would only lead to pain. His. Hers.

He respected her too much—how she crawled out from the life she was dealt and made her own way in the world. A kindred spirit in that regard. And the last thing he wanted her to feel was that she was a whore. Not with her past.

He could never let her feel like their child was a misbegotten mistake.

But to avoid that, it would take the truth.

He shifted forward, offering her the glass. She took it, taking a healthy swallow, her face cringing at the fire burning a path down along her tongue.

She handed him back the glass and he set it on his thigh, twisting the tumbler to catch the shards of light through the brandy.

He didn’t need to lift his eyes to know that her gaze was intense on him.

Best to get on with it. It was what she was owed, knowing she could be carrying his babe at that very moment.

“I told you my half-brother—Bloodwater—was disowned by my father as illegitimate.”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t tell you the why. Bloodwater’s mother—my father’s first wife—was his mistress for not but six months before she became pregnant with Bloodwater. Whether they had ever been truly married, I do not know. I only know that they lived together as husband and wife for many years until she died. Then my father married my mother.”

“You’ve never mentioned your mother.”

“No.” He shook his head, taking a swallow of the brandy. Anything to stiffen the spine when his mother was mentioned. “She was not the warmest woman and she died when I was eight. Honestly, I never really knew her. I knew my governesses, but I rarely saw my mother—my father either, until after she died. She never wanted to see me—I was never allowed in the dining hall, or in the drawing room or library.

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