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Thea undid the first strap, then the second, refusing to look at him as he gazed down at her. Gods, she was beautiful, even more so with fury rippling off her. Lips pursed, she removed the protective plates from his torso, her fingers brushing the bare skin of his collarbone.

He heard her intake of breath at the same time he felt the fire of her touch, sending him almost feral with the need for her. A year without her had been a lifetime.

But her face was a mask of cold indifference. She dropped the plates onto the floor before removing his gauntlets, which were in pieces anyway.

‘There,’ she ground out.

Wilder gave his shirt and pants a pointed look. ‘You don’t want to help me out of the rest of my clothes, Princess? You used to like doing that.’

He was met with a razor-sharp glare. ‘Figure it out.’

Wilder shrugged, surveying his tattered clothes. ‘Fine.’ And then he tore straight down the middle of his shirt, ripping the ruined fabric away completely, the manacles jangling as he did.

He didn’t look at Thea as he worked the buttons of his pants, but he could feel her gaze like a brand on his naked skin, could hear her breathing turn shallow as he slid the material down his thighs.

When his trousers were off and he was naked but for his chains, he turned to her, letting her see every inch of him.

Her mouth parted, her cheeks flushed, and he swore that beautiful body of hers tensed as her legs clenched together.

‘Nothing to hide from you, Princess,’ he told her, before he stepped into the tub and sank beneath the hot water.

CHAPTER SEVEN

THEA

It had been a year. A year since she’d seen that glorious body, sculpted by the Furies themselves. It was every bit as chiselled and powerful as before: golden skin, broad, round shoulders, a torso corded with hard muscle, and a V-shaped dip of sinew that pointed straight to his —

Thea swallowed hard as Hawthorne’s impressive frame disappeared beneath the steaming water and his head tipped back to rest on the lip of the tub, his eyes closed. Forgetting herself, she let her gaze follow the dark ink swirling across the warrior’s skin, noting the scatter of new scars cutting through the pattern, a sight that made her chest ache involuntarily. She remembered tracing that tattoo with her fingers, with her tongue, the flash of memory sending a ripple of longing through her.

‘You’re welcome to join me.’ Hawthorne didn’t even deign to open his eyes. ‘If staring’s not doing enough for you.’

That wrenched her out of her trance. ‘I’d sooner claw my eyes out.’

‘That’s not the reaction I recall.’

‘Enough,’ Thea snapped, her face heating.

‘I’ve told you before, it’s never enough, Princess. You damn well know it.’

Thea’s toes curled in her boots, but she kept her voice flat, betraying nothing of the desire coursing through her traitorous body. ‘I thought you wanted to explain yourself? Get a fair hearing, or so you said.’

‘You didn’t strike me as being in the mood to talk… Something else, perhaps? To ease the tension?’

Thea ground her teeth. ‘I know what you’re doing,’ she told him coldly. ‘It won’t work.’

‘What’s that?’

‘You want me to lose control —’

A smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. ‘That’s one way to describe it.’

‘Of my magic, you bastard. You want to report back to your masters about my powers? That ship has sailed. I’ve got nothing for you.’

‘Magic doesn’t just vanish.’

‘What would you know about it?’

‘More than you, Apprentice.’