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War

Idris

I dris regarded Anya in the dark. Her hair was mussed, fire-bright eyes intent. Her mouth—with its perfect curvature, her upper lip ripe for biting—was parted slightly in wait. With the blankets draped over her as they were, her fulsome hips and the angle of her waist were accentuated—an undulation he longed to traverse. Her springlike scent was a haze in the room, punctuated by the sharp pheromones of her desire.

There would be no just for the night if he gave into temptation. How could there be?

You should never underestimate me , Anya had told Idris on the first day of their quest. Perhaps this was his punishment for not taking her warning more seriously.

From the moment she had come into his life, Idris had felt off-balance. That should’ve been omen enough, his weakness like war horns announcing the army on his doorstep. As he stared at her from across the pillows, he felt like he was staring out across the battlefield at his opposing general.

He didn’t stand a chance against Anya. He never had. His sense of right and wrong was teetering on the edge of her blade, not his. Dread swirled through him like a wintry wind, but it did nothing to extinguish the inferno of desire building in his body. The pounding of his heart became his marching beat, sending him into the fray.

“Anya…” Idris said cautiously. “Be serious.”

“I am serious. Forget the repercussions, forget Fate. Think only of us alone in this cabin together.” Anya smiled like she had him at sword-tip. “What would it look like for you to not hold back?”

His fingers curled against the bedspread, clutching the fabric, aching to clutch her instead. A war was raging inside him, too—Idris against Idris. Because of course he wanted her, wanted this . He’d brought her to this cabin to give her a respite from the cold, but he’d forgotten the single bed; he’d been dismayed when he saw it, when faced with a night trying to resist her.

Even now, it took all his willpower not to grab her and pin her to the mattress and take her until she was pliant and shaking beneath his hands, moaning and begging him for more. The problem was that he was spending all his willpower resisting his own urges, and didn’t have any strength left to deflect hers.

And she knew exactly what she was doing with her goading conversation.

“In your wildest, most debauched dreams,” she dared him, “what would you do to me?”

The question was like a physical blow, cracking his armor. Idris swallowed thickly, his lower abdominals tensing. Would it be so wrong to forfeit the fight? It was almost laughable how quickly she’d gotten under his skin.

But his fortifications were in place for a reason. His was a dangerous Order, but it wasn’t just his sense of duty or the hazardousness of his Oath keeping him from reaching across this bed—it was the damned Mirrors. The threat of a fraught future. Idris took comfort in knowing the abominations’ influence on his Fate, but it wasn’t a guarantee.

And it wasn’t just her Mirror they’d have to contend with.

To be with Anya was to endanger her, and he’d promised her that he wouldn’t bring her harm.

“Someone has to be the voice of reason, here,” he rasped. “Us, together. It’s more dangerous than you realize.”

“The world is more dangerous than I realize,” she argued. “Can’t it be more pleasureful, too?”

Idris tried to draw a steadying breath, but all it did was intoxicate him on the scent of lemon and roses and her . He stared into her eyes, hoping she could see in them the direness of their potential union—see past what his Oath would not permit him to say.

Anya reached out and slid a slow, tantalizing finger over the sensitive skin of his neck, right along his Oath tattoo. “What would you do to me?” she pressed, breaking through his final defenses with her wicked words. Her voice went husky. “What would you do, if you knew that I ached —”

“I would put my hands on you,” he said roughly.

“Where?”

He growled, exasperated.

“Where?” Anya demanded.

“ Everywhere .”

“Be specific,” she taunted, breathless. “Would you touch my neck? My breasts?”

“Anya,” he said—no, pleaded —giving her this final chance to change her mind.

She narrowed her eyes at him, seeing the truce he was offering, the opportunity to turn back. Then she said, “I want to hear you say it.”

Cursed Fates be damned, that was it . Battle over.

In this war, her victory was his, too.

“I would worship you so thoroughly that the Fates themselves would scorch the realm with envy,” Idris said.

“Show me.”