Page 32

Khaos

S he’s driving me crazy.

But I can’t let her see that.

I spent the night watching her sleep. She was restless. At some point, I saw her shiver, so I covered her with a blanket and then folded mine and placed it under her head. She didn’t wake up.

She almost died.

That thought loops in my mind.

And I would have totally lost it.

I have to keep my distance. Inside me, Fury grumbles and growls.

Now I watch as she goes about her morning routine. She drinks, eats, and talks with the new girl—who I don’t trust at all.

Amber is still hurting, though she’s trying her best to hide it.

But we have to keep moving. There’s a good chance more shadowguard are about, so we need to get somewhere safe. And find some answers. And maybe my brother.

I make a decision. I stride toward her. She looks up as I approach and raises her brows. “You’re riding with me today,” I say.

She searches my face. I have no clue what she’s looking for, so I keep my expression blank.

“What do you mean, ‘riding with me’?” she asks.

“You can sit up front, relax. I’ll hold on to you. You can sleep.”

“Yeah. Right. That sounds very relaxing.” But I can see her considering it. Her hand goes to her side, and she winces. God, I wish Sheela were here to take the pain away. That’s another reason to keep moving—maybe this crone will have some healing magic.

But that reminds me that once we get there, I have decisions to make. My orders are to bring the Crone to my father without delay.

Will I?

Amber opens her mouth, and I’m sure she’s about to come up with numerous reasons why she shouldn’t ride with me—why it’s a stupid idea. “Don’t argue about this,” I say. “According to Thanouq, we have two more days of traveling. It’s happening. Come on.”

I hold out my hand. She stares at it for a second, then holds out her own. I slide my palm into hers, and the familiar tingle runs through me. She feels it as well. I lead her to where my horse waits, ready to go.

“What’s his name?” she asks, stroking his black neck. “I’ve never heard you call him anything.”

I frown. “I don’t know.” It never occurred to me to ask Brown if the animal had a name.

“That’s terrible.” She looks thoughtful for a moment. “Let’s call him Mayhem. You can be Khaos and Mayhem.”

It’s actually a good name for the animal. I don’t say anything but just place my hands on her hips and lift her so she’s sitting sideways in the saddle. She looks down at me, then swings her leg over. I put my foot in the stirrup and mount behind her.

She shifts forward as I settle into the saddle. There’s not a lot of room, and I can feel her against every inch of my body, can sense the heat of her skin. Her hair brushes my chin, and I breathe her in. This morning she smells of the ocean—the salt tang of a sea breeze. Freedom. Warmth stirs inside me. I do my best to ignore it.

I lean my head toward her ear. “Are you okay?” I ask, and a shiver runs through her. Part of me revels in the idea that she’s not immune to me.

Not good.

Distance, remember?

She just nods, and I nudge Mayhem into a walk.

For a second, she wobbles, and I slide one arm around her, my hand splaying across her belly and pulling her back against me. She lets out a squeak.

“Relax,” I murmur.

And she does. As the tension seeps from her body, she sinks into me.

Thanouq is riding in front of us, the new girl behind him. My eyes narrow on the man. Just what went on between them that night they spent together? I’m guessing not much—she was too hurt. But all the same, the possibilities torment me.

Mine.

But she isn’t mine. And I can’t let her be. My grip tightens.

We keep the pace slow, so as not to jolt her. The country we are riding through is unchanging—vast, flat, and lifeless.

“You said your wolf likes me,” she says at one point. “What does that mean? How do you know?”

“He thinks you smell nice.”

“Ugh. What sort of smells does a wolf like?”

“When I was younger, I was… imprisoned for a while—”

She stiffens in front of me. “Why?”

“It doesn’t matter now.” Which is a lie but not something I want to go into. “It wasn’t too bad for me, but it drove Fury crazy.”

“Fury? That’s what you call your wolf? Sweet.”

“Khendril named him. Anyway, we would dream in that place. Dream of the things that reminded us of freedom: the forests, the mountains, the ocean. You smell of those things.”

“Really? All of them?”

“Yes. He likes it. It calms him. Makes him happy.”

“I’m glad.” She’s silent for a moment, then asks, “Does it make you happy?”

“No.” It makes me afraid, reminds me of a time that nearly broke me—something I can’t risk again.

We don’t speak much after that, and I think she dozes.

I am in torment. Her warm body, soft against mine, her small firm ass pressing against my cock… It’s driving me crazy. It’s all I can do not to thrust my hips against her. But I want her to relax with me. To get the rest she needs. And I doubt she’d find the evidence of my arousal particularly restful.

Fury is doing his version of a rumbling purr. He’s happy. This is the most peace we’ve known in many years. Normally, it’s a constant battle to keep him under control.

As we finally halt for the night, she stirs against me. Up ahead, Thanouq has already dismounted. I give in to the temptation that’s been building inside me all day and ask, “Did you kiss him?”

“None of your business.”

A low growl rumbles in my throat, and my grip tightens. “Did you?”

She shrugs. “Maybe he kissed me, but it was a very short, quick kiss.”

I grit my teeth, my fingers digging into the soft flesh of her belly.

“I can hardly even remember it,” she adds.

I swing off the horse. Then I take her by the hips and help her down. Her feet touch the ground, but I don’t let go. Instead, I back her gently up until she’s pressed against my horse’s side. Then I curl one hand around the back of her neck, while the other slips under her T-shirt to rest against her waist. I wait for her to tell me to back off, but she doesn’t. I tilt her head up and stare down into her vibrant green eyes. She doesn’t move as I lower my head, and I’m drowning in the wildflower scent of her. Inches away from her mouth, I whisper, “Tell me to stop.”

She gives the tiniest shake of her head. It’s enough, and my mouth takes hers in a hard, searing kiss. My body hardens as she leans into me. And I know I have to stop now. Fury whines as I pull away. “Now we’re even,” I growl. “The next one will not be so short.”

She blinks, as though coming back to herself. “In your dreams,” she mutters.

“Probably,” I reply, then turn and walk away, ignoring the stares from my fellow travelers.

We camp that night on the open plain. There’s no shelter and no wood for a fire. So we eat cold food: hard bread, hard cheese, and some small, shriveled apples. I’ve had worse while out on campaigns. After we’ve eaten, Thanouq passes around another bottle of brandy. I watch her as she takes a tiny sip. Her gaze catches mine, and she looks away quickly. She’s sitting opposite me, between Thanouq and Zayne, which makes me twitchy and Fury restless.

I have to be better than this.

Then she looks straight at me. “Thanouq told me your people believe they are gods,” she says. “Are you really a god?”

There’s a challenge in her voice, and the question takes me by surprise. It’s not something I think about much, since I spent most of my life on Astrali, where my people are all descended from the gods. I shrug. “Many believe so.”

Beside her, Zayne says something quietly, and she replies, “We’re just discussing whether Khaosti is a god. Apparently, a lot of people believe he is.”

Zayne sniggers. Clearly, it takes more than being a god to impress him. But then he doesn’t like me. He wants Amber for himself, and that’s not happening.

She turns back to me. “That was a lame-ass answer,” she says. “What do you believe?”

I give another shrug. “What is a god?”

“And another total cop-out. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you might be a little embarrassed by the whole god thing. But to answer your question, I suppose a powerful, supernatural being who creates worlds and stuff like that.”

“Then we could be classified as gods. We’re powerful, supernatural, and if the stories are true, then this world and others were created by our forebears.”

“Wow, we are in illustrious company.”

Thanouq chuckles, and she turns to him and asks, “What happened after you escaped the slave camp? How did you get from there to here?”

She’s clearly continuing a conversation they’d had that night. And I find myself intrigued by the answer, even though I hate the asshole. I know so little about this world, and that makes me feel… guilty. It’s not an emotion I’m familiar with. I once asked my father why the army didn’t fight in Valandria. He told me it wasn’t our war, and we were doing enough by sending the guardians. Then, he sent me and the army to put down an uprising in the north, and I was too busy fighting to think of a world so far away.

Thanouq reclines back on his blanket, leaning on one elbow. “Once we were free, they told me I was heir to Valandria. Heir to a dying shit hole of a world. A world abandoned by the gods.” He casts me an almost challenging look, which I totally ignore. “It was a shock,” he continues, “and not a good one. Therion and I had planned on going far away and finding a place where we could live without anyone’s interference. We had it all planned. We’d live in a treehouse and hunt and fish…”

“Good luck with that,” I mutter. I’d had similar dreams before Khendril had disappeared and my life had turned to shit.

“It was only ever a dream but one that I never got a chance to fulfill. Because now I was supposed to put everything to rights, get back my crown, save my world.” He snorts. “I was eleven years old.”

“What did you do?” Amber asks. “Sorry I’m being so nosy, but it’s fascinating and better than just sitting here thinking about everything that’s wrong with the world. I want to understand.”

“That’s okay. I don’t get much chance to tell my life story to pretty girls.”

I snort at that one, and she grins. Thanouq is flirting with her, and she clearly likes it. Fury growls, and I don’t shut him up.

“So tell,” she says.

“Well, saving the world seemed too big a task for a kid, so I started small. We went after the slavers. We attacked the slave trains, freed the slaves, then moved on to the camps. Our numbers swelled, and before long, I was the head of an army. But we had no real long-term plan. Then, when I was fifteen, I was bitten by the shadowguard during an attack on one of the camps. I would have died, but a man saved me.” His glance flickers to me. “Khendril. He brought me to the Crone, and she healed me.”

He pauses and takes a sip of brandy. “Between them, they educated me or at least started the process. I’d never had any schooling. The only thing I’d learned was how to be a slave and then how to fight. They taught me to read and write and about the history of our world. It was quite a revelation.”

“In what way?”

“I’d always thought my relatives were great leaders. It turns out they were pretty much all assholes.” His glance goes to me again, but this time he’s grinning. “Probably assholes like Khaosti’s. But then it’s believed the ruling family is descended from the Astralis. So I guess we’re part gods as well. That’s why I survived the bite, because I was part Astrali. Khendril also taught me how to control my beast. He was a good man. The best.”

Yet he walked away from me and never looked back.

“But you eventually went back to your army?” Amber asks.

“Of course. But this time with a plan. Khendril told me to take back Zandar Aurion—that we needed control of the city.”

Which he’d clearly accomplished.

“So you’re getting there? You’re saving the world.”

He shakes his head, his expression somber once more. “No. While Lucifer has been missing for thousands of years, his followers grow stronger and the shadowguard multiply. Most of this world is under their control. Without outside help, Valandria is lost.” He sighs, then gives me a searching glance. “Khendril told me not to give up hope. That there was someone coming who would fight Lucifer. Someone destined to destroy him.”

My gaze turns sharply to Amber. Could she be the one he was referring to? She doesn’t look too happy with this turn in the conversation.

As if sensing her discomfort, Thanouq says, “Enough stories for one night. Tomorrow we have many miles to travel.”

I wait until she is wrapped in her blanket, her eyes closed, her breathing even. Then I shift, allowing Fury the freedom of the night. I feel his need to run, but he stays within sight of her, prowling the edge of the camp. It’s dark, but the moon has risen, and the light is bright. At one moment, I sense I’m being watched and find her eyes open, tracking me. Then she smiles and goes back to sleep. Fury pads over and lays down next to her, inching closer on his belly until his paws touch her side and he can breathe in her scent. Then we sleep.