Page 52 of Taste of Thorns

When the lesson is over, I follow her back to the safety of her tower, and then I linger outside, peering up at her narrow window until eventually the light extinguishes and I’m left alone in the cold.

My gaze falls to the frozen earth and I find her faint footprints in the snow. So small. Just like her. Delicate, preciousand yet all along she’d possessed this strength and this power within her.

I press my boot over her footprint and it swamps it completely. My foot, like the rest of me, is nearly double her size.

I consider what it would be like to succumb to this relentless need inside of me and take her in my arms. I’d crowd her with my frame. I’d crush her with my weight.

I flip back my head and screw up my eyes.

Why do I want that? Why do I want it so badly? Why, when I don’t deserve it? Why, when I’ve let her down? Why, when I would only hurt her?

Why is my cock hard imagining it? Imagining sinking into her warm wet heat?

Could she even take me? I’m bigger than Dray and Beaufort. Bigger than the professor too. It isn’t only my magic that could cause her harm.

The shadows roar inside me. It’s too dangerous to linger here outside her tower with thoughts like this infecting my mind.

I stride away, my breath ragged clouds in the freezing air, and slink into our tower, retreating into my room and locking the door behind me.

I don’t bother to turn on the light. I don’t want to witness my shame. Instead, I yank the gloves from my hands and collapse down onto the bed.

Immediately, my shadows race around me, swirling and spiraling, surging and seething. But not with rage. Not with their usual torment. With a white-hot desire.

I yank down my pants, my hard cock bobbing upright. I grip it in my fist as the shadows spin in a tormented lust.

I groan, imagining her. Imagining what it would be like to touch. What it would be like for her to touch me.

I let myself imagine. Just this once. Knowing it can never be.

Chapter Seventeen

Beaufort

My little chat with the professor yesterday has confirmed to me that Dray is wrong. I saw that look in his eyes. There is no way he could fake that. He loves Briony and I don’t believe he’d hurt her – even if, for some perverse reason, he was working with Bardin.

It also confirms what I’ve suspected all along. The Hardies are behind all this; the more I dwell on it, the more certain I am, and somehow they’ve co-opted the Madame into their plans.

I’m still dwelling on it the next morning when we step into the gymnasium. The Hardies are already there, goofing around and being their usual obnoxious selves. An audience of admiring girls giggling as they perform burpees one handed, lift weights and flex their muscles.

They’ve already replaced their thrall, a pretty girl with thick black hair and a sparkling new collar. She’s hanging off Kratos’ arm, feeling his biceps and swooning. It has jealousy swirling in my gut. Fuck, what I wouldn’t give to have our thrall dressed in her collar, by my side, for all to see.

It has my blood boiling. Why the hell did I let Tudor persuade me to play nice with these jerks?

I scrub my hand through my hair.

Because I have responsibilities. Because, unlike Dray, I can’t succumb to every pent-up frustration and desire for revenge. I have to be sensible, measured, mature.

But fuck, is that difficult sometimes, especially when I know what they’ve done, when I suspect I know what they’re doing, when Kratos is standing there with a great big smirk on his ugly face.

“Fucking Hardies,” I mutter to Dray whose eyes are focused their way as well.

My bond brother cracks the knuckles of his right hand and cricks his neck to the left. Then he’s strolling across the gymnasium in their direction.

The responsible, measured, and mature thing would be to stop my erratic bond brother. But Dray isn’t the only one feeling pissed off and irritable without our mate around. A tussle with the Hardies – an excuse to scare them a little and reassert our dominance – might be just what I need.

Thorne hasn’t arrived at the gymnasium yet, which is probably just as well. He’s unusually quiet – and this from a man who rarely speaks. I suspect, underneath that silent façade, he may be seething, and I want information from the Hardies, not guts, blood, and teeth. Not yet anyway.

I force that thought away as Kratos yanks his thrall’s hand from his arm and stands tall. Around him his bond brothers, Prentice and Nathan, do the same and the gaggle of girls, sensing the coming danger, melt away. The tension rolling off the Hardies’ bodies is palpable and understandable after the beating Dray gave them – one I pretend not to know about.