Page 6 of The King’s Man (The Kingdom of the Krow #3)

~ JANN ~

She didn’t speak for an hour.

I kept catching myself grinding my teeth and forced myself to relax, only for my thoughts to trip back to the fear in her eyes when she couldn’t get free of me and I’d find my jaw aching with that tension again.

She sat her horse stiffly, her chin high. But there was something fragile in her that hadn’t been there when we left. I prayed it was the awareness that she was not safe in the Neph camp without me or Melek at her side. Prayed she truly understood.

I took no joy in frightening a woman. I wanted females smiling and rolling their hips as they walked, throwing coy looks at me over their shoulders when they left a room. Not this hissing, spitting rage and distrust that I had not fucking earned.

But still… she was still bristling. And I had humbled her. It would be better if she knew I understood the feeling.

“You are a better fighter than most men I’ve met outside of the Neph,” I said slowly.

She frowned, then turned to look at me over her shoulder, her eyes narrowed like she was looking for the trick.

I shrugged. “When I said you weren’t safe, that you needed my protection, I want to be clear: It’s only in the face of my people. Among your own, I’m certain you’re a force. And I am grateful for your assistance during the battle.”

She stared at me for a long second, then turned, shaking her head and muttering again.

I heard the word monster and the words burst out of me like a dam giving way.

“You know, if I were to measure you by the legends of your people, through the filter of the myths, I’d name you a witch,” I spat.

“Go ahead and try.” She didn’t turn to look at me, but that blade appeared in her hand again, gleaming in the low light under the mists.

“That’s not my point, and you know it.”

“I know nothing according to you,” she snapped.

“Diadre, that’s not what I—”

She drew her horse up and turned to glare at me, pointing at me with that blade. “You want to be measured on your own conduct, rather than the myths of your people?” she asked.

“Yes,” I ground out.

“Very well. I have watched you flirt, tease, and cajole your way through every serious conversation I have attempted to have with you. You call yourself a man of honor, yet every time I think I see an ounce of humanity in you, either you turn right back into a jackass, or you drag me from my horse and threaten me.”

Her eyes blazed. “ That’s the behavior I measure you on, Jann.

It has nothing to do with your legends or your people.

You are arrogant, dismissive of me as a woman in uniform, and so fucking cocky that I’m certain one of these days you’ll be so busy entertaining yourself that you’ll miss something important and put all of us at risk—and that’s if you aren’t hiding some fucked up, evil scheme behind the grins and flirting.

Your eyes still haven’t changed, in case you were wondering. ”

“I would be more than happy never to flirt with you again,” I muttered.

She huffed, but something in my chest squeezed as soon as the words were on my tongue.

I wouldn’t deny that something crackled in the air between us.

But I’d been on the road of war and travelling with women before—though not female fighters.

Thrill and threat were the bedmates of sexual chemistry.

Rage and irritation were easily morphed into sexual tension—I knew that from experience.

Yet, there was a niggle of unease in my chest every time I told her how un interested I was in her. The same pinch I felt when I lied. It bothered me, because the moment I asked myself why, my thoughts returned to that moment I’d been trying to ignore.

That moment she touched my chest and my body sizzled.

Something happened. I felt it. But the implications were… horrifying. I shied from them. Still, I couldn’t deny, I was both drawn and repelled by her.

She was infuriatingly stubborn, and had far too high of an opinion of her own abilities—though she had proved to be a worthy ally in the battle.

Still. Her assets were speed and strategy.

An excellent gain in the chaos of a battlefield.

But she would have been taken down by any one of those men if they’d been thrown into a sparring circle one-on-one.

Short of outright fleeing, or a lucky opening for her knife—she was quick, I’d give her that—she’d be dead the moment any Neph warrior got his hands on her, by virtue of their brute strength.

They could snap her neck with one hand.

I saw it in my head then, the number of times she might have been taken. How precarious her position was in the Nephilim camp, and it made my bones quiver.

Diadre shook her head, contempt and bitterness painted on every feature.

I didn’t remember what I’d said, but whatever it was, she’d chosen not to continue the conversation.

She turned her horse and let it trot a few paces ahead before slowing to a walk again.

Then, moments later, she passed behind a rise of trees and rocks as the path followed the base of the foothills, and for a moment she disappeared from sight.

The thread of panic that twisted through my heart for a second was confusing.

Instinctively, I turned, searching for her, and found myself staring through the trees and land to my right.

I couldn’t see her, I hadn’t rounded the corner yet.

But somehow I knew… I knew. My body knew: She was at the end of that gaze.

If I were to freeze time and follow that line as the crow flies, I’d find her on it.

I was drawn to her like magnets to steel.

The thought left me breathless.

I closed my eyes, determined to shake it off and refocus, but removing line of sight only made the sensation stronger. I could find her without seeing her.

That made no sense unless she had magiked me, or we shared a—

With another curse, I heeled my horse into a trot and whipped around that corner in the path, breathing easier when the trees opened up on the other side and she was visible again.

Relief.

I felt relief that she was under my eyes?

That made me more nervous. Pushing away the crowding thoughts, I focused on what I knew: God would never give me a mate because the moment I had offspring the clock began ticking towards my death.

No male in my line had lived more than a handful of years beyond the birth of their first son. And for that reason, I’d worked very hard to ensure I never impregnated any woman, despite the fact that I’d been lover to many.

And they’d all chosen me willingly, I thought with a sneer at Diadre’s overly straight spine as she ignored my scrutiny.

I had been very careful to avoid pregnancy, afraid I would die without seeing it coming if a woman I met in a village or a bar became pregnant without my knowledge and successfully carried and gave birth to my son.

Unlikely. But possible.

Diadre seemed like a woman with the physical strength to do that. Which only made her even more dangerous.

We couldn’t be bonded. It would be a curse on both of us.

Unless that was exactly what God wanted?

Is that why my eyes didn’t change? Because I was destined to taste the life I had always wanted, but have no time to savor it?

My blood ran cold at that thought—against my will, my mind conjured images of Diadre, her body thick and full of my babe, her cheeks full and hair glossy…

and then her laying in a sickbed, but those fuller cheeks now pink, her hair stuck to her temples, her body curled around a swaddled babe and smiling, first at his perfect, tiny face—then at me.

Her eyes sparkled as she extended that calloused hand, reaching for me. “Come meet him. Come meet your son, Jann.”

My heart leaped in my chest.

I cursed. Unable to bear the thoughts, I shoved my horse forward, passing Diadre at a point where the path widened, and kicking him on, into a gallop. I needed the wind in my face and my body active because I couldn’t… I couldn’t give in to that impossible dream.

But the images would not leave me.

Come meet your son, Jann…

It was the worst kind of torture.