Page 21 of Taken By Fury
“Stick close and they won’t bother you.” Great, he’d just invited trouble to swim next to him. “And you will find towels on the shore.”
“Oh my god, seriously? I don’t suppose you can summon me some coffee?”
He sighed. “Hurry and clean up.” He raised his palm from the water and offered her a bar to wash with.
“I cannot get used to the fact you can just make things appear.” She grabbed the bar and started with her hair. “Is there no end to your resources?”
“There is.” He needed to stop staring because the swell of her breasts bobbing above the waterline made him even harder. He thought for a moment of jerking one off but knew that would not deflate him one bit. Fuck his life and her for stepping into it.
“What can’t you do?”
Fuck you like I desperately want to.He moved further away, hoping it might help. “There are limits. If we are too severely injured, then our power will also be restricted until we heal.”
“I see. Catch.” She tossed the bar at him. “I’ll get out now.” She turned away, then looked at him over her shoulder. “It is safe for me, right?”
“Yes. Your coffee will be waiting.”
“Oh, thank you!” She swam toward shore while he quickly soaped up as he watched her naked ass walk up the bank and grab a towel. He knew he shouldn’t have looked, but it seemed he had no common sense left when he was around her. This blood bond sucked, and it was likely the dumbest damn thing he had ever done in his existence.
* * *
There wasno mistake that he watched her. His stare as she exited the water burned right into her skin and took off the morning chill. She quickly dried, then wrapped the towel around her, gathered her clothes and headed back to the tent where she could dress. By the time he made it back, she was standing by the fire, drying her hair and drinking a steaming cup of coffee. He had clearly given her extra time to be alone.
“This coffee is fantastic. How do you summon stuff? I mean, it has to come from somewhere.” Her scientist brain was trying really hard to wrap itself around this kind of magic.
“We pull from places we know.”
She finger-combed her hair, pleased it was drying nicely from the fire’s heat. “So, where did the coffee come from?”
She bit her lip as she stared at his naked chest. This demon was sex standing with a towel around his waist, and it was obvious a goddess created him. Each muscle was carved to hardened perfection. Then there was his marking. A thick pale-black line that started at his left collarbone and trailed down the breastbone before it branched into two lines that ran along his ribs, then cut to his waist.
“A small cafe in New Orleans.”
She blinked, then looked down into her mug. “I thought it tasted familiar. But what if you’ve never had something before?”
He shrugged. “Then it makes it difficult to conjure, but most of us have been alive so long there isn’t much we don’t know about.”
“Hmm, I suppose that would be true. So, let me make sure I understand. If I wanted to… let’s say conjure up a famous dish from eighteen hundred France, I would not be able to since I’ve never been there, nor did I live then?”
“Correct. You’d have to stick to current day France.”
“I think I got it.”
He gave a nod. “I’ll get dressed unless you would like to study my marking further?”
She looked up at him, her entire face hotter than the flames that burned over the logs. “Sorry, I noticed that all the men have markings very similar.”
“Yes. When we reach the age of five hundred, we are sent to endure the Omagadona. It’s a rite of passage. If we win, we become one of Uuna’s warriors and our marking turns black. If we lose, we become Concosa.”
“That sounds dreadful. How long before you must go?” The thought of him becoming Concosa made her want to hurl.
“I have about a hundred and fifty years before I will be summoned. I would like to think by then Zolar will be dead and this fucking war over. Now, I will change then we can have a quick bite and head out.”
“Okay. Are we packing up camp, or not?” She shouted as he entered the tent. She had no idea how far away they were from their destination.
When he stepped back out, he was dressed in a pair of lightweight, green hiking pants and a white shirt. “We leave camp here and hike out. I figure it should take us two hours. We need to take some provisions, though, which I have already taken care of.” He pointed to a nearby tree where two smaller packs lay.
She shook her head. “I don’t think I will ever get used to all this magic stuff.”
