Page 152 of Wolfkissed
“You did! He doesn’t want me. Doesn’t like my scars.”
Halting, he releases my hand and bows his head, a vein leaping in his jaw. His hands clench into fists. “He said that to you?”
My mouth trembles. “Yes.”
“He’s a fucking bastard.”
“He’s only being honest with me.”
“Honest?He should be rotting in a dungeon. He expected a child bride,” Valen growls. “Not a beautiful, strong woman. He wanted a child to control and probably fuck, because he’s a monster. A sick fuck. The kind I’d kill without a second thought.”
I cross my arms over my chest. “No, Valen?—”
“With my bare hands. Or claws.”
“It was an arranged marriage,” I whisper. “Of course he knew he wouldn’t get to marry me for years.”
“I saw the look in his eyes,” Valen says. “He’s disappointed because you’re older than the girl in the painting. He said so.”
I let out a shuddering breath. “There is no point in discussing this. Let’s go meet your friends.”
After a long moment, he sighs and resumes walking. We head toward a small grove. The day is bright but bitterly cold, and he shrugs off his jacket and places it over my shoulders.
That’s so… Valen. So courteous. Gentlemanly.
I hate how my eyes burn at the gesture, how I want to throw the jacket off me and scream in rage. How I want to clutch it to me and inhale his scent, let it soothe me.
There is another effect to him giving me his jacket: Valen dressed only in tight black leggings and boots, with a loose white shirt on top, is a walking temptation. A walking sin, a walking crime waiting to be committed.
Is it a crime to want him if I’m not married yet?
Gods, that’s not the sort of questions a betrothed lady asks herself day in and day out.
Then he says, “I didn’t lie to you, I… I made a mistake.”
“What do you mean?”
“I told you what I want in a woman. What any sane man would want. You are all that I want, Princess. Everything and more.” We stop right before the grove. He lifts a hand to my face, places two fingers under my chin, and tilts my face up. “You are the most beautiful woman I have ever met. The most beautiful I will ever see. Fuck, princess, you have to believe me. I?—”
“Am I interrupting something?” a male voice drawls, and I jerk back. “I hope I’m interrupting something, because, oh man,the tension? The yearning on your faces? I’d pay good money to watch this shit.”
The man is handsome in a rough-hewn way, his intense gray eyes dominating his face. Pointed ears poke out of his shaggy blond hair, and his clothes are worn and dirty, his boots scuffed and soft.
“Who… who are you?” I whisper, even as it dawns on me from Valen’s scowl and lack of violence that this must be one of his friends. Another alpha wolf, from the looks of it.
“Kon.” Valen rubs a hand over his face. “Fuck.”
“Nice to see you,” the man says with a grin.
“Rosamund,” Valen gestures, “this is Konstam. Konstam, meet Rosamund.”
“Such a pleasure.” To my surprise, Konstam bows to me and reaches for my hand. He bows over it as if to kiss it, but his lips never touch my skin. “Valen wasn’t exaggerating about how beautiful you are.”
“Mind yourself,” Valen growls.
Straightening, Konstam winks at me. “I’d say he’s a tad possessive. What do you think, my lady?”
I can’t help but grin back. “Just a tad.”
