Page 43 of When Roses Burn

Before I could say anything, he seized my wrist and pulled me through the woods toward the camp. When I dug my heels in, he didn’t slow as he pulled me onward while my shoes created rivets in the earth.

When it became clear he’d drag me onward if I fell, which I nearly did when I tripped over a fallen log, I gave up trying to resist him. Instead, I jogged to keep up with him.

I didn’t know what he planned, but it wouldn’t be good.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Knox

My teeth ground together as I sat behind Briar on Magnazius. The large, bay stallion plodded through the woods toward the heart of Wildwood with the surefooted ease of an animal who’d done this many times before.

Briar sat stiffly before me, fury radiating from her as her bound hands rested on the pommel I’d tied them to. The vine from the harem remained in my pocket; I should have used it to bind her, but I didn’t.

Instead, I’d taken a piece of rope from my saddlebag. I couldn’t bring myself to touch that vine again.

Or is it that you couldn’t bring yourself to place it against her skin?

The question irritated me. I shouldn’t give a shit what happened to this woman, and I truly did hate her, but I couldn’t deny that panic propelled me into the woods when I scented the acute tang of her terror.

I’d spent years hating her and plotting to make her pay for her betrayal, yet the idea of losing her had propelled me to move far faster than I ever had before.

You didn’t do it because you still care for her; you need her alive for the curse.

I’d told myself this often since I’d tied her to the horse, yet I couldn’t rid myself of the memory of my lurching heart when I realized she was in peril. And as that memory irritated me, her familiar warmth beckoned to me.

Over the years, countless women and men had fucked the beast who could get hard for them, but none ever aroused the man… except her.

I’d long since discovered Briar was the reason for my suffering, but to this day, I’d never experienced desire for another woman. I wasn’t sure I ever would, and that, like the beast, was one more cross for me to bear.

I deserved all those crosses and then some, as did the woman before me. The warm, supple, beautiful woman with dirt streaking her cheeks and her chin raised haughtily in the air as she stared straight ahead.

Her carefully coifed hair had come mostly undone during our journey. My fingers dug into my thigh as I restrained myself from brushing it away from her delicate face.

She still smells of strawberries and eucalyptus.

The familiar scent was alluring, haunting… and loathed.

Still, I couldn’t stop myself from inhaling it deeply as it brought forth memories of simpler, happier times. Then, like mist in a breeze, they drifted away to be replaced by the memories that followed them.

My fingers dug deeper into my thigh as my other hand constricted on the reins. This feeling of wanting her and hating her was tearing me apart.

As soon as she fixed the disaster her kind created, I’d decimate her. Trying to ignore the scent of her, I focused on the trees ahead, but I couldn’t shake it as it seeped deeper into me, blocking out all other smells.

We were almost to the road and, once there, it wouldn’t take much longer to arrive at the castle. I couldn’t wait to get away from her, but I wouldn’t let her ride with anyone else, not even Lyra.

“It looks like it’s going to rain,” Briar murmured as the thinning trees revealed more of the gray sky.

Was she fucking with me more, or did she really believe that? From what I knew of Briar, she was fucking with me, but her expression was so guileless it had me questioning myself, and I didn’t like it.

“It always looks like that,” I told her.

Her head tipped back; in doing so, she exposed the delicate column of her throat. How many times had I traced that vulnerable area with my fingers and lips? Too many to count, and each time was more thrilling than the last.

And at the base of her neck, on the right side, the small scar of my marking had been revealed by the shifting of her dress on her shoulder. Only one of the punctures from where I’d pierced her flesh with my fangs was revealed. It hadn’t disappeared, but a shifter’s bite never faded from their mate.

The animal I was supposed to become made that mark; if the beast were to mark her, it would look different. Deep within me, the beast made a purring noise too like pleasure for my liking. I’d never heard it from the creature before and didn’t want to hear it now.

The other animal left that mark, but I clearly recalled its instincts compelling me to mark her as mine. That would never happen again; she may be my mate, but I’d never claim her again.