Page 83 of Accidental Fae (Fae War Chronicles 1)

Water sloshes behind me as his hulking form turns. Warm fingers brush my hair aside, putting it all over my right shoulder before tracing the tender skin. “I am going to carve something much worse into him when I next see him,” he snarls.

Tears burn my eyes. “What is it?”

“You needn’t worry about it.” His fingers touch my skin again, and the pain subsides, warming beneath his gentle pressure.

“What is it?”

“It’s gone now.”

“But what was it?”

He doesn’t say a word, doesn’t utter a single syllable. So, gathering up all the courage I can, I wrap an arm over my breasts and turn around. Pupils dilated, he stands in the water that reaches just above his abdomen, given our severe height difference.

It drips from his body, sliding over the muscled planes, and I’m helpless to not follow each droplet as it travels down, down. Before I see something I likely will never unsee, I force my gaze up—and then instantly wish I would have continued down.

My lips part, my sharp intake of breath a lust punch to my own gut. He stares at me, gaze so bright it’s near-blinding. His gaze drops to my mouth then back up as his chest heaves with each labored breath.

“What was it?” I ask again, this time locking gazes with him.

“Something that never should have been put on your body.”

“Rafferty?”

He closes his eyes, and his nostrils flare with a deep breath. “He branded you with the crest of our family.”

My eyes widen, and I sway in the water. Rafferty reaches out and grabs my elbow quickly to keep me from toppling backward.

“I thought he’d just cut me. I didn’t realize—”

“You are not his, Ember.”

“He married me.” My eyes fill. With the immediate threat to our lives over, the adrenaline chooses this exact moment to cease pumping through my veins, and it all crashes into me. I’m freaking married.Married.He’d nearly raped me—would have if Rafferty hadn’t shown up when he did.

Rafferty’s strong fingers trace my jaw, and I shiver, closing my eyes. His touch—it’s the sweetest kind of torture. A blissful pain. Something that shouldn’t feel so good because I know that there is no future where the two of us are anything more than what we are.

“You do not belong to him,” he says. “Not in soul, heart, mind, or body.”

“But in vows, I am. Lloren made me speak them, I don’t know how but—”

“Ember.” He silences me with the mere mention of my name. “I will deliver you to my camp where you may choose what to do.”

“And the prophecy? I thought you were going to deliver me to the rightful king?”

His gaze hardens, eyes darkening for a brief moment. “If that is what you choose, yes.”

“If he’s anything like most of the men I’ve met—you and Griffin not included—I want nothing to do with him.” Still, my plan was always to return home. This isn’t my fight. Yet, if it means ripping the throne from Taranus’s cold, dead fingers, I’ll do damn near anything.

“I will never let you fall to anyone who will harm you,” he growls. There’s so much rage, so much anger in his words that it momentarily steals my breath.

“Why?”

He reaches forward and cups my cheek. Warmth spreads through my body, shoving all the recent pain aside until there’s only him and me.

“You are mine to protect, Ember. Whatever future you should choose—”

“Whatever one I choose?” If it were my choice, I would give in to the lust between us, jump into his arms right now and have what I imagine to be life-changing sex, before I succumb to a disease I know is still killing me. If only to forget about everything else hanging over us.

A muscle in his jaw twitches, and he drops his hand. “I will deliver you home, or to your mate,” he corrects.

The words sting, which makes little sense to me. It feels like rejection because I know he has to feel what I do. This cannot be one-sided. Not considering how my heart pounds when he’s near me. How my body heats in those rare moments he lets his fingers linger on my skin. “Exactly. My future has never been mine to decide,” I tell him, my tone a lot harsher than I meant. Dropping my gaze to his chest, I resign myself to the understanding that my life has never been about what I wanted.

Not really.

“I want to finish washing if that’s okay.”

Rafferty opens his mouth to speak, then closes it and simply turns around.

I do the same, but only after I get a glimpse at his muscled ass beneath the surface of the clear water.