The Shadows (Black Dagger Brotherhood #13) - J. R. Ward Page 0,162

to crowd her.

“Let me get you something to sit on.”

Before she could tell him not to bother himself, he went over to a bedding platform and pulled the soft pad off the top along with some rough blankets. With sure hands, he arranged everything and then once again moved away.

The sex rolling off of him was irresistible.

As cool as he was trying to be, as respectful as he was being, she could sense the need in him.

And yes, she realized … this was indeed why she had risked so much to come here.

She wanted him, too. Even though it was going to create a crisis. Even though it was irresponsible. Even though it made no sense.

She had followed the rules all her life. But there was no responsibility or duty that was even half as captivating as he was—and her time for what relative freedom she had was running out.

Lowering herself onto the bedding, she crossed her legs under her heavy robing. “Please. Sit with me?”

“You sure you want me to.” He loomed over her, his dark face absorbing that playful light.

“Yes,” she breathed.

He lowered himself to his knees, his heavy-lidded eyes moving over the robing that covered her from crown of head to sole of foot.

“Will you let me see you,” he said in a deep voice.

maichen swallowed hard. Then she lifted her hands to the mesh that covered her face—but it was to hold the masking in place. “I am afraid.”

“Of what?”

What if he didn’t like what he saw?

“I already know you’re beautiful,” he said, as if he read her mind.

“How?”

He touched the center of his large chest. “I see you in here. I know you … in here. You are very beautiful to me, no matter what you look like.”

Acutely aware of everything that she hadn’t told him about herself, she whispered, “We do not know each other.”

“Does that matter to you?”

“No.”

“Me, neither.” He frowned and looked into the fire. “The last couple of nights, with everything going on with my brother—it’s been an eye-opener. I don’t want to waste any more time. I want to get on with living, instead of keep going in this neutral-zone nightmare, waiting for the ax to fall.”

“Is your brother … is he going to come back to the Territory ever? They say … he refuses his duty, even though the Queen has decreed after the mourning…”

She had to stop. The anxiety was too great.

She was supposed to come unto her mate untouched.

That was not going to happen.

But what could the Anointed One do to her? They were both being forced into the mating, and tradition dictated that he was essentially her property.

A protest from him would be like a chair making an argument against being sat upon.

iAm shook his head. “After Trez loses Selena, all bets are off—and frankly, that Princess? She isn’t going to want what’s left of him, not unless she’s into necrophilia. He’s going to be dead whether he’s walking or in a grave.”

maichen hung her head. She had never not known about the mating that awaited her. It had been part of her rearing, the expectation that the Anointed One was destined by the stars to be her impregnating mate—and that with him, through him, she would ensure her mother’s bloodline continued to rule over the s’Hisbe.

Preordained. Written in the sacred stars.

She had accepted what was her due the same way she had accepted everything about her life, from her station to her loneliness to the perennial sense that she was missing out on so much through no fault or choice of her own.

She cleared her throat. “I would imagine that the Princess would let him go, if she could. She would not want anyone to suffer, most especially one who had lost a female of worth.”

“Do you know her?”

“I have attended her.”

“What’s she like?” Before she could answer, he put up his hand. “Actually, I don’t need to know.”

“I think she would say that she is as trapped as your brother. I think … she is in a jail of destiny, too.”

He rubbed his face. “That actually makes me hate her less. I guess I never thought about what it’s been like for her.”

“She was told of her destiny just as he was. She has not chosen any of this.”

iAm gave a short laugh. “Maybe they can tell the Queen to go screw. If both of them refuse to play the game, it could be all over. Not that it’s going to save my brother