pick up the blade and answer my challenge. The prize of truth remains the same.”
Her hand twitched toward the blade. It hadn’t been an order, but her expression remained wary.
And by the gods, she was tempting.
“The rules?”
He had her.
“No claws or shifting for me. No injuries to vitals for you.”
“First blood?”
He definitely had her.
She crouched, bare legs parting as his shirt rode up. A tease.
A provocation.
A thrill.
“Three stripes. The first one to three stripes wins.” The last thing he wanted to do was mar her creamy skin, but he would be a fool not to give her a fighting chance. A proper battle.
A warrior’s bid.
“No torso.” She rested her hand on the blade hilt. Lust perfumed the air and he drew in a lungful of it.
“Arms and legs only then.”
“Nothing near the groin.” Her gaze roamed over him, sending blood rushing to his cock.
“I’d prefer that, yes.”
“Your fingers can’t wander there on me either.” Was that a smile quirking her lips? Not for the first time he wished scent markers were clearer to discern in members of other species. But either his imagination was going wild or the discussion of battle was turning her on.
“Your ass is fair game.”
A throaty laugh met his counteroffer and she closed her fist around the blade hilt. “That means I can touch yours as well.”
His pulse thudded in his cock.
“Anytime you want, princess.”
He tossed the key onto the stone table. It bounced once. Clinked as it vibrated and finally stilled, pointing away from both of them. The silence echoed against the splash of water and she was a blur, lunging from her crouch, blade slicing through the air to clang against his as he narrowly defended.
Anthony’s tiger roared, the hunt was on and their prey grinned fiercely in response.
Damn, she was magnificent.
Chapter Nine
It was a fool who turned down the opportunity for freedom, but Roseatre had surrendered hers to honor an oath, and she couldn’t in good conscience take the mantle back while Cerveau remained bound to the Royale.
Anthony moved gracefully, avoiding her clumsy lunge. “Was really expecting a lot more from you.”
He emphasized the insult with a deliberate slap across her bottom. The cotton accepted most of the blow, but one finger collided with her skin, stinging the flesh.
Pivoting, she used a step-ball-change to carry her weight around and slammed the flat of her foot against his ass. He staggered forward, scrambling to keep his balance, and she launched her offensive again.
It was a flurry of slices, blades singing through the air. At first, it seemed as though he wouldn’t pay her at least the cursory respect of fighting back, but the bite of steel whistling across her upper arm followed by the wildfire of swift pain put an end to that argument.
“First blood.” His grin grew, hard and wide. His eyes flashed, the pupils elongating.
Cat eyes.
“Enjoy it.” She dodged another quick cut and scored her blade down the inside of his arm. Blood, thick and red, welled up from the clean slice. She grinned at his hiss.
“Point to you.”
They danced around the clearing, narrowly avoiding the stone table and its offering of food. At the water’s edge, Roseatre balanced on the rocks. Years of training flooded through her muscles, rusty from ill use. Dancing required balance, but not the ability to deliver focused blows while avoiding the recoil of such force.
It was the excuse she would use to explain why in avoiding another cut, she ended up windmilling backwards to the water. Anthony caught one flailing arm, balancing her, his expression so intent and focused that she had three seconds of regret before she used his weight against him, flipping him toward the water.
He snagged her shirt and yanked, plunging her into the pool with him. She surfaced to the sting of another cut. A second stripe cut neatly parallel to the first on her biceps.
Wet hair clinging to his face and plastered along one cheek didn’t detract from the broad smile on Anthony’s face as he surged through the water. Tigers apparently liked to swim. Or maybe it was just him.
Roseatre struck out for shore when strong hands wrapped around her thighs and pulled her under. She didn’t imagine the scrape of his beard against her ass, the T-shirt floating up to leave her nether regions bare. Nor the yelp as teeth nipped her rear.
Scissoring her legs, she found purchase against that magnificent chest and kicked herself free, surging up and out. She scarcely made it to the rocks when Anthony propelled himself out of the water, landing just a few feet away.
Her rump stung.
“I’d call that three, but I didn’t use my blade.” Cheeky bastard. “So, sorry.”
The damnable thing was, Roseatre wanted to laugh. The teasing heat of his mouth on the curve of her ass provoked dangerous thoughts. Her gaze skated over his broad, glistening chest. Water droplets skirted his nipples to race down his abs. Despite their exertions, he was barely breathing hard.
She’d compared him to a god when she’d first seen him and looking at him, barefoot, soaking wet with a wild grin on his mouth, she was more convinced than ever.
She banished the thought as he pounced, darting right at the last moment and pivoting to kick him. Unfortunately, he learned faster than most of her opponents, catching her ankle and flipping her into a roll midair and catching her left foot to his shoulder for the trouble. He fell on his ass even as she landed on her hands.
They stared at each other, Roseatre’s lips curving upward to match his grin.
“Still two to one in my favor.” He waggled his eyebrows. “Ready to surrender?”
“Worried you can’t take me?”
“Oh, I can take you.”
“Then catch me if you can.” She threw the verbal gauntlet even as she launched herself, but instead of attacking him, she raced up the path through his forest. For a brief few seconds, as her feet struck the hard dirt surface and she twisted through the trees and crashed through the foliage, she marveled at her own insanity. Anthony was a cat.
She was running.
Of course, he would chase her.
Her cheeks ached from grinning. But that was what she wanted him to do. She wanted him to catch her, to prove that he could take her in battle.
Then in lust.
Her heart thundered a powerful back beat to her headlong run. She couldn’t hear his approach over the wild beat of her pulse. She burst through the trees to see a great bed cradled by a smaller, squat tree pushing up from the forest floor. Thick branches curled over the head and the base, creating a four-poster sensation that was both natural and erotic.
A whishing of sound was all the warning she received before Anthony’s hard male body collided with hers,
