I had no time to contemplate that question, because in two strides he was in front of me, and a second later, his mouth came down on mine.
It wasn’t a gentle kiss. His claim that I’d never known the touch of a man was wrong. I’d known them. They’d all been not of my choosing, and all of them had fortunately been cut off before I’d been raped. But, yes, I’d had a man’s mouth on me before.
Maybe he meant it to be punishing, because it wasn’t loving. I might never know the second type of kiss, not the way my life had been going thus far, but this was better than anything I’d ever had before.
I’d demanded it, and he’d given it. This was my choice.
He deepened the kiss, and I let him. His tongue smoothed over my bottom lip before he surged back in again, this time even more pressing than the first one. I closed my eyes and lost myself for one blissful moment to the way that it felt to be kissed by Cypress.
A cold wind pounded on us, and he pulled back, staring at me. “There’s your kiss, Princess. Hope it was worth it. I don’t waste my time with brats. Consider that payment for you getting kidnapped. Hit on the head. Women of your caliber always trade sex for favors. Looks like you’re starting well on your path.”
I stared at him, open mouthed, all of the good feelings his kiss had given me melting away.
Cypress was right. There were worse things than pain. There was being made to feel like you didn’t matter at all.
I made myself a promise right then and there. At some time in my life, I would matter to someone. I didn’t know when it would be or how it would come to fruition, but nonetheless it was an oath that I made to myself. There would come a time when I would be the reason someone else’s world spun, when I would be the reason for everything for them. There would come a time when I would know that love. It would be real. It would be binding. It would be my everything.
I was sick to death of being nothing, and I wouldn’t let it be my forever. So mote it be.
Lightning lit up the sky, and Cypress looked up at it before staring down at me. “Did you do that?”
I blinked. Had I? Where had those last four words come from in my head? It was like a stuttering in my brain when those things happened.
“Maybe.” I shrugged. “What does it matter to you?”
He put his jacket over his bare chest, which really was too bad. “Let’s get you home. Bhaltair escaped before I could kill him. By this time tomorrow, I want to wash my hands of you.”
My heart panged at his words, but I lifted my chin in defiance.
“Let’s go.”
Chapter Nine
Cypress
She hadn’t said a word to me all afternoon, but she taunted me with her presence. Her green hair fell in a curly mess down her back. Every step she took made my shirt rise up, teasing me with those legs that went on for days and her defiant, unabashed personality.
I order you to kiss me.
Those words went straight to my cock. I’d been simmering in the heat that bloomed between us since the moment our skin touched. I had her perfect, naked body against mine, and it was too much. She was so fucking responsive. It would have been easy. I could have laid her down in the dirt and sucked on her skin. I could have tasted her come. I could have felt that writhing, feisty body clench my dick.
“Which way?” she asked in a sigh. I shook my head and drew my attention to the fork in the road. I really should be in front. Not just because staring at her ass all day was giving me a boner from hell, but also because I didn’t trust these woods not to betray us. Bhaltair had loyal people hidden in every crevice of this kingdom. The sooner we were at the castle, the better.
“Right,” I grunted while adjusting my bow on my shoulder and walking off the road and toward the forest to find a place to stay for the night. “We will need to camp for the night, though.”
I popped my neck. “I thought you said no stopping until we were at the castle,” she said while crossing her arms at her chest. I purposefully kept my eyes up, forcing myself not to look at how the thin material stretched across her defined breasts.
“I’m tired. We won’t be able to see the road soon, and I’m running low on spells. Not all of us can conjure magic by our erratic emotions, you know.”
At my words, lightning flashed across the sky. For fuck’s sake. She was getting more and more powerful. The longer she was out of her cell, the less control Bhaltair had over her. This was both good and bad. Good, because it made him weaker. Bad, because it made the beautiful, pissed off girl angrier at me.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“I’m a truth puller. I can get people to spill their guts whenever I please. It comes in handy in my line of work, but at the end of the day, I need hellfire and spelled objects to get the work done that my bow and fists can’t do. At the guild, we’re trained how to use it all.”
I wasn’t usually so forthcoming about my abilities, but I figured it couldn’t hurt.
“At Nightmare. You coaxed the truth out of me,” Layne said while looking off in the distance.
“Yep.”
But the less said about that, the better. I shouldn’t have done that. I needed her father to pay me, and I didn’t want to piss him off by delivering his long-lost daughter damaged by a truth spell gone awry.
We walked further into the woods until I found a good
