CHAPTER 32 Torj
CHAPTER 32
Torj
‘In the business of protecting a charge of noble birth, there is no place for attraction’
– Mastering the Craft of Close Protection
L IKE FUCK NOTHING happened.
Hours later, he could still feel the imprint of her curves against his body, still had the rock-hard cock and aching balls to prove it.
Upon their return to the academy, he’d done yet another thorough sweep of her rooms and then made his excuses, not that he needed any. Wren couldn’t wait to get rid of him, and he wasn’t sure he could be around for a second longer without succumbing to his baser desires.
She drove him mad.
The challenge in her eyes. The sharp edge to her words and their stark contrast to the softness of her body. Gods, he was so fucked. He was meant to be her bodyguard, her protector. To be anything else was forbidden. But all he could think of was peeling away her gown and tracing every dip and hollow, of sliding deep inside her.
The thought alone nearly had a moan escaping his lips.
‘Get it together,’ he muttered to himself, pacing the confines of his room like a caged beast. The instinct roared within him, to protect, to fuck, to make her his. He pushed the hair out of his eyes with a curse. This wasn’t him. This was some wild animal taking over his senses.
She’s your charge. She’s your principal , he chanted inwardly, before reminding himself of the hundred other reasons why he couldn’t stand her.
‘You’re a Warsword. I’m the woman who poisoned your former Guild Master. Our paths don’t align.’
‘Just stay away from me, Torj. Far away.’
‘The offer of your post beyond the midrealms is rescinded. Immediately.’
‘If I never see her again, it will be too soon.’
The scars across his chest pulsed and he rubbed at the marred flesh, hoping to alleviate some of the tension there. It was as though it were tethered directly to her, and the harder he fought it, the tauter that tether became, the tighter it drew them together. He could almost feel her moving about the room next door, could sense the restless energy of her flitting from mortar and pestle to the dried herbs hanging over the window. He could certainly picture her: the sway of her hips, the flush staining her cheeks—
‘ Fuck. ’ He needed to take his mind off her. Practically throwing himself down into the hard wooden chair at the small desk, he turned to the book Farissa had ordered from the archives: A History of Magically Inflicted Injuries . If that didn’t kill his raging erection, nothing would.
Finding his place marked by the ribbon he’d left, he forced his eyes to the dense lines of text and began to read.
To wield magic is to walk along a precipice, for every incantation spoken and every spell cast exacts its toll. The practitioner of the arcane arts must reckon with the consequences of their actions, lest they be consumed by the very power they seek to command. For in the pursuit of mastery, one risks becoming ensnared by the dark tendrils of their own creation.
Torj rubbed his temples. This didn’t describe Wren, not even close. Perhaps it was what had happened to King Artos in the early days before the war, but...
He shook his head and skipped ahead to a more relevant-sounding chapter.
Some wounds inflicted by magic defy the touch of conventional healing. They linger long after lacerations have closed, withstanding the passage of time and the ministrations of healers. The injured party is condemned to bear the burden of their affliction, sometimes overshadowed by a spectre of unending suffering.
‘Sounds about right,’ Torj muttered to himself, turning the page. Every word he read seemed to confirm Branwell’s tale about his son.
Madness lurks at the threshold of those wounded by magic, its tendrils creeping into the recesses of the mind. Reality becomes a fractured mosaic, wherein visions of terror and delusion intertwine with fleeting moments of lucidity. The injured party is condemned to wander the maze of their own shattered psyche, lost in a realm of nightmares.
An hour passed, then another, and Torj struggled to take the information in, let alone find any answers amid all the gloom. Despite what she was now, Wren had saved him, not damned him. How could scars born of something so good and pure result in the corruption of reality? Of his soul? Yes, he had nightmares and flashbacks, but he was a Warsword of the midrealms; he had fought in countless battles. Kissing that edge of darkness was a consequence of war, nothing more.
He heard the door to the bathing chamber open and close, water splashing into the tub. Wren was in there, naked and wet, mere feet away from him. The thought had him facing the same problem he’d started reading to deter in the first place. It was too much to bear.
Running his fingers through his hair with an aggravated sigh, he looked down at the bulge tenting the front of his leathers. Doomed magical wound or not, there was only one way to fix this.
With trembling fingers, Torj fumbled with his buttons, stifling a moan of relief as he freed his cock from the confines of his leathers. Taking his length in his hand, he squeezed, moisture already beading at his tip.
This wasn’t about pleasure, he told himself. This was a practical solution to an irritating problem. Quick, simple and efficient, that was all it had to be. Once he sorted out this urge, he could return to the books and figure out everything else. He could do his damn job.
He shuddered at the first stroke down his length, recalling the glimpse of Wren’s body he’d seen beneath her shift on their first night here, how her nipples had hardened beneath the thin fabric as she’d surveyed him right back, desire simmering in her gaze.
Pure, unadulterated longing surged through him as he gripped himself harder, circling the crown of his cock with his thumb before pumping up and down. Against all reason, against all the thoughts screaming not her, not her , he imagined her hands on him, her tongue tracing down his torso, her smart mouth opening for him...He imagined her as she was, naked in that tub, her hand slipping between her legs, his name on her lips.
‘ Torj... ’ she moaned.
Torj jerked in his seat, his erection hard as granite in his hand.
‘Torj...’
He wasn’t imagining it.
Wren was wet and naked mere feet away, moaning his name.
His breathing hitched, and a current of power coursed through him: a ball of heat in his chest, spreading right down to his toes.
‘Wren...’ he murmured, stroking his shaft again and again, picturing what she might be doing to herself behind that door to elicit such sounds. As his touch moved over his cock in long, practised slides, pressure began to build, coiling tight within him as he climbed towards the peak of release.
He worked his hand, over and over, losing himself in the spiral of sensation. Gods, what he’d do to have her. Gods, how he’d worship her body with his.
Torj imagined pushing into the tight heat of her, imagined the feel of her clamping around him—
He lost control completely.
He climaxed with a muffled cry, collapsing over himself, panting.
But despite the evidence of what he’d just done, the want for her did not abate.
The storm raging in his chest only intensified, and wound or not, the lightning within his web of scars sparked anew.