Chapter 29
T here was something to be said for giving oneself over to whatever primal urges decided to lay claim to your higher reasoning. For Clara, that had always been relegated to her wolf. She’d give the beast her head and let her run as widely and freely as the property would allow. It was the only sort of freedom Clara had been permitted to enjoy, provided she remained within their borders, and that wasn’t an acquiescence on her father’s part so much as a biological imperative.
But held high to Bronze’s chest as she was, their breaths mingled with an urgency that was almost painful in their insistence. Her heart wasn’t just clamoring against her chest with frantic eagerness but with almost the rabid panic of a berserker. A desperation that her wolf had known and understood long before Clara had gotten wise to the significance of what her body was feeling.
Bronze booted the door to her bedroom closed behind them, threw the latch, and never broke stride as he carried her . . . in the complete opposite direction of the bed.
“Where are we going?”
“Blood. Bath.”
“A blood bath?” she teased, kissing his stony chin. “That hardly sounds appetizing.”
“Don’t distract me. I’ve finally got my eyes back, and I’m going to use them, dammit.”
“Who am I to argue then?”
By the Moon Mother, she loved him like this. All growly and grunty and singly focused on what exactly she knew not, but she did know that he intended to involve her in it. And that was just so where she wanted to be. Her wolf growled in kind with approval and perhaps a bit of agitation that it had taken Clara so long to come to terms with this.
But they were here now. Her father would be dealt with. Her people would begin to heal just as soon as she and Bronze could establish hope in a better monarchy and ideally push her father out of the throne sooner rather than later.
Clara’s feet finally touched the floor as Bronze squatted down and settled her on the edge of the tile shower bench, but his hands never left her body. They merely relocated to smooth over her arms, down her neck, across her brow, and anywhere else his worried gaze had touched first.
A smoky hazel gaze that battled between a far-too-familiar delicious intent and one that ached with the restraint of a boiling pot too long covered.
Oh, this will not do at all.
She grabbed up his hands and brought each of them to her lips. After she kissed both pulse points once, twice, and then a third time, she smiled as his breathing finally evened out. Once she was certain he wouldn’t combust around her, she forced her brave warrior to still himself. With a few quick rolls of her left sleeve, Clara revealed a shy pink gash on the underside of her forearm that had already begun to stitch itself closed.
But the relief hadn’t softened Bronze’s features the way she had hoped.
“I did this myself,” she assured him in what was hopefully a well-meaning tone. “My father didn’t touch me. The blood required for the scent hunt was minimal, and it was easier all around if I cooperated. I am healed, though.” Then she affirmed her declaration with a kiss to his deeply grooved brow.
Bronze jerked his head from side to side and squeezed his eyes closed as if blocking out the world. “Don’t . . . Can’t . . .”
“Bronze,” Clara urged. “I am whole. I am well. All because of you.”
Goodness, was he always to be this difficult? This was a happy occasion, was it not? They’d just won! Her father would soon no longer have the influence he did over her people, at least not solely and without her and Bronze’s input. She’d gotten everything she’d sought to achieve, including a most magnificent male who always believed in her, despite the hardships thrown in front of him.
Still, he wouldn’t open his eyes to look at her. Another moment of this and she would start taking it personally.
“Bronze,” she said more firmly, tugging at his shirt sleeves. “We have not lost! Why won’t you look at me?”
His chest heaved in great breaths but then settled slowly as each ragged bit of air escaped over a shuddering lower lip. She’d never seen him like this, so emotionally indisposed, so raw and fragile. Like a loyal pet who’d retrieved every ball you asked it to, yet still looked at you with sadness as if it wasn’t enough.
The whole scene broke her heart, which had the nerve to grow far too full to accompany the care she held for this male.
Foolish, Clara. Once again, you are so ? —
Bronze’s lids flew open, and he cradled her head with such speed, she nearly fell off the bench. Then his lips were brushing over the shorn side of her scalp, pressing, stroking, kissing every exposed part of her so that she couldn’t help but lean into his strength any way he would offer it, even if it meant acknowledging the most vulnerable part of her.
“Lost?” He ground out the word against the side of her temple. “You want to talk about lost? I almost lost everything today when I realized you were taken. So, forgive me, princess, if my eyes need a moment to catch up to what my heart is still coming to terms with. That you’re here, in my arms, and not bleeding out in a fucking forest where I couldn’t find you.”
A rush of memories flooded back to Clara and mixed with the images of what Bronze must have seen and endured before he’d found her in the woods.
Malik. A lost brother. A male who had bled out in Bronze’s arms. A soul he’d been too late to save.
“Oh, Bronze.”
He nodded stiffly but said nothing, because they’d both understood how today could have ended. What-ifs billowed around the spacious bathroom like unspoken secrets, making the air grow thicker and hotter with the impetus of what they’d dodged and what she could no longer live without.
Clara flung her arms around Bronze and smoothed the rigidity of his stern mouth away with the insistence of her own. Her kiss was open and eager, having no preference for anything other than the taste of Bronze consuming her from the inside out. And thank the Moon Mother, their passion was a language her warrior had no trouble speaking. If words eluded him, then she would declare her heart with the movements of her body.
“Off,” he growled into her mouth, then grabbed her blouse at the shoulder and ripped it down, baring her breast. “I want it all off. I need to see you, to know you’re all right.”
He’d barely finished getting the words out before both their damp clothes had been stripped away in greedy tugs. Then he leaned over her shoulder and flipped on the shower. Steam soon swallowed them in a cocoon of passion, protecting them from anything that wasn’t welcome in their small heated frenzy.
Which was, coincidentally, everything.
“Wait! The relic.” She’d not undone the leather fastening yet, and she wouldn’t risk?—
“Leave it on. You’ve earned it. It’s yours.”
The words weren’t just an insistent request but a reverent plea, even as he lowered his head to worship her breasts. But his devotion was somehow different this time, with the pulse of his cock beating against her inner thigh. Bronze was everywhere, and so was the connection to her people. Two halves of a whole that stitched together perfectly to complement the lycan monarch she always hoped to be one day.
The monarch she now knew had always been within her.
Because of him.
The impulse to see far more of him, to take in all she could of the male, was like a strike beneath her ribs, but she could no sooner lie there than ensure every part of him was cared for. Appreciated. Honored.
Loved.
The last thought tickled the back of Clara’s mind as she pulled away from him, turned her back against the shower’s spray, settled him onto the bench—while absolutely adoring the wrinkle of confusion between his brows—and dropped to her knees.