Warlord Wants Forever - Kresley Cole [24]
“There was no vulnerability. It has never been broken. I’ve been tossed by it, caught by it, even held above a pit of boiling tar by it. I’d tried to have it smelted from me in the olden days and then lasered recently. Nothing could touch the integrity of the chain before…”
“Before I pulled it free like a thread? So I’m the first.” This pleased him and he exhaled in relief, only to immediately frown. “You don’t think it’s more than coincidental that you were given to me over all other females in any time and place to be my Bride, just as I’ve freed you from something that no man has been able to before?”
She clenched her jaw.
“How do you find those facts? Answer honestly. Now.”
“I find them…. They might be…. It might be fated,” she bit out.
“We might be fated.” He’d already known this without doubt. He couldn’t believe his heart would beat for a woman that could never love him back. Of course, she’d said there’d been others she’d blooded—then killed.
“Yes, but just because we’ve been set up by a fate with a sick sense of humor doesn’t mean my feelings about you will change. Are you going to keep me prisoner for eternity?”
“Before I let you go philander with your demigods? Yes.”
Her slim shoulders stiffened and she stood.
He lay back, proudly ogling his Bride’s ass as she sauntered around the room, studying her new surroundings. Myst couldn’t merely walk, he’d discovered—her every movement was the stuff of fantasy, her every touch as well. He hadn’t even gotten the chance to claim her last night because he’d been so enthralled with her wet kiss, but he was hard yet again and would remedy that soon.
“So what miraculous feat of engineering brought modern plumbing to this schwag place?”
Schwag? He frowned at her question, watching as she ran her hand along an old papered wall. She opened a rusted shutter and gazed out the window into the night, seeing, he knew, tangled gardens blighted with neglect. He had a sudden urge to make an excuse as to why his home was in this condition.
“You’re actually going to keep me here? Your torture is fiendish and boundless, Wroth.”
He clenched his jaw, then said, “As I told you, here is called Blachmount and it used to be awing and will be so again, but the estate’s been abandoned for many years. While I searched for you, I lived in New Orleans, and in Oblak before that. I only come here on occasion.” When he missed his family.
She sighed, meandering to her pile of clothes, ripped and dirty on the floor. She stared at them then blinked up at him, clearly wondering what his next move would be. It hit him full force that no matter how he felt about her, it was his responsibility to take care of her. His stunning wife, with her wild red hair and her soft, pale skin, who was so utterly out of place here, would be living with him under his roof—he’d best get this ancient shell of a keep back to its former glory and give her a home as befitted her.
He knew there would be things she would require that he couldn’t anticipate, because he was beyond unknowing when it came to female needs. Did he dare take her to get her things?
As soon as he’d realized where she lived, he’d left Oblak behind and had had Murdoch purchase a property far from the crowds of New Orleans where they could live during the search. Wroth could’ve traced back and forth, but the time change meant each night he’d face dawn back in Oblak. Plus he’d been weak, and tracing the shorter distance to the renovated mill on the outskirts of town had been less demanding.
Now he needed to return to the mill for the large supply of blood he’d left there. He was thirstier than usual, and claiming her in this condition would not be wise. He assured himself it was only because his appetite had been reawakened and not because throughout the day, he’d dreamed of drinking from her white thighs.
He could check in with Murdoch, send word to Kristoff that he’d found his Bride,