She agreed with everything he’d just said. The Lowlands and the Highlands were dying a long, slow death. Populations were declining and every year another village seemed to disappear. It’s why she’d helped Eamon and Buck for so long.
Despite the short term loss of life, Fallon’s people could save thousands if he was successful. The Trateri might have been brutal in their interactions with themselves and others, but they worshipped knowledge and continually strived to understand their surroundings. They fought to tame the world around them and adapted when they could not. Both of these were qualities that Lowlanders sorely lacked. It was the same for Highlanders as well.
It was also the reason she could never take Fallon and his men across the mist. Her people were just disorganized enough that he would have a real chance at conquering the Highlands, that and the weapons left over from the ancients made her cooperation with him impossible. Although it would make sense to unite the lands under one ruler, Shea could not see her people ever submitting to being the servants of another. It would never work. They would fight to the last man, and she could not subject them to that.
“You know I will never take you past the mists,” she told Fallon. The steel resolve in her voice filtered through. Something about the wilder berry clarified things for her, if there had been any doubt about this fact in her before, it was gone now.
She needed to get this over with. She needed him to understand that no matter what he did, show her the world or torture her, she was never going to help him.
Her loyalties weren’t divided anymore. She felt no regret for helping them in the Lowlands but she would never take them to the Highlands.
“I would rather die.”
She tightened her grip on her knees and waited.
A light touch ran up and down her back, and a pair of lips pressed against her head.
“I know that you believe that,” he told her softly. A finger turned her head towards him. “You’re Trateri now. The wilder root assured that. It would be best to forget past loyalties. It’ll only make things more difficult on you the harder you hang onto your previous life.”
She’d never been accused of taking the easy way.
After a moment of silence between them, he said, “Come. Rest by the fire. Tomorrow is early enough to start fighting.”
She smiled softly and let him pull her up. In this, he was right. The battle could begin again tomorrow.
Fallon placed her close to the fire and then sat behind her, pulling her back into his arms. They were alone. Sometime in their conversation Caden and Meynard had drifted out of sight.
Fallon stroked the skin of her arms gently and pressed a soft kiss against her neck, nearly searing a brand into her flesh for all the heat the soft touch generated. The feel of his lips lingered long after they left her neck. He rested his chin on top of her head. His arms tightened around her slightly, tucking her more firmly against him. The evidence of his arousal was firm against her hip.
Shea’s breath shuttered in her lungs as her eyes drifted shut. She wanted this man. Even given the very real possibility that he’d kill her when he realized she wouldn’t give him what he wanted, she craved him. The wilder root had helped clear the veil from her eyes on this subject too. She’d wanted him for a long time. Before the glimpse of his naked body at the pool by the water fall. Perhaps since the first moment she’d caught his eyes in Edgecomb.
What she did with that knowledge was entirely up to her.
He was still behind her as he waited for her choice. She smiled slightly. Who would have thought the conqueror would be so considerate. Or patient.
She was tired of denying herself what she wanted.
She turned in his arms and pressed her lips against his. Like that, whatever had been holding the warlord in check went up in flames. With a growl, he attacked, conquering her lips with his in a feverish rush as his tongue sought entrance. She quickly opened her mouth under his, and he surged inside.
His hands roamed over her body, sending flames racing down her nerve endings. He maneuvered her to her back as one hand slid over her breast band, caressing her through the cloth. It wasn’t enough. Not near enough.
It had been so long since she’d been with a man. Years. Her one glimpse of him months ago had inspired several vivid, sweaty dreams. Now, it was all she could do to keep from tearing his clothes off.
He agreed and ripped the constricting fabric of her breast band away, revealing what lay underneath. She groaned as warm lips closed over one nipple. She keened and arched her back as he rolled it against the roof of his mouth. A sharp nip brought a cry to her throat and sent a rush of sensation down to her core before he soothed the injured area with gentle kisses.
Her nails dug into his back as he palmed her through the loin cloth. She tilted her hips to give him better access and felt her sex pulse as he cupped her firmly while his other hand rose to tweak the other nipple.
“I have wanted to do this since I spotted you in Edgecomb,” he rasped against her skin.
His hands moved between them as he dragged the scrap cloth down her legs. Her hands busied themselves undoing the laces of his pants.
In very little time, they were both naked.
The fire was just enough to see shapes. Shea panted as she stared up at him, his cock jutting proudly as he knelt over her. He leaned down and claimed her lips, his passion consuming her. She whimpered as his hands skated down her body.
His fingers parted the lips of her sex and rubbed firmly against the sensitive bundle of nerves there. As if it had a mind of their own, her pelvis rolled against his fingers. A long, thick digit penetrated, before moving in and out. The pace quickened as her breath became heavier.
Her breasts swelled, her skin heated from the inside out. If the night was chilly, she couldn’t feel it.
“Please. Hurry.” Her hands wandered over his skin caressing and clutching as her need built.
She tried to pull him down on top of her. He resisted with a chuckle.
“So pretty. Come for me, pretty girl.”
With a loud keen, she did exactly as he asked. He kept working her as she came down from her orgasm, wringing every drop of pleasure from her.
Finally her breath evened out. She blinked up at him as he moved between her legs, feeling her heart start to race again.
“My turn.”
He began to push inside. She couldn’t help wriggling a little at the discomfort. It had been a long time since she’d last shared her bed. But finally, he was fully inside her. He reached and drew her legs up to either side of him and slowly, oh so slowly, began to withdraw until just the tip of him rested in her. With a powerful thrust, he sank his shaft deep, only to withdraw slowly.
She moaned as he set the pace, alternating slow strokes with fast ones, and driving her mad with desire. Unbelievably her pleasure began to climb again, until she was meeting his thrusts with ones of her own.
“Faster.” She clutched at his back to her urge him on and tilted her hips towards him.
“I set the pace, little one.”
“You’re killing me.”
A rough chuckle was her only response.
How did he have so much stamina?
Planting one foot, she pushed up with her hips and then heaved, rolling him onto his back. She ended up on top with him fully inside her. She closed her eyes at the delicious feeling.
With a wicked smile she lifted herself before grinding down. That felt good.