FOREVER KNIGHTS: #16 To Keep Her

Inner Forestway behind Rhyers Hall, Mane Country

RHYERS

“Absolutely not!” Rhyers declared.

“Do it!” Ebony ordered. Stomping a foot.

“This is what you drug me out here for, half clothed?” He looked down his length. Eying thin breeches and a plain green shirt and his bare feet.

I’m actually very comfortable. But that is not the point I’m currently trying to make.

“Yes.” She put her fists on her hips.

“I won’t.”

“Bodin!”

“What do you want from me, Woman!”

“I want to see it!” She declared.

This is a first. Typically, when a woman is yelling this at me it’s not to see me turn into a wolf.

“And what are you going to do it I do?” He stretched leisurely.

“I’m going to-to-well…Believe you!”

“Didn’t I show you enough in the carriage?”

“No.” She shook her head. Making long black hair toss around her face and shoulders.

“I’m not some performing puppy for you to command.” He tossed his hands.

“Bodin…” She closed in on him.

“Name is Christophe.” He met her step for step and looked haughtily down his nose at her.

I never thought it would be this hard to get her to call me by the correct name. I suppose it has been a great deal of years.

“Christophe Bodin Rhyers!” She poked his chest to mark each of his names.

Ouch.

And annoying.

“Just do it.” Her nose twitched in her ire.

A cute trait.

“What do I get?” His green eyes narrowed down at her.

“What do you want!” She tossed her arms.

“You to tip up here and kiss me like you wanted to kiss ‘Christophe’ all those years.” He growled. Tapping the corner of his mouth.

She was taken aback. Retreating a step. “You-you-”

“You asked what it’d take.” He breathed huskily along her ear.

“No! I asked what you wanted!” She retorted. Realizing her mistake when he leaned back and lifted that thin dark brow.

“Trust me,” He purred. “you’d rather I answered what it’d take.” He gave her a heated stare.

“Rhyers…” She was looking at him like he was an animal she’d never seen before.

I’m probably behaving like one. But he was trying to drive her off. And get her off this foolish topic.

“You-you’re not-”

He took a long step toward her and closed the gap. Making her yelp at his sudden nearness. “What happened to your, usual articulate decisiveness, Ebs?”

She flinched at his taunting tone. Her eyes narrowing in challenge. A look he’d learned boded ill.

Uh-oh. What’s she up to now?

She took a step forward. Putting her feet atop his and standing on his toes. Catching a fistful of his hair over one shoulder and pulling his head down.

Not much romance here. He thought dryly a moment before her lips crashed violently against his. He started when her tongue abruptly intruded in his mouth.

But the heat of the contact was warming his blood. And the feel of her soft body smashed to his for her to reach was overwhelming. He mustered enough sense to peel his eyes open and look around. Realizing that they were far enough into Inner Forestway to not be seen by his servants.

He leaned to cup her rear and lift her. Guiding her thighs around his waist.

She wrapped them and hung on while he deepened the kiss. Fumbling a couple steps to plant her back against a tree so he could feel every inch of her delicious skin. Reaching over his back she caught his shirt there and began yanking it up so she could feel his bare skin under hands and against the bared cleavage of her low-cut yellow dress. The folds of her skirt still dangling against the tree and hanging low enough to brush the leaves and the layer of snow.

“Ebony!” He broke away to snarl raggedly.

“What?”

“Tell me to stop here and now or I swear you won’t leave these woods as innocent as you entered them.”

“What if I like the feel of you, Bodin.” She wiggled, rubbing parts of her body against him that incited him to a near violent level.

Unable to resist he felt the fur line his face and the spiked teeth of his wolf enter his mouth as he could no longer refrain from sinking his teeth into the spot where her shoulder met her vulnerable neck. Sinking them in deeply enough she gasped in pain but the animal pheromones he unleashed numbed her to the sense of pain. Making her feel only the penetration and heat of his mouth as he marked her.

Startled at what he’d done, his face altered back to that of a man and he slid her to the ground Retreating several steps to look from her wound to his hand cupping the blood slipping from his teeth and over his chin.

“Oh, no.” He murmured.

“What?” She reached up. Surprised at the amount of blood lingering on her hand when she withdrew it. “It doesn’t really hurt, Rhyers. It’s fine.”

“No…It’s not.” Dark patches formed around his eyes leaving a deep shade around the light shade of his gaze. Sending a rumbling vibration through the woods before subsiding.

“What was that?” She looked a little fearful.

“A seal.”

“What was sealed?”

“I…” He stared at her in shock. “I’m sorry.”

“Rhyers…” She walked toward him. “What’s happened? I don’t understand!”