The room was lit up like it was midday instead of midnight.

I strode in, my own sword banging against my leg.

“Master Dorian—”

The sword whistled through the air. I bent to my right to avoid the blow and spun to pull my blade out.

I caught the return blow on the edge and saw who had just attacked me. “Master Dorian?”

“Are you going to go back to calling me that? I thought you’d be sick of giving me the title, giving me honor that’s rightfully due.” He pushed hard against my blade.

“It was an accident. You startled me awake.”

“Protocol is not something we sleep on.”

I unlocked the swords with a spin and stepped back. “You are a cranky, mean bastard, Master Dorian. I despise the fact that you are probably the only one who can teach me how to use my magic and my sword.”

“You are an undisciplined child.” He stepped forward and raised the sword again to an opening parry position.

“I am not a child, and I’m not undisciplined!” I raised my blade into an answering counter-parry. “I was in your room while you were screwing your mates that day because I was there to beg you to teach me!”

Slipping from a counter-parry into an attack stance, I didn’t hold back. I was angry, and I whirled the sword in controlled chaos, attacking him and making him retreat from me.

He started to catch the sword on his after barely knocking me away for a moment. I still pushed him back while yelling at him.

“I didn’t ask for this, and I am lucky that my father had me trained in the sword. But I need more. You call me Breaker of the Spine. You make me a temple master. You offer up your own mates to assure my power. I don’t understand. I also don’t have a choice. I need you to teach me, and it’s hell to have to ask you for this.

“When you walk into my room in the middle of the night, and demand to know why I am not naked in your bed, asleep, protocol is not on my mind!”

Finally, finally, Dorian attacked me, and I had to hold him off. “What is on your mind, little girl?”

“That you make no sense! You keep counsel with no one but yourself! Not even the other masters understand you! Your secrets can get us all killed.”

His sword flew at my head, and I had to duck again, this time rolling to my left.

“My secrets are not for your ears,” he roared and stabbed down at my leg.

I pushed back and whacked his sword away with my own. “Then why did you vote me to the robes? Why did you raise me to the dais?”

I rolled as fast as I could to my feet, but he was faster.

Finally, a challenge for me.

I drew my short sword and was able to shove his blade to a new direction.

Master Dorian kicked his foot out and hit my wrist, the long sword flying out of my hand. “You needed protection.”

The short sword caught his blade and spun it around. I hooked the cross-guard by the quillon and flipped it right out of his hand, into the air, and grabbed the hilt.

In the next instance, I had his own sword at his throat crossed with my own short sword. “I don’t think I need your protection.”

His hand shot out and nailed me with a blast of magic right in the middle of my chest, throwing me right across the room.

Master Dorian’s sword disappeared from my hand and back to his own.

He stalked toward me as I wrapped my hand around my own sword. Before he could get a blow in, I pulled the sword up and slapped him on the ear with the flat of the metal.

It did nothing but serve to piss him off, and he chased me again with the sword.

This time, when he tossed the magic at me, I was able to break it up and let it flow around me. “I don’t need protection! Why did you raise me to the robes! Why didn’t you object?”

Master Dorian held his sword still for just an instant, and then inelegantly tried to stab me.

It threw me off his intention.

I stepped to the left, and he swept his leg behind my knee and slammed me on to my back. He raised the sword, and stabbed down—

—pinning me to the ground through the waistband of my pants.

He knelt down. “The Breaker must be of the robes. That’s the legend. How the hell could I object to the Breaker?”

I was panting. I could feel the cold steel against my side. “You don’t always have to do everything by legends.” I stared at him as he stared back at me. “You wanted to object.”

“Of course, I did!” He stood and yanked the sword from the wood and my clothes. “Of course, I wanted to.”

“Then why didn’t you?” I sat up, feeling the hole in my pants. It was thin, and I could stitch it.

“Because you’re the Breaker.” He didn’t offer a hand to help me up, but he also wasn’t attacking me anymore.

I took the opening to stand, holding my sword in my hand loosely, ready for an attack. “All right, if you’re going to keep giving me the same crappy answer, why did you want to vote against me?”

This time, his eyes grew hard. He turned away from me and sheathed his own sword.

This was ridiculous.

“Master Dorian, I demand an answer from you.”

He whirled. “I’m not playing this game with you, girl.”

I stepped up to him. “I am not playing a game.”

“You never answered my question earlier,” he snapped.

“Who’s playing a game now?” I growled. “You want an answer? I didn’t want to sleep in your bed because Rilen and Roran aren’t there. Why the hell would I sleep in your bed when they are gone? I didn’t feel like going through my morning humiliation of parading myself naked out of bed to get my clothes from your chair, and because there was no reason to sleep in a bed that doesn’t belong to me. I don’t even know why Rilen and Roran stay there when you’ve shown them no affection in two weeks. I can’t stay away from them for a day—and you’re mated! So there’s your answer!” I threw the short sword in the boards between his feet. “What’s yours?”

His eyes glowed gold, bright and dangerous. I could almost see the lightning snapping around him. He was suddenly terrifying and overwhelming.

I refused to be overwhelmed and stood my ground.

He stared.

“Well? I don’t have all night. I need to find a mated couple who will lend me power so I can save S’Kir, again. Why do you hate me so much?”

His arm shot out and curled around my waist, hauling me into his massive chest. He was strong, and muscled and—

Erect.

His fingers found my chin and tipped my face to his.

“Because I have wanted to fuck you since the first time I saw you.”

His mouth crashed to mine, and he possessed me completely.

My brain stuttered. I had a million questions—all of which Master Dorian knocked away with the heat of his lips and the stroke of his tongue on mine.

I didn’t fight him at all. I didn’t want to fight him.

Every bone in my body turned to gelatin, and I melted into him.

This didn’t feel like hate.

Not even a little.

His brutal kiss ate at my lips. I could feel his arms around me, and the man was hard, everywhere. I tried to keep my thoughts of this, kissing him, pressing against him, even fucking him, hidden from my own thoughts.

Now, with his mouth on mine, every bit of defense I had against him was gone.

His kiss moved to the column of my neck as he backed me against the closest wall.

Was this really happening?

My lips trembled. “Master Dorian—”

“Cut the shit, Kimber.” His breath was hot on my skin.

“Dorian…” It sounded strange and comfortable at the same time. “You don’t hate me?”

Pushing his hips into me, he nibbled at the tender skin below my ear. “Does that feel like hate?”

“It feels like…” I swallowed.

“Say it. I’ve heard you say every filthy word there is in my bed. Without me.”

“It feels like a cock I want.”

A shudder went through his body. “Do you want it?”

“Stop asking me questions,” I snapped and grabbed for the buckle of his pants. He chuckled.

This was really happening.

His hand was at the waist of my pants, working as fast as he could. Since I had already unfastened his, I slapped his hands away and took care of it myself.

While I was doing that, his hand found my breasts and kneaded them. He wasn’t tender but demanding. Almost desperate.

“You haven’t touched your mates since you put me in your bed,” I managed. “Why?”

Shoving the material down my legs, Dorian yanked one leg out of the confines of my pants. “Because I was trying to stave off my desire for you.”

My palm rested on the massive erection that was hot under his clothes. “Why are you afraid of your desire for me?”

He dragged his teeth along my collarbone, popping the first few buttons so he could reach more of my skin. “I wasn’t in control of it. I am not in control around you, Kimber. Staying away from you seemed smarter. Even if it meant I had to watch the twins enjoying you without me.”

I peeled the cloth away from him, and his massive cock fell into my hand. Heavy and thick, it was tempting in my palm.

Dorian’s mouth found my nipple through the cloth, and he sucked, hard. My pussy clenched with his attention.

“Forgive me, my lord, but we are on a deadline,” I breathed. “We don’t know when the tremors will start.”

I felt a smile curl his lips.

I was reasonably sure it was the first time he’d smiled without malice in my presence.

“Someone is eager.”

“I have been without a bedmate at all for three nights, and a woman gets used to the attention.”

Straightening, his hand was back on my breast, toying with my nipple. He did have a cocky grin on his face. “Oh, my dear, just you wait.”

I fisted his shirt and pulled him close. “I don’t want to wait.”

Both hands wrapped around me, and he found my ass. “Gods, that’s nice. I’ve wanted to get my hands on this since the first morning you crawled out of my bed.”

“Dorian?” I wrapped my hand around his erection, pumping him gently.

“Yes?”

“Shut up and fuck me. Deadlines.”

He pressed me against the wall and kicked my legs wide open. Dipping down, he slipped his cock between my lips to find my cream.

There was plenty of it.

Sliding back and forth, he coated his erection with my silk, but not only that—he nudged himself against my clit, sending sparks through me.

Holy crap.

“Kimber,” he breathed my name. “I am a bastard. We should be in my bed with Rilen and Roren.”

“Tell me we’ll get there, and give me an orgasm, and I’ll forgive you.”

“Oh, we will,” he breathed, nudging against my entrance. “Arms around my neck, little one. I need to be inside you.”

My arms twined around him, and as he lifted me, he slid deep inside me.

“Ohhhh.”

He was thick, and he cleaved me open, driving deep as he pressed me against the wall.

I hadn’t realized I’d harbored a fantasy about Master Dorian until his dick was deep inside me. The few passing thoughts I’d dismissed were only half-remembered dreams.

I had always found Dorian sexy. There was no way the little no-one acolyte would have a shot in hell at getting a temple master. He was out of my league.

Except, right now, he was very much in my league. Lodged right up to his balls in my league.

He hiked up one of my legs, resting it in the crook of his arm.

Once more, his lips were on mine, and I was his.

I spoke against his mouth. “Move, please. Gods, please.”

He did. He slid out until just his massive tip rested inside me. He held me there a moment and slid back in, his erection splitting me again.

“I am not going to be gentle,” he warned, his eyes closed, his head bowed.

“When did I say I wanted that?” I grinned against his neck. “Please, Master Dorian, fuck me hard.”

He didn’t answer me, not out loud. His answer was in the speed that his shaft rammed in and out of my willing sex.

I was going blind with lust. I hadn't realized I was this desperate for sex, for a climax. But I was, and I wanted to come, soon. I hooked my other leg around his waist and pushed against his thrusting.

“Shit, ilati,” he grumbled into my hair. “I’m coming. Seeing you use that sword and being able to fuck you right after…”

I was beyond lost for words at that point. Hearing that he found me sexy when we were fighting—

I wondered what other times I had gotten him hard.

I gathered my senses enough to give him a directive. “Finger my clit. Touch it. Please, please…”

He was happy to oblige.

I didn’t realize how close I was.

At the first touch of his finger, I shattered, screaming his name in release and praise.

I lost all sense of myself and time. The only thing I registered was Dorian slamming his cock into me, grunting, and then yelling my name as he spilled his cum inside me.