PERRIN NOTICED THAT Kanyth barely said a word as he walked with her back to her chamber, but she didn’t mind the silence. The attack on him and the old druid had her wishing she’d never left Dun Mor. If she hadn’t come with Emeline, neither of the men would have been here for Oriana to hurt. That thought led her to wonder why the acolyte had gone to all the trouble to pose as a McAra servant.

“I don’t think the druidess came here to kill you or Bhaltair,” she said to Kanyth as he stopped at the door to her chamber. “She was here before any of us, and she didn’t try to hurt me, either.”

“Dinnae remind me I left you alone with her,” he said, gesturing for her to stay while he went in first.

Watching Kanyth made Perrin flash back to that horrible moment when she’d first seen his blood-soaked body in the passage. Bhaltair had been right, he was lucky to be alive. She wished she could find Oriana and show her how it felt to be stabbed. She wouldn’t leave the druidess to slowly bleed to death, however. No, she’d drive a dagger directly into her sadistic, murderous heart for daring to attack him.

Perrin took in a sharp breath and put a hand to her own heart when she realized what she’d just imagined. That wasn’t like her—at least the old her. But as she looked at Kanyth’s broad back while he thoroughly searched the room, she knew the cause.

He’s not my anything. We agreed on that.

At last Kanyth nodded to her. Perrin gave him a wide berth as she went to check on the clothes she’d left to dry. She couldn’t wait to strip out of her gown, now stiff with dried blood, and put on something clean and light. She felt almost feverish with the need to undress. Once she washed up, then she’d climb into bed and sleep with one eye open. She didn’t think about where Kanyth would sleep until she heard him bolting the door.

“I’ve spoiled your bath,” he said as he stripped off his ruined tunic. Leaning over the tub, he splashed his neck and chest to wash away the blood. “There’s clean water in the basin.”

Perrin couldn’t take off the gown in front of him. All she wore under it was the see-through linen shift. Washing herself with it on would be pointless.

“You know, I could go and stay in Emmie’s room tonight,” she said, trying to sound casual. “That way you’ll have the bed. It is your chamber after all.”

He straightened and turned toward her. “The laird placed you in my care, my lady.”

“Oh, I’ll be fine. There are some guards down the hall who can walk me there. Hey.” She saw something on his neck and frowned as she stepped closer. “I thought water healed you completely. It left a scar.”

Kanyth ran his hand over the place where the druidess had stabbed him. “I feel naught.”

“It’s right here, where she stabbed you.”

Perrin reached out to touch the shiny mark, which up close looked like a wavy circle. As she traced it, light radiated from her palm, and sank into the scar. She snatched her hand back.

“I think I did this, after I pulled out the dagger. I pressed my hand over the wound.”

She met his gaze, and saw a glimmer of rose gold rimming his black irises.

“Show me,” Kanyth said, his voice going low and soft. He caught her wrist and brought her hand back to his neck.

“It was the forge, not me,” Perrin protested. “It’s messing with me again. The druid said it would. You’re healed, so nothing will happen now, right?”

“Only this shall prove it.” He opened her hand and pressed her marked palm against his scarred skin.

Silent, rose-gold flames enveloped them from all sides. Perrin couldn’t move or make a sound, but the intense heat of the fire didn’t burn her. Instead it charred her gown, which shrank and split and fell in heaps of ash around her now-bare feet. The dried blood on her hand and arm burned away, leaving only clean, flushed skin. By the time the flames burned low and flickered out she felt scoured from head to toe. She dropped her chin to look at her body, now pressed up against Kanyth’s.

Both of them had been left squeaky clean—and completely naked.

Carefully she took her hand away from his neck as she tried to think of something diplomatic to say.

“Looks like I won’t need that water in the basin.”

“Nor I.” Kanyth sounded as if he had another knife in his throat. “I ken ’tis all the forge, Perrin. You made your wishes clear.”

Somehow, she was stroking the big muscles of his upper arms now, and she couldn’t seem to stop doing it. “You don’t want a mate, either.”

“I want you, my lady.” He kissed her brow, and then eased her away from him. “But we agreed.”

“We did agree.” She saw him take one long look at her, and decided she was entitled to do the same.

Forget his gorgeous face. She never wanted to look at anything but his marvelous body for as long as she lived.

All that smooth, firm skin over deliciously ripped muscle made her mouth go dry. She’d already secretly admired the massively developed, brute beauty of his upper torso, but now she could forever day dream about the rest of him. His long, powerful legs had such a perfect shape to them they would have made every male dancer in her company sob with envy. From a thatch of dark hair his penis thrust up thick and erect, and pulsed slightly with his heartbeat. Seeing the glistening, pearly drop on its swollen crown made her knees weak. She wanted to kiss it and taste him.

“I willnae put my hands on you again,” Kanyth told her as he brought a shift to her. “Nor come into your bed. I’ll but keep watch for the night. From the passage, if ’tis what you wish.”

“You don’t do too well in hallways,” Perrin said and took the shift and held it for a long moment. He was asking her to tell him what to do, and leaving wasn’t on her list. “Are you interested in what I really want?”

“Aye, but I cannae fathom your mood, my lady.” He gave her a wary look. “I’m in your debt. Truly you’ve but to say, and I shall see it done.”

A few days ago, just thinking of being with him would have sent her scurrying off to hide in her room. She wasn’t that sad, scared girl anymore. Only minutes ago, she thought she’d lost him. What did the forge or the marks or the mating thing matter compared to that?

“Would you come over here, please?” she said. When he reached for his trews she shook her head. “Don’t get dressed. I want to keep looking at you. You don’t mind, do you? You have such an incredible body.”

He moved closer, but stayed out of her reach. “What now?”

She eliminated the space between them, until only an inch separated their bare skins.

“We do what we want.”

Kanyth stiffened as she slid her hands up and across his chest. “My lady–”

“Put your hands on me, too.” When he cupped her waist, she took hold of his arms and shifted his hands up to cover her breasts. “I know they’re not much, but they ache whenever I’m near you. I sit and think about you touching them, and rubbing them.” Slowly she moved his hands over and around the slight curves of her mounds. “Sometimes I wonder how your mouth would feel on them.”

His jaw tightened. “Perrin, this… ’Tis no’ wise. I’m a man, no’ an anvil.”

“Tell me to stop and I will.” She felt her nipples puckering and pushed them against his fingers. “This is what I want, Ka. To make love with the man, not the forge. I want to be your wench, not your wife. It’s not like you can hide how much you want me, either.”

He dragged in a deep breath. “You would be as a pleasure lass, then.”

“I’ll be whatever you want for tonight.” She pressed a kiss to the center of his chest. “As long as you’ll be my pleasure lad.”

Perrin glided around him, trailing her hand over his arm and down his back before she walked over to the bed. Pulling the linens down out of the way, she climbed in and stretched out.

Kanyth followed her to stand over the bed, his eyes never leaving her body. “I should be chained for what I desire do now.”

She’d finally broken free of hers. It was time to release him from his.

“I’ll never put chains on you. No more chains.” She smiled. “Unless you want some.”

He leaned down to put his mouth on hers, and then he was on top of her, his big frame shifting until he had her fitted under his chest and hips. Perrin wound her arms around his neck, opening completely to the hungry thrust of his tongue. Somehow, he’d become even better than he’d been that first night.

That first kiss deepened into another and another. He cupped her chin to keep her mouth locked with his. The smell of him intoxicated her. She wanted to give up air and just breathe his exotic spiciness forever. Her pulse went from fast to wild, and her body felt as if she were sprinting across the stage.

He makes my heart spin like a pirouette that never ends.

At last he let her gasp in air as he nuzzled her throat and moved down to her breasts. He studied them so intently Perrin chuckled, at least until he began kissing them. He pelted her with his lips and laved her with rough strokes of his tongue. She uttered a small cry of delight as he captured one nipple and tugged on it, sucking her avidly. It felt so good it made her daydreams dissolve into dust.

Her hands went everywhere she could reach, from tangling in his thick hair to stroking the heavy beam of his shoulders. Watching his mouth loving her made her own lips tingle and erotic ideas fill her head. He might have had lovers, but he’d never made love. Neither had she. The gymnastic sex she’d had as her first experience had been nothing like this. He was setting her on fire and cooling her heat all at once. He had woken up every part of her being, from her curling toes to her exploding mind.

Kanyth seemed to be genuinely enthralled with her breasts. He caressed and kissed them until they grew damp and covered in pink love patches. By then Perrin couldn’t stop from arching up against him. Her thighs gripped his hips as she tried to seek some relief against the hard length of his girth.

“Do you wish me come into you, wench?” He slid down, and slowly worked his cock against the wet heat of her. “Or shall I kiss you more, and make you beg for it?”

Hearing him call her that made Perrin roll her hips, notching the wide bulb of his cockhead in her folds. She dragged in a breath.

“Do I have to go get the chains now? Because I will.”

Kanyth grinned with pure masculine appreciation. “You’d melt them, my fiery rose.”

“Wench,” she corrected him. “Your wench, Ka.”

He pressed in slowly, bracing his arm above her head as he worked his cock into her aching pussy. The ache grew hotter and deeper as he forged in, and Perrin couldn’t hold back her cry as he possessed her completely. She gripped him with her slick muscles, unwilling to let him withdraw and leave her empty again. Nothing had ever made her feel so perfect as having Ka inside her, not even dancing.

Kanyth held himself there, his eyes narrowing to slits as his features grew taut. “A wench must please, no’ demand. All that I want, you’ll give to me.”

“Yes,” she gasped and shuddered as he lost the battle and recoiled to pump deep inside her again and again. The steady, luscious sensation of being stroked by his cock made her shake beneath him, helpless with sensual enchantment. “Oh, Ka. Don’t ever stop.”

“I cannae, for your quim wraps me as a fist covered in honey.” He pushed one hand under her bottom, lifting her into his powerful thrusts. “I shall fack you ’til dawn, because you beg for it. I shall put myself where you ache for me, with mouth and hand and cock. I’ll bring you to pleasure you’ve no’ imagined. Fill you with my seed so it spills from your core and streams down your thighs.”

“Yes, everything, please.” She writhed as her own need fed on his growled desires and the merciless pounding of his shaft. “Something is—oh, my God.”

Kanyth kissed her, ravishing her lips before he looked into her eyes. “Aye, I feel it. You tremble so eager on me,” he crooned, his eyes glowing with fierce satisfaction. “’Tis mine you become. Your sweet mouth and your pretty tits and your fine arse—and this.” He drove into her with such ferocity that his dome jolted against the gate to her womb. “Now give me all, my lovely wench.”

That shoved her from shivering on the brink into a surging cascade of bliss. His grunts and her cries melded together as he stiffened and jerked over her. He jetted into her, deep and warm, exciting her all over again. The spreading silkiness set off another, hotter climax that blazed through her, burning away everything in its path.

Kanyth pulled her over on top of him, holding her sprawled on his sweat-slick body while he kept his penis buried inside her. They stayed like that until the aftershocks ended, but by then Perrin felt him growing erect again.

“I’m permitted to take a wench as a lover,” he said, very casually. “Just so you ken.”

It shouldn’t have been funny, but Perrin couldn’t stop the laugh that spilled out of her. “You are such a man.”

“Aye.” His expression grew thoughtful as he stroked her back from nape to waist. “Whether you would be with me again after this night, or part and never speak of it again, I shall do as you wish, Perrin. ’Tis foolish to follow ways that died out long ago with the rest of the Pritani. Only dinnae tell my brother. He’ll declare you my mate.”

How horrible it must have been, Perrin thought, to wake up a thousand years after your time, in a world that had gone on without you.

“I don’t have to decide right now, do I?”

Kanyth wrapped his arms around her and lifted her until her reddened nipple touched his lips. Against it he said, “I reckon you’ll be too busy.”