The Taming: Book 3 in the Tribe Warrior Series by Imogen Keeper (romantic novels in english TXT) 📕

he’d intended. But there was still time. They had all night.

And in the morning...

“Come to Vesta,” he whispered.

She sighed, half asleep. “I can’t. We’re enemies.”

They would be soon. “We don’t have to be.”

16

Even a toilet is softer than you

KLYM WOKE SLOWLY, her body boneless.

The skin between her thighs throbbed. A little achy there. Tor and his endlessly wicked fingers hadn’t been all that gentle. But the ache was worth it. Entirely worth it.

She rolled onto her back and slid her hands down her bare stomach, over her thighs. The skin was tender there, from his beard scratching. Also worth it.

A flash of his dimples tightening as he’d held that long, thick part of himself in his fist, lust stabbing its way through her low belly.

And the look in his eyes.

How could she bear to be parted from him after that? Could she? She didn’t want to. He’d offered to take her home with him.

He’d whispered to her, the silvery orbs of his eyes gleaming in the dark. Abellina. Beautiful.

Siarina. Sweet. Blitana. Perfect.

He cared for her. She knew he did. No one could say those things to her, look at her the way he had, without caring—at least a little. And she didn’t want to leave him. Nothing waited for her on Argentus except shame and people who didn’t want her. For the first time, a part of her wanted to know what happened when an Argenti and a Vestige mated.

She rolled over again, reaching across the cold sheets.

Where was he?

Light pooled along the edge of the door. The ship hummed all around them.

She frowned.

The ship shouldn’t be humming. Not unless they’d already left Frigorria.

She slid from the bed, padding across the floor, snagging one of Tor’s shirts from the closet on her way.

It smelled like him. She smiled faintly as she tugged it over her head. She probably smelled like him too.

She found him in the bridge. A mug steamed in his hand, rising up to get lost in the viewscreen where a band of gray asteroids drifted past.

Why had he taken off? Where were they going? He didn’t turn back to look at her, and she stared at the back of his head, his dark hair caught up in a bun at the back of his head. “Morning, abellina.”

“Where are we going?”

“Home.” His voice echoed like a war drum.

She dug her toes into the icy cold floor of the bridge, dread sliding up her spine. “Your home or mine?”

He sipped his drink. “Ours.”

“Say you don’t mean Vesta.” The words came out sharp and fast, each consonant spat out and raging in the air between them.

He didn’t speak.

“Say it.”

He turned to her, his black eyes stark and uncompromising. “We’re going to Vesta.”

Her vision darkened. “What do you intend to do with me there?”

He turned at that, finally looking at her. Something moved in his gaze. Softening slightly. There was guilt there. But resolve too. “I mean to introduce you to my family. As my selissa. You’ll be a queen.”

A hostage was more like it. Her throat was so tight, she couldn’t breathe. “Please, don’t do this. Just leave me on a peace planet. Send me to Pax-Ahora like you said. I’ll find an embassy. I’ll get in touch with my father.”

“You’d be sold into slavery in five minutes on your own.”

“You promised to protect me.”

“I am,” he roared and slapped his chest. “This is me saving you.”

“I don’t like your methods for saving me.”

“You don’t have to like it. You just have to do what I say.”

All around, the stillness of the ship settled. She covered her face with her hands, willing herself to calm down, be rational. “Please,” she muttered. “Don’t do this.”

“I can’t. I can’t stop a whole government. Not unless you’re mine.”

His face was so hard. Where was the sweet Tor of the night before? The man who’d held her in his arms as she’d shaken and cried and begged for him. Who’d woken her in the night with kisses and sighs. Who’d made her body come alive in his hands. That man would have told her that he wanted her, that he cared, maybe even loved her. But that man was not here.

All she saw was lies.

He changed moods like they were dirty clothes, tossing them about at random. Hot one minute and cold the next.

“The laws of marriage are sacred on Vesta. No one will touch you. No one but me.” He clenched his jaw, like he was on the verge of talking more, but stopped.

She stood there, foolishly, pathetically, desperately hoping he’d say something about him, about her, something. Anything that would give form to the previous night.

His lips parted. “This could make peace between our planets, Klym.”

She caught herself with a hand on the black bulkhead. It was cold and unyielding. “So, I’m a pawn again. A piece on a political board to be shifted about.”

She clenched her fists, shame and humiliation rising up her cheeks like wildfire. She’d trusted him last night, with her whole body. She’d wept and cried and screamed for him, like an animal. And he was using her. “I refuse.”

He sipped his eeffoc, as calm and unaffected as if they were discussing the weather. “You’re not in a position to refuse.”

“When did you decide this?” The question stuck in her throat. She didn’t want to know the answer. She needed to know. Maybe he hadn’t known last night. Maybe last night at least had been real.

A long pause. He set down his mug.

His gaze was unreadable.

“Before last night?”

He lifted a shoulder. “What does that matter?”

It felt as though he’d punched her. Right in the gut. He might as well have. A physical pain, unlike anything she’d known. It mattered. Very much. It had all been a lie, last night. All of it. Every touch and kiss and word. Every whisper and mischievous dimple.

She didn’t want any more lies. “You are no different from my father. Or Spiro. Or Spiro’s father. Just one more man who’s decided the