Chapter 58
Chapter 58
MAXIM POV
Prince Remy must think I am insane. The amount of times I’ve looked out of the windows, checked how she was doing. I volunteer to carry every single pile of checked armour back down the stairs and bring the next lot up if it gives me a chance of observing her on the archery range, heading to lunch going to scent tracing.
It means she is is still here. There is still a chance for my plan.
Even so, I had to stifle a growl when I saw her next to Vigo, only to realise as the pack of soaking wolves streaked out across the grassy plains, that he was guarding her.
Briggs‘ wolf stands out across the pack, not for its tremendous black size anymore, but for it’s slow, painful limp. He’s fucked. Nothing less than he deserves. Still, it makes me uneasy. I don’t know enough about him. He’s been so friendly and chatty, without offering anything concrete about himself.
Which is what I do. So I know not to trust him.
Deep down, him being on the other side of the border, where Tessa is going to be just feels like a disaster waiting to happen. Hauling another load of black armour up the stairs my brain whirrs over. I can fix things. I’ve got a tiny margin of power at my disposal.
Briggs will be cut when I’m done with him.
Right now, here in the forest. An hour after curfew with her, my attention is focused entirely on Tessa. My Tess, my wolf screams.
Taking her bow and her hand left my chest pounding. Her silence was a rare blessing, there was no conversation in me. Words have been replaced by instinctive action. Like a caveman, I’ve seen what I want and I’m taking it.
Waiting in the tree for her, partially sheltered from the rain took all my faith in what we have. To take everything I have learned about her and apply it.
And I was right. She came to the archery field. Not the train station.
That has to mean something? That I know her well enough to get that right?
What if once this Luca is removed we are second chance mates? Stranger things have happened. What if I’m watching my soulmate walk away?
Those thoughts tormented me up in the tree. Now a whole other set of th
thoughts has my brain scrambled.
Arriving at the train station, I am supposedly a man of training, discipline, good behaviour. Traits men like Donlon and Marshall have spent years instilling into me. Except I am not. It is an illusion. I never really learnt how to behave myself.
Because staring at Tessa, her pretty damp face, brown eyes shining up at me with slicked back copper hair, the rules vanish. Everything reckless, foolish and borderline suicidal seemed like the right thing to do.
So I kissed her again. Wordlessly, roughly pulling her to me and sparking what we both need.
Fuck it felt so right, My hand on her soft little face, her body tensing for a second before her hands found my chest. Anchoring herself to me with a fierce
grip.
Seducing Hazel, romancing the other women in my life, wasn’t necessarily easier. There were chases, flirtations, build–ups and yearning. But not once did the reward, her kiss returned, ever make me feel this lightheaded.
Kissing me back just as feistily, my soul is dancing with hers. It’s all or nothing.
I don’t want to talk. I can’t change what she’s planning. There is no way to make Ravenbow feel safe for her again without murdering an Alpha and every bastard that assumes she is there purely for the matebond. The more we investigate her family and their links, the worse her reputation will sink too.
She’s mated to who we believe is the leader of the rebels and shes fleeing in the fucking night. Some logical bastard like Kai would point out that’s a red
1/A
Chapter 58
flag. That I’m sending my affection down a one–way street.
Ignoring every fact, I kiss her harder, unzipping her jacket, my hands around her waist. Pressed up against this gray, stone column, finally out of the rain, there is not another soul around for a mile. I have Tessa where I need her. Where she is mine.
My voice is rough, desperate, yanking her tucked shirt out of her pants. It’s one of my blue shirts and my heart briefly falters. She wasn’t just going to forget I ever existed.
It only makes my resolve firmer. This, my plan, my desperate idea must come through.
I give her shirt another jerk, “Off. All this needs to go.”
“I can’t! Maxim? The plan!” she hisses, her nails almost cutting my skin as she grips for my jacket in panic. I kiss her neck, a little harder, my teeth threatening to scrape against her soft perfect skin until she lets out a little moan.
That sound that hasn’t left my head since this morning. I need more.
Like a genie in a bottle, I want to trap as much of her as I can. Keep every sound, scent, taste and expression somewhere where it isn’t going to be lost for good.
“Tess, this is happening.”
Her brown eyes widened with surprise, but not fear.
Instead she nods in agreement.
“Yes?”
She nods again.
Something inside me illuminates. Giving her another kiss, I take her hand and make a break for the huge, silent, shining steam train that is setting off in three hours. Staff will arrive to start loading it in two hours.
Picking up more injured men from the front. As Alpha Hale doesn’t trust a single man to fight for him, yet the carriages will be completely empty. Tess can hide in here.
Afterwards.
After we finally explore what we’ve danced around for way too long.
Heading to the second to last carriage I wrench the handle. “Get in.”
I don’t care that I’m being demanding. Tess obeys and I’m on fire.
It’s the same style of carriage we first met on. Long rows of leather seats, luggage racks and bronze fittings. This space is ours.
When I turn around from shutting the flimsy metal door she is stood right in front of me. Two steps higher, my face at her chest. I watch as her jacket drops to the floor in a soaked heap. Without speaking copy her, my leather jacket unzipped and discarded.
I take the end of my blue shirt, the one still on her body and give her another yank closer. The buttons split apart readily, revealing her smooth perfect skin. Her slightly soft stomach, that area of her body my lips long to linger upon.
“You too,” she whispers, like she’s afraid of giving orders. My shirt is removed in seconds. “Don’t stop telling me what to do.”
Goddess, the layers hiding under that shy, quiet facade. “Foot,” I snap, helping to yank off her boots. “Other one.”
She watches me, those brown eyes so calm and curious. Her long copper hair is darker when it is dampened but the way it clings to her bare shoulders
delicious.
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Chapter 58
“Pants.”
She hesitates for half a second before she reaches for her buttons.
I don’t want a stitch of clothing on her. I couldn’t give a fuck about her so–called mark. I’m tired of pretending I don’t want all of her. Even if it’s just fo tonight. I want Tess Darnell to be completely mine.
“Undress me. Touch me Tess.”
Now she hesitates. But I know Tess. She’s in her own head worrying she’s going to get something wrong. That she won’t live up to however many hundred girlfriends she’s falsely imagining came before her.
When her little face scrunches up in annoyance with the belt I tilt her chin upwards. Giving her a soft kiss I mutter. “You can’t get it wrong. Unless you take all night.”
Her hand strokes tentatively over the front of my pants. Over my hard cock. Straining against my pants.
“That’s all yours.”
She rubs it again and I’m gritting my teeth like a deranged bastard. “Take my clothes off Tess. I don’t need torturing”
She blushed the sweetest raspberry red but her gaze never wavered. Within a minute, I stood naked in front of her. Cock painfally hard, pre–cum glistening at the head. Caught in silence her small hand gently travelled down my chest, my stomach before curling her fingers around my length.
Curiosity finally getting the better of her. Finally answering the question my mind has been firing for weeks. Yes it feels fucking incredible to be touched by her. It shouldn’t. But it does.
She still has the blue shirt lingerie on. I gently peel the shirt open a little more. But that won’t work for me tonight. This is a night of no regrets.
“Maxim I don’t want to see it.”.
“You won’t.”
“But you will.”
“I need to see all of you Tess. I don’t want a single barrier between us. Not this…” fingering the shirt material with a scowl. The shirt slowly drops down past her shoulder, revealing a bra strap. “Definitely not this.”
She squeezes my cock as I tuck one finger inside the hemline of her white panties and tug it hard enough to make her take a step closer, her orange scent perfuming the air beyond temptation. “I have no idea why these stupid items even exist.”
Finally she smiles, her serious wide–eyed little face relaxing. “Is you saying goodbye then?”
She might feel she can makes jokes. I can’t. To be caught here is betrayal, to be associated with her leaving is death. But I can’t walk away. I see now why Donlon lost his mind over losing what he craved.
“Call it whatever you like firecracker, but you aren’t setting one foot out of this pack without me knowing how it feels.”
“How what feels,” and I swear to the Goddess she squeezes the length of my cock, making my words spill out harder, rougher than I intended. But true all
the same.
“I want everything.”
“Tell me properly.”
“To fill your pussy. Over and over. To make you feel like you’ve never felt before and have absolutely no regrets. To come inside you and feel how tightly you squeeze me. I want you to know how it feels to be wanted.”
“Because after this,” she whispers, her head tilting to the side, continuing to stroke me whilst my hands undo her bra strap. Finally the shirt falls away
Chapter 58
and I’m just a pair of white panties away from witnessing perfection. “It’s done?”
“I didn’t say that. After this, the train leaves with you on it. An empty train. All the way to the front.”
“Just me, you won’t come too?” her gaze wavering for just a second. I’m staying, because there is nothing out there beyond Ravenbow. Tessa has to learn
an assassin. I won’t reduce my life to that. that for herself. I grew up in the shitheap Industrial zone, I’ve skulked around the exiles
Instead I rise, up the two steps to get on the same level as Tess, seizing her in a kiss. I rip her panties down to her knees, before she wriggles them to the floor. Hands on her waist I firmly guide her into the main carriage.
Onto the same seats we first found ourselves making a bargain.
Tessa doesn’t realise that there aren’t going to be any others. Tessa may not be my first, but she will be my last.
#
AD
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