Marrying a Warhound (Cassian) novel Chapter 8

8 /145

55 vouchers

He kissed me, gently, almost patient at first. His warm breath and the faint taste of wine, hum quietly against my lips. His hand skimmed my waist, palm steady as it mapped the curve of my hip, then higher, finding the wild thrum of my heart.

I should have frozen.

I should have flinched the way prey does under a predator’s paw.

Instead, I answered.

A soft sound escaped before I could swallow it. My fingers curled in the wool lapel of his shirt, anchoring me in a storm I’d never learned to survive.

His mouth deepened the kiss, slow turning to urgent, coaxing want from places fear had long starved. When his teeth grazed my lower lip I gasped, and he drank the sound like approval. The hand at my waist slid up, calluses brushing my bare skin. Heat flared inside me.

“Breathe,” he murmured against my mouth, and I realized I wasn’t.

I drew in air, sharp, trembling, flavored with cedar smoke and rain. Every sense felt raw, the fire’s crackle, his pulse beneath my palm, the scrape of stubble catching silk skin. He smelled of iron and winter and something yet unnamed that pulled a reckless ache from my chest.

“Look at me,” he said.

I did. His gray eyes which almost looked like steel, locked onto mine. He studied me the way a predator studies a puzzle. Power shimmered behind that gaze. Hunger lingered too, not just physical, but something deeper, darker. A craving to own, to test, to consume.

And beneath it all, a question burned quietly between us.

Would I bend for him… willingly, completely?

Or would I resist… until I shattered?

“You’re not shaking,” he repeated, softer this time, almost curious.

“I’m past shaking,” I whispered. “There’s nothing left to fear.” That was a lie and I knew he knew, he heard it.

His thumb brushed the curve beneath my breast, testing. My breath stilled again, not from fright but from the strange, sharp thrill of it. The edge he dangled me over tilted closer to

11:02 Wed, Sep 10

Chapter 8

ruin, yet some stubborn shard inside refused to cower.

55 vouchers

He felt that defiance. I saw it flicker behind his gaze. “Good,” he said. “A consort should know when to bare her throat and when to bare her teeth.”

The hand roaming my skin found the thin scar I’d earned training years ago, one of the few marks that never healed pretty. It was the one near my heart. Just above it. A few more inches and I would have died. But I didn’t. Instead, the wound healed on its own. That was the day I discovered my ability.

He traced it. “Flawed blade,” he murmured, echoing his earlier taunt. “But tempered.”

His lips curved into a faint smile before he pressed a kiss to the scar as if trying to rewrite its meaning with his own. Heat bloomed low in my belly, curling through me like wildfire.

His hand trailed along my side before rising to cup my breast. A sharp gasp escaped me as heat bloomed deep in my core. Then, a knock shattered the moment like glass.

The world rushed back in. I let out a deep breath I didn’t even know I was holding.

Cassian’s expression darkened instantly. He turned his head toward the door, voice sharp with annoyance. “Didn’t I tell you not to disturb me?”

“My lord,” came the urgent reply from the other side. “The Demon Fang has launched an attack. They’ve tripled their numbers. We believe they’ll breach the border and reach the pack’s territory within the hour.”

I froze. My blood turned cold.

The Demon Fang, rogues who had no allegiance, only a hunger for the blood of their own kind. They’d been a looming threat ever since they carved out their so–called kingdom, but this… this would be the first time they dared to launch a direct assault on our pack.

Coincidence?

I heard him snicker. Then he took a step back, took a coat and suddenly covered me with it. I froze but chose to focus. “The Demon Fang’s territory is not that far. An hour is an overestimate. They rely on the dark to make trickeries. I- I’ve seen the wounds that their weapons made,”

My words seemed to catch him off guard, and for once, I found the courage to meet his eyes. “Please be careful,” I said, my voice softer than I expected.

Then I froze. I wasn’t sure where the boldness had come from. Those words just slipped out before I could stop my mouth from speaking. Flustered, I rushed to add, “It’s just… if something happens to you, I might get stuck here. In this place.”

11:02 Wed, Sep 10