Page 6 of The Forsaken

Snow fell all around them, fluttering and dancing specks as the fairies floated about as Queen Elphame enchanted the forest and all creatures trapped here. And through layers and layers of fabric, her body registered his caress; sure, confident. Tender, but claiming.

Her pulse skipped too many beats to count.

“A-are you in the habit of quoting Burns, my lord?”

“Only when the situation merits it.”

Somehow, she managed to pick her head up, but her big curls continued to make a big tangled curtain over her vision. She couldn’t have blinked if she wanted. “And this is one of those times?”

Lord Kerr brought a gloved palm up and tenderly shoved those whipping strands back behind her ears. Even the winter storm bent the knee to him, as her heavy hair lay where he guided it.

“Come with me, Andromena.”

His warm breath ghosted along her neck.

“I…” want to.

But she could not. Why couldn’t she? Wait—should she even want to?

Then he brushed his lips against her racing pulse, and her eyes drifted shut.

“Is that a ‘yes’, darling?”

Darling. How beautiful that sounded. Her muscles melted and she burrowed more deeply into him. “Hmm?”

The deep, low rumble of his laughter set her belly a’flutter.

Feeling completely exposed, Andromena shrank against him. The viscount thought her a Green Girl, and he wasn’t wrong. She knew she should be offended enough to shove herself free of him. But she was a woman awakened. A deep ache lived inside her—not pain, and not pleasure either… and his was not the laugh of a man who mocked, but shared a secret.

Then she recalled he wanted to take her somewhere. “Where?”

Whose throaty voice was that? Surely not Andromena’s?

“You’ll just have to trust me,” he whispered, his warm breath grazing her ear like a brush of skin.

Andromena shivered.

She was wrong—she wasn’t so very clever after all. She was far from immune to the viscount’s burning gaze, or the confident touch of hands that clearly knew a lady’s curves. Completely undone, Andromena was suddenly seized by a fierce, wild urge to hurt all those nameless women from his past.

But even that uncomfortable emotion of jealousy had no power over Lord Kerr’s hold.

Her eyelashes fluttered. Her heart sped up, and she was certain she’d follow him anywhere. “I don’t even know your given name, Lord K—”

He tendered two syllables, hard and unlikely for a rogue, but perfect for a man in full possession of himself…and her. “Edgar.”

With the sleek agility of a primal cat in the wild, he brought them both to standing. He did not release her. He held her closer. “Will you come with me, Andromena?” His breath, hot with brandy and cheroot, brushed her skin with a raw, heavy heat.

“How…?” Can I? She was supposed to say. It was her sister’s wedding. But her mind was as tangled as her curls, and: “H-How could I not?” came from somewhere.

His pleased, husky laugh moved through her.

They were almost-strangers in one heartbeat; and in the next, nevermore. Beneath the whispering snow and rustle of branches, Edgar, Viscount Kerr, kissed her. It was a brief, gentle press of lips—their first. One heartbeat they were strangers; the next, they could never be unmade.

His kiss did not bow her, but it quietly called her in. As Edgar teased her with a promise of more, something did, however, shatter the dizzy spell he’d cast.

“Meghaaaan?”

A ravaged cry rang out from the distance, followed in rapid succession by another, just as far away.