Page 90 of Sands of Atonement

“Say that again,” I muttered and whirled her in front of me.

Her pulse quickened just under her jaw.

“I belong to Casimir.”

I took a step forward, barely containing my hands.

“Casimir,” she repeated.

My hand flew to her throat.

Eshe’s legs hit my bed, losing her stability as her back fell onto my dark covers. I leaned over her warm, trembling body.

Time stilled as I studied her. My hand was still wrapped around her delicate throat, feeling a racing pulse beneath my fingers. Her eyes, the color of a festering storm, grew slightly wide, and her full lips parted. For a moment, I forgot what had just been said, and I brushed my thumb across her pliable lower lip.

Her breath hitched.

Then I pushed down hard.

I imagined what it would be like to grab that lip with my teeth and bite the fuck out of it as punishment.

Hearing Casimir’s name on her lips as if she breathed for him was like nails breaking off on a rocky limestone wall. Felt worse than the balls she nearly busted in me. Though I couldn’t understand why, I couldn’t stand it, and it made my ears burn and bleed inside out.

“If I hear you say his name like that one more time, woman, I’ll lock you in a chamber until you’ve forgotten your own name.”

Her lips opened, but before she could retort, I announced, “We’re leaving.”

After covering Eshe as best as I could, I grabbed her by the elbow and pulled her out of my home. I knew that Kavid would never find this place, but Eshe didn’t need to know that. I wanted her to have hope that maybe, just maybe, Kavid would find her, and then it would be crushed into a million pieces when she finally realized she didn’t belong to him.

When we reached the end of the tunnel, I placed my hands in the ridges created within the boulder to force it to the side. Light peered through the crack as I rolled the boulder with all my strength. We slipped through, and I pushed the boulder back to where it naturally lay.

The desert sands lay in front of us, with my horse waiting at a nearby palm tree for the next adventure. The sand sank around our black boots a couple of inches as we approached, and I could feel the warmth of the earth at the soles of my feet.

Not wasting a moment, I placed my hands around Eshe’s waist to lift her onto the saddle, but she slapped them before I could.

A flush of heat spread through my body.

“I can do it myself,” Eshe said sharply. She grabbed onto the saddle and hoisted her body up, but not before my hands wrapped around the reins. She was too smart for her own good. I let her win this time because we didn’t have time for another lesson on obedience.

Once I placed myself directly behind her, and my arms secured around her small frame, I clicked my horse into motion. I dressed us in traditional Atrovian attire to deter any wandering, thieving nomads in the desert. Once they saw a glimpse of all white, most scurried in the opposite direction.

Without fail, the scorching sun beat down on our aching bodies. It had been several hours of blissful silence, though I could feel my muscles tensed with Eshe in my arms. I couldn’t relax with her this close to me.

Ahead of us, I noticed a rumbling storm of dark red brewing.

A dust storm.

“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath and lifted my scarf higher onto the bridge of my nose to prevent sand inhalation. Eshe was a second behind me.

I didn’t need to explain what we had to do. A moment later, we were off my horse and digging a thick tarp into the ground. Once the tent was up and secured, I brought my horse in just in time to receive some stinging sands across my squinting eyes. The sandstorm was raging above us, hissing and rattling the tent left and right.

My giant of a horse took up too much space, so Eshe and I sat crowded in the space that was left for us. My eyes caught Eshe shaking her head slightly.

“What is it?” I snapped. I needed to learn how to control myself better around her, but today was not that day.

Eshe lowered her cloth. “I wouldn’t be in this mess if it weren’t for you. I’d be on my way home.” She cursed under her breath.

“Or dead,” I muffled through my scarf.