Page 224 of Starside

Then, eyes never leaving mine, he tears the bodice right down the middle.

I suck in air. My hands fly up to catch the front, barely managing to cover my breasts.

That’s where Raker’s gaze goes, to the parts the fabric doesn’t conceal. At the heat in his look, I let the fabric slip.

And his eyes go wholly black as he studies me hungrily, with a focus that leaves me breathless, until they finally meet mine—and they are blazing, brimming with emotions I can’t even name. Slowly, achingly slowly, his knuckles slide down every inch of my spine, lingering, scraping, and my skin is on fire. My nipples are straining beneath my fingers. The want within me has turned into a wildfire.

Then, just when that heat has reached the center of me, just when I wonder how far he will go and how far I will let him, his hand stops. His brow creases.

He drops my gaze to look down at my skin. My awareness flares to life once more as he goes deathly still.

He stops breathing. The air seems sucked out of this entire room.

My scars. He’s seen the twisted, mangled mess of them. I stare straight ahead, refusing to look at him.

His voice is hard as steel. “Who did this to you?”

So is mine. “You did.”

Those two words sit between us, and I feel the air shift. I feel his confusion and wrath. His voice is pure fury. “I did not.”

I whirl around to face him. “You might as well have.” Rage pounds through my blood as I tilt my head. “You don’t remember, do you?”

He says nothing. He’s just looking at me, and the tear that has slipped down my cheek, and he has the nerve to look outraged.

He might not remember, but I do. I remember so well, I can practically taste the bitterness of the moment on my tongue.

“That day, it was raining. I climbed the fence to train, to use the guards’ practice sets while they were inside. So that I would even … so that I would even have a chance.” A chance at the Questral. A chance at my revenge.

My hands are trembling with resentment, remembering.

I was about to jump off the wall, to test my landing, when a hand fisted the back of my shirt and pulled me back.

My breath nearly left me as I was shoved back into a wall. A sword was at my throat. That glittering, beautiful blade.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” a brutal voice said.

I looked up and through the rain I saw two gray eyes set in a battle helmet, staring down at me with nothing short of hatred.

I remember being struck by the depths of that hatred.

He didn’t know me at all. He didn’t know me enough to hate me.

“I—I’ll leave,” I said, my voice barely making any sound. I knew what happened to trespassers. They were imprisoned—or worse. Stellan couldn’t know what I was up to. If he suspected at all that I was training for the Questral, he would find a way to stop me.

His grip on my shoulder tightened, even as he sheathed his sword. He turned toward the training camp to alert his knights.

My hand jutted out in desperation and wrapped around his wrist. He jolted, as if truly shocked anyone would dare touch him.

“Please,” I said, willing to beg. “Please. Let me go. You’ll never see me again, I promise.”

His eyes locked onto mine for just a moment, and that hatred … it seemed to grow. I knew what he was about to do. I could feel it.

In one last attempt to stop him, I said. “Please. Have mercy.”

Mercy. That simple word seemed to seal my fate. His eyes hardened of any emotion at all. He dragged me to the other guards himself.

They hauled me away kicking and screaming, the tips of my boots cutting lines through the mud.