Page 55 of Wench

‘I . . .’ Her voice frays. She swallows, fists curling at her sides. ‘Why?’

Lox studies her, head tilting slightly, expression unreadable. ‘Because your strength should be yours alone, not borrowed from one of us. If you stay . . .’ His voice drifts as his eyes flit to Allen and then back to her. ‘Then I want it to be by your choosing, not your need.’

Allen whistles and throws his hands up in mock surrender. ‘Well then, looks like you two don’t need me standing here like a third verse in a song no one asked for. I’ll leave you to, uh, sharpen your teeth together.’ He takes a step backward, his grin returning in full force. ‘Try not to bite too hard on your first go, eh?’

‘Don’t you have a lute to tune?’ Marian hisses.

He clutches his chest as if wounded. ‘How dare you! My lute is always in tune. Unlike some people’s tempers.’ The minstrel darts toward the trees, whistling a bawdy tune under his breath. Just before slipping into the shadows of the branches, he tosses over his shoulder, ‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do – which, lucky for you, is very little.’ Then he vanishes, laughter echoing behind him.

The glade grows still again, emptied of his chatter. Marian’s pulse hammers louder for the silence he leaves behind.

Lox doesn’t waste a breath. He begins undoing the laces of his tunic, the motion unhurried and precise. The loosened fabric bares the lines of his throat and the ink that climbs the corded muscles of his chest.

Marian watches him roll his sleeves to the elbow. She notices how his body is built for strength, but it’s the control in him that unsettles her most.

Heat pools low in her belly, and she has to force her gaze back to his face.

‘No opponent worth fearing will stand still for you,’ he says, voice even, though his eyes catch hers with disarming sharpness. ‘Best you learn to train against a moving target.’

She opens her mouth to answer, when a familiar pressure shifts in the air. His jaw flexes, breath hitching low in his throat as his antlers begin to recede like smoke withdrawing into the wick of a candle.

‘I told you,’ she swallows, ‘you don’t have to do that for my benefit.’

His lips twitch. He twists his neck from side to side, as if testing the new lightness. ‘They’re . . . sensitive, and far too easy for someone to grab without thinking.’ His eyes catch hers, a glint sparking there. ‘I’d hardly want to give you leverage over me.’

The image of her hands curling into the velvet-dark ridges flashes unwanted and scorching. She jerks her gaze aside, pulse stumbling, ashamed of the heat licking low in her body.

‘I wasn’t planning on climbing you like a tree,’ she mutters, though her voice comes out thinner than she intends.

‘You weren’t planning on striking me with a shovel either,’ he counters, stepping into her space, not close enough to touch but close enough that the heat of him brushes her skin. ‘Circumstances change.’ Her stomach twists at the jab.

‘Feet here,’ he says, pointing to a patch of firmer moss beneath an overhanging limb. She obeys, shifting into the stance Allen drilled into her, but there’s something about Lox watching that makes every movement feel exposed. He circles her, eyes scanning the line of her body with a scrutiny that makes her itch.

‘You’re leaning too far forward,’ he says, stepping into her space.

His hands come to her hips, firm and unhurried as he adjusts her. The contact is simple. Practical. It should mean nothing, but she breathes through the initial frenzy of nerves that surges at the contact. It’s replaced by a heat that pools between her legs the moment his thumbs press the pliant, supple flesh above her hip bones.

She suddenly forgets how to breathe.

One of his hands slips to her shoulder, the other ghosts along the curve of her spine. ‘Straighten here,’ he murmurs. ‘Good. Now, lower your elbow.’

Marian swallows, hard, but does what he says. The heat of his body brushes her back like the sun cresting through fog.

Lox’s fingers wrap gently around her arm, guiding it into place. His calluses scrape against her skin in a way that feels entirely too intimate for training.

‘Better,’ he says, stepping in front of her. ‘Now, come for me.’

Her mind goes blank at the command, fire licking up her spine at the very improper response that rises to her tongue.

‘Marian? Are you all right?’

Her head snaps up, cheeks flushed, pulse pounding in her throat.

‘I’m fine,’ she says too quickly.

Lox’s eyes narrow at her flushed skin, but he doesn’t press the matter as he settles into his own stance across from her. He waits, patient as a storm, the faintest smirk curving his mouth.

Marian’s heart pounds so hard she feels it in her throat.