Chapter 61

Chapter 61
Troll Camp




"I want you, Andrew," whispered Diana as her hand snaked around Andrew's neck. Surprised by her action. He took her hand slowly and looked at her. "Diana, goddess knows how much I want you, but I want you to think about our mate bond thoroughly,”

Diana frowned; her throat convulsed a little, and he watched, fascinated by how long and smooth her neck was. How had he never noticed that before? Or the brilliantly blue shade of her eyes. Or how sharply arched her brows were, and how it created a stunning combination.




“Andrew, I don't understand—”




He stepped back a little. He could barely swallow the emotion burning his throat. “Diana, because that bond was forever, a lifetime, magical, unlike humans, and I don't want you asking me for a divorce hundreds of years from now just because you can't stand me anymore."




Her frown deepened. Her gaze locked with his. "Please enlighten me.” Diana pushed back her shoulders and expelled a long breath.

“Diana, it's not that easy.”

“What do you mean? You can't mate with me?” she hissed, “Is that what you want to say?”

“NO!” he said quietly and moved across the clearing, standing a few feet from her. “Hell, no! This mate bond isn't like a marriage that you can easily... " He watched her eyes, inhaled the familiar scent of her fragrance that always seemed to linger in the air, and waited a few minutes before biting his own lips.

She took a breath, nodding a little. "Are you fucking kidding me now?” Diana glared at him, noticing that he looked tired, as though he hadn’t slept much. She shouldn’t have cared that he was probably having sleepless nights thinking about God knows what.

“Seriously, Andrew? Did you just lecture me into this mate bond while I'm..." If she sounded rude, she didn’t care. But she wasn’t in the mood for an argument or a rehash of the very obvious tension burning between them.

I'm not asking for anything; for heaven sake, I just want you! She thought to herself.

Andrew shook his head, and she could see the conflicting emotion in his expression and realised, maybe for the first time, that there was more to this than his need for an orderly life.

Diana turned on her heel and walked further into the clearing. She stood by the log and faced him, hands on her hips. She suddenly became aware that he was in front of her, his chest heaving, staring at her in a way that put every sense she possessed on red alert. Somehow, something had changed in their relationship over the previous days, and the man standing in front of her—watching her with such burning intensity—was not the Andrew she was used to. A pulse throbbed in his cheek; his eyes were dark, and he looked completely out of sorts, as though he were searching for what to say and what to do.

He looked as though he were hanging on by a thread. She smiled, foolishly trying to make things easier for him. Her heart hammered so loudly that she was certain he could hear it. He was certain he’d know what she was feeling and that he could see the longing in her eyes. For months, she’d hidden it, determined he would never know the truth—that she wanted him so much. Because he didn’t want her that way. He never looked at her with desire.

Until now.

“Diana, this feels like—”

“It feels like... what?" she whispered, her heart pounding and her legs weakening.

And then, just as in her secret dreams, his hand reached out, and he gently cupped her nape, drawing her close.

“It feels like I am out of control,” he said, his voice raw.

So was she in that moment? The searing heat from his fingertips warmed her entire body. Of course, they had been physically close many times—like when he was teaching her how to hold a sword. But this was different. This was pure and unadulterated intimacy. The kind she’d never expected to experience with him.

“Diana!” He said her name so softly, almost as though he was saying it against his will, and she swallowed hard, noticing everything about him in that moment—the way his blue eyes had suddenly darkened, the tiny scar on his left temple, the way his mouth curled up a little. He grasped her chin gently, tilted her head upward, and gazed at her with such heat that her insides quivered as she realised, without a shred of doubt, that he was going to kiss her.

“Nevermind!" She sighed and pushed him immediately as she swung the long-shaped blade down towards the head of her sire. "How dare you lecture me with that mate bond thing?" She bit her lips, not knowing what to say next in her defence. “We were just kissing, and you..." she hissed at him. She was lost in her own beating heart. She saw something in his eyes that she had never seen before. It made her happy and scared at the same time. It was pure, raw love! It was more than love.

This is so crazy. Andrew said the words to himself over and over, repeating them like a chant from the moment he’d crossed the threshold into Diana’s side. Her domain. Her world. A place where he didn’t belong. How could he? She was his sired vampire and it was his responsibility to maintain the professionalism between them. But he hadn’t expected to feel so inexplicably drawn to her. He hadn’t expected the building awareness and attraction he had for her to take hold so hard. He hadn’t expected to suddenly want to kiss her so badly.

Not suddenly. That was a lie. All week, it had messed with his good sense, making him think about her when he should have been doing a dozen other things. And now, as he felt her lips touch his, Andrew was at the mercy of the reckless attraction that he’d fought so hard to ignore. She sighed, then pressed her lips against his, and Justin instinctively moved closer, deepening the kiss. Her mouth opened, and he let her take the lead. Her tongue moved between their lips, winding around his, awakening feelings he’d suppressed for a long time—forever, he’d thought. Until now.

Every shred of defence he’d put up over the years, every sermon he’d silently preached to himself about boundaries, suddenly and spectacularly disappeared. Her mouth, her breath, the sweet sensation of her tongue against his own—nothing had prepared him for the rush of desire it created and the way his body reacted.

Andrew prided himself on always being in control, but beneath the softness of Diana’s mouth, every inch of his control slipped away, and he was completely at her mercy. Instinct tormented him, and he fought against the need to press closer, to feel her lovely curves against him, and to plunge his tongue deeper into her mouth.

Holy freaking hell!

He wrenched himself free, breathing so hard that he thought he might pass out. She looked no better as she took a couple of steps backward and stared at him, her chest rising and falling so rapidly that he had to pull on every ounce of self-control he had left to not look at it. He wasn’t that guy.

He’d never been that guy. He respected women. He respected Diana. And he had too much self-respect to overstep acceptable boundaries.

“Diana.” He said her name, hating the way he sounded like he couldn’t quite get enough air into his lungs. “I’m really… I don’t know what happened then… I’m so…”

“You kissed me,” she said bluntly, trying to catch her breath. “I kissed you back. That’s what happened.”

“But—” Heat crawled up his neck. “I’m sorry, Diana; that was way out of bounds. I didn’t come in here to—I mean—”

“Forget it,” she said, and she waved a hand casually. But Andrew wasn’t fooled. She was as wound up by the events of the last sixty seconds as he was. “Let’s just... Let's just not overanalyze this. Okay?”

Andrew’s insides twitched. Yeah, he would forget it. That was the sensible thing to do. But he didn’t believe she was so easily motivated to ignore the heat between them or the fact that he’d practically kissed her senseless. “Okay. "He wasn’t sure what to say, since she seemed to want him gone. “I’ll talk to you later?”

“Sure,” she said dismissively, and she walked away from the clearing.

“Whatever,” she murmured, turned on her heel, and followed the man. She growled and raised her sword at his back.

Andrew frowned at her attack as he turned his head at the very angry Diana. “What the heck, Diana!”

“Fool!” She raised her sword and blocked Andrews' defence effectively, then parried with her own blade.

Andrew barked, “Okay, you want to play... excellent; you are getting better with this sword, sweet!”




She attacked him again: "Don't you bloody sweet-sweet me, Andrew. You fucktard!"




And he had the nerve to smile? Did he just smile? I am overly shameful, disguising the awkwardness from that kiss, and he just fucking smiles?




You son of—I might as well kill him this time, she thought to herself.




Andrew was strapping a handsome, ignorant demeanour to her awkwardness. His unusual blue eyes often drew the teasing of his companions, saying that he was a gentleman of a sort or, more likely, giving her enough time to think about the mate bond. He said this while blocking the attack on Diana, who was so furious. “Why are you mad?”

“You dare ask me, why am I mad?”

“Why?”

“You fool!”




Yeah, he knew why she was mad, but he played along with it because he liked standing out from the crowd of trolls who seemed to appear from nowhere and were now betting for the winner of their friendly sword match, oblivious to the fact that Diana was enraged at him and the latter intended to decapitate his head. “Come on! I apologise already!" With those words, Diana attacked him again.




He smiled and winked at her, which made Diana so furious that she attacked him without thinking as much. He was a fiery man with a passion for arguing—not the best of traits for a vampire in longing for binding his mate since her order was marked by restraint and listening. But he hungered for knowledge and loved to study and learn about everything about her. He was studying her moves while she was angry. Her moves and attack were sloppy, and he wasn't happy about it.




At this moment, though, he was not learning. He was teaching. And it was not an intellectual exercise, but a physical one.

Diana swung again. He blocked her blow.

“Is that the best you can do, you scrawny little vampire?”

Diana hissed. “Bastard!”

Andrew spurted into action, whirling one blow after another. Diana could hardly keep up with the rain of his strikes. If she let one get through, it would leave a nasty bruise she would nurse for a second.




With each swing, Andrew verbally challenged her strategy. “What did I teach you? Do you have any counter-plans? I am more powerful than you, so how can you overthrow me?”




With those last words, he covered her up against the massive tree of the small clearing area covered in snow, his sword to her neck. He had used sheer strength to overpower her.




Andrew leaned in close to her face and mused, “Now, if I were an extremely wicked vampire but handsome, having worn you down, I might take my satisfaction before assassinating you.” Andrew was not teasing her. He needed her to face the truth of their kind.




“Too late, asshole,” she mumbled. He looked at her, amazed. “Letting you waste your oh-so-mighty energy and power on me was my counterplan. While you were worn out and pompously puffing into my face with your terrible breath, I was disembowelling you,” she declared as he furrowed her brow.




He glanced down to see her hand with a knife blade in his abdomen. She shifted it down to his groyne and added, “Or severing your manhood if you prefer mighty Lord Andrew, son of a fucking dick.”




By doing so, he offered a smile. “I am proud of you, Diana, but I thought you wanted me earlier? You even reciprocated my kiss willingly, right? I even hear you moan, sweetheart.” He teased and kissed her forehead and turned to sit down for a rest.




"You are such a jerk, Andrew."