Chapter 3

Carya’s POV

I refused to back down.

My bare toes maintained their slow, agonizing pressure against the thick, straining heat trapped beneath Rein’s trousers. I circled, pressed, dragging the ball of my foot along the rigid length of him, savoring every involuntary twitch and desperate pulse.

He was radiating heat like an open furnace.

His breathing had gone dangerously sharp. The hand that had tried to stop me earlier now rested heavily on his own thigh, his thick fingers digging into his own muscle as if fighting the urge to strangle—or claim—me right then and there.

Then, his iron control finally snapped.

With a low, feral warning growl, he shifted sharply on the wooden bench, trying to force a few inches of distance between us in the suffocatingly narrow wagon.

The sudden movement threw my balance completely off. At that exact second, the heavy wooden wheels slammed into a deep, frozen rut.

The entire frame shuddered violently.

My foot slipped. I lost my seat and crashed hard onto the freezing wooden floorboards with a sharp, genuine cry of pain.

Lilith spun around instantly, dropping her bundles of herbs.

“Carya!”

I pushed myself up on one trembling elbow. My face was flushed red, my heart hammering against my ribs from far more than just the fall. A sharp throb pulsed in my twisted ankle.

“I’m fine,” I gasped out quickly, forcing the words past my tight throat. “I just lost my balance when the wagon jolted.”

Rein was already moving.

Before I could scramble away, he reached down, hooking one massive arm under my knees and the other around my back. He lifted me off the floor as if I weighed absolutely nothing.

He deposited me firmly on the bench right beside him, then ruthlessly dragged my injured leg directly across his lap—in full, shameless view of my mother.

“It's a muscle cramp from the cold and the fall,” he stated, his deep voice impossibly calm and commanding. “I’ll work the knot out before it locks up.”

Lilith’s frantic worry softened immediately into relief.

“Thank you. The winter cold seeps right into your bones out here. Let me know if you need the salve.”

“I will,” Rein promised smoothly.

Satisfied, she turned her back to us once more.

The very second her back was fully turned, the game changed.

The large, calloused hand that had been resting openly on my calf—perfectly proper, perfectly helpful—slid higher, disappearing under the heavy drape of his fur cloak and my skirt.

His rough fingers found the bare, sensitive skin of my inner thigh. And they kept climbing.

I stared blindly at the swaying canvas wall, my pulse racing so fast I felt dizzy.

I had started this. I was the one who had arrogantly pressed my foot against his arousal.

But now I was the one trapped. My leg was pinned across his lap, his searing hand moving dangerously higher, while my mother sat scarcely an arm’s length away, completely oblivious to what her new mate was doing to her daughter.