Without uttering a word, she reached her face to his and with eyes open, kissed him softly. As opposite to his kiss as possible, hers gave as much as his took. He seemed to understand it and with a hand at the back of her head, he supported her, sealing their union , closing his eyes and thrusting fully inside her.
It hurt. It hurt as much as the strap across her bottom, but having him inside her, his weight crushing her, his eyes watching her, his scent filling her as surely as his cock took and claimed, Rowan wanted him. She wanted the pain he gave, the pleasure it promised. She wanted him.
“I love you,” she whispered as her back arched and more tears warmed her face. Their mouths touched, open, not in a kiss but something else, something more. As he moved inside her, she struggled to keep her eyes on his, pleasure now the dominant sensation.
“You’re mine, Rowan. Mine.”
Orgasm came at once for both, his cock throbbing, her muscles clamping down around him, her breath coming short. He moaned and closed his mouth over the side of her neck, the sound he made almost that of an animal and not a man. It wasn’t until the wave had passed and they lay together, his body crushing hers, both with ragged breath, that he whispered it, he said what she never thought she would hear, never thought she could feel. She, a breeder, less than human. She loved this man, this wild, savage, good man. And he loved her. She belonged to him like she’d never belonged to the colony or to anyone or anything before.
Chapter Fifteen
“Keep this inside your boot,” Silas said, handing her his dagger as they approached the tall walls of the colony. It was late, the sun would be gone within the next half hour.
Covered in their dark furs, they hoped to enter undetected. They had walked a full day and a half and without the weight of the wagon they had carried and the help of the meat they had, it took less time to reach her home. Or her one-time home. Rowan only felt foreboding at the sight of the gate. It was all she’d been feeling for the last day.
“I don’t know how to use it,” she said. “You should keep it, Silas.” She held the dagger out to him.
“They will take it from me, I am certain. They will not think to search you. If anything happens, if I am taken, you are to run, do you understand?”
She stared back at him and shook her head. “No.”
He had mentioned something like this earlier that day and she was no more open to the idea now than she had been then. His plan was simple, too simple. He would find and rescue his son and he would kill both Norrin and Amro to help the rebels from the settlements. Both Norrin and Amro were evil and for the good of all, they both needed to be eliminated. Sadly, in coming after her, he was unprepared, had no weapon beside this dagger.
Silas took her by the shoulders. “Rowan, if I am captured, I will fight. I am stronger than them individually, but I cannot defeat an army of men single-handedly. Once we are inside, we will find Tobias and you will take him out of the colony. I will remain and fight with the rebels. If colony soldiers find us before we can find him, I believe you will appear to them as another breeder. You will not stand out. You must then save yourself. Leave the colony and return to our settlement. Dr. Stone will help to hide you. This is an order, Rowan, not a request, do you understand?”
If he were captured, he would not be around to punish her. Yes, she understood. But there was no way in hell she would abandon him or his son to save herself. Silas didn’t need to know that though. Not yet.
“I understand,” she said, sliding the dagger into her boot in a pocket he had cut between the fur and the leather.
He nodded. “Let’s go inside. Our informant will get us into the breeder housing facility. Intelligence says Tobias is there. Remember, eyes down, Rowan.”
She nodded, her heart racing as they neared the gates. Guards would be standing by now. It was not yet curfew but close enough that the first of three calls alerting all those outside the colony that the gates would close soon had sounded. The calls came earlier than they used to and Rowan imagined it was due to the uprising.
When they turned a corner, they saw the light that poured out of the open gates. A dozen or so citizens who farmed nearby fields were making their way back into the colony and Silas led them toward the row. Farming was still relatively new to the colony, it was something they were learning from the outside settlements, but as the land required was so great, the farmers had to go outside of the safety of the colony. Rowan kept her gaze to the ground in order to shield her eyes from view, sliding closer to Silas, grateful for his hand holding hers.
They walked into the colony without incident, noticing the pockets of armed guards, the fewer people out on the streets, another result of the uprising. They followed a route toward the far entrance of the building they needed to access. Silas had told her about the maps he had, how he had studied and memorized the layout of the colony for months and although the settlers were only allowed one route during trading trips once inside the walls, Silas had managed on more than one occasion to slip past the lax guards and walk the city undetected.