He was so hard and aching and hot for her. He said between his teeth, “Tell me now, love—how careful should I be?”
For a moment her face went blank, but then she grasped his meaning. “I’m no virgin, Wulf. You don’t need to coax me along.”
That’s what he needed to know. Thrusting her backward onto the pallet, he fell on top of her. Good gods, how had she not been snapped up by someone else? He was going to find every single one of her ex-lovers and grind their faces into dust—no, wait, that was probably unbalanced…
He had to touch her everywhere, taste every curve and hollow, and while he feasted all over her body, she undulated underneath his hands, grasping and stroking and licking him until the fire burned so hot he could only quench it by penetrating deep within her.
They discovered their own rhythm together, and it was the best of all dances, and the give and the take, the gasp of breath, the exquisite peak of pleasure and sigh of release, all of it played the beat to which they danced.
He was shaking when he finished. She had gone before him, and so she held him with her whole body, her arms and legs wrapped tightly around him. As he looked down into her eyes, he stroked the damp hair off her face.
Heart still pounding, still inside her, he whispered, “I’ll hurt you again, but I will always be sorry when I do it. I’ll try not to, but that’s not how life works.”
“No, it isn’t,” she whispered back.
“I will swear to you this—I’ll always be true to you.” He stared down at her fiercely. “Always.”
As she stared at him, he had just enough time to wonder what she saw. When a smile brightened her face, it was like watching the sun rise in the morning.
“Yes,” she said. “I can see that you will.”
He could do no less. She was his miracle, and the gods only knew, not very many people got the chance to have one.
Using both cloaks, they settled together as tightly as they could. Tomorrow there would be challenges. A war to fight, an empire to build.
But there were always challenges.
There would also be the chance to dance with her again.
And before he fell asleep, Wulf wondered if maybe there wasn’t an end to any story.
Maybe there is only, ever, just the beginning.
Thank you!
Dear Readers, Thank you for reading The Chosen! I hope you enjoyed Wulf’s and Lily’s story as much as I enjoyed writing it.
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~Thea
Look for these titles from Thea Harrison
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Night’s Honor
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MOONSHADOW TRILOGY
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Spellbinder
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ELDER RACES NOVELLAS
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Natural Evil
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The Wicked
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Pia Does Hollywood
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The Chosen
GAME OF SHADOWS SERIES
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The Storm
An Irin Chronicles Novella
by
Elizabeth Hunter
When her soul mate died in a massacre of the half-angelic Irin people, Renata thought she’d never feel happiness again. She’s retreated to the snowy Dolomites to remember her hurts—until determined, irrepressible Maxim arrives to insist on joy, too. And before she can throw him out, they discover a secret the Irin have to know…
Copyright ? 2017 by Elizabeth Hunter
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or business establishments, organizations or locales is completely coincidental.
Thank you for reading!
Credits Edited by Anne Victory Proofread by Linda, Victory Editing
PROLOGUE
There was no road to the old house that sat on the edge of a mountain. An old and overgrown trail was the only path. It would take over an hour to hike in the heavy winter snow of the Dolomite Mountains. Even with the superior strength and stamina granted by his angelic blood, Maxim knew he’d be exhausted by the time he found her.
He’d parked his four-wheel drive in the closest town, cautiously following the directions of an old librarian a few villages farther south. Chasing rabbit trails to dead ends was commonplace at this point in his search, but Max knew he only needed one more piece of the puzzle.
He’d finally found a name for her hiding place. Ciasa Fatima.
It had taken him eighteen years to find that name. Eighteen years of lies and misdirection. Eighteen years of frustration. At this point, he didn’t know if he wanted to find her from longing or sheer spite.
The librarian who gave him the name of the house was an ancient Ladin man who’d lived his entire life in Southern Tyrol and claimed to know the house Max was looking for. Once it had been the house of a great family, he claimed. They had a library to rival the duke’s! Strange people would come and go. Soldiers and noblemen. Beautiful women and visitors from foreign lands. There were stories and legends galore.
Then two hundred years ago, everything went quiet. There were no more visitors. No caravans or dignitaries. One hundred years passed before signs of life emerged.
These days, the house was rented out to discreet and very private travelers in the summer. No one knew how it was listed, and it couldn’t be an easy place to stay. There was no electricity running up the mountain and probably no running water. But the meadows that surrounded it were worth the hike. The view, the old man remembered, was breathtaking.
In the winter, of course, it was vacant. No one wanted to brave the snow and ice of the cold Tyrolean winter on their own, especially not on a mountain slope like the one around Ciasa Fatima.