Even if one discounted the age difference, Thia hated Darice and viewed him as a pesky little brother. She would never accept his pledge. And Nyk’s youngest daughter was barely three months old. There was no chance in hell that Nyk would allow her to marry someone that much older – provided he ever allowed Zarina or Thia to marry at all. And even if by some miracle Nyk did accept Darice, Hauk’s grandmother wouldn’t live long enough to see Zarina to adulthood. She was already almost two hundred years old.

And so his mother, a former negotiator for the Andarion royal house, had found in his grandmother the one being she couldn’t win over with her guile.

No matter what she tried.

To this day, he and Fain were caught between their ongoing war as his mother tried to prove to his grandmother that she was the better mate for his father than the queen would have been. That his mother had conceived the better sons.

Because Hauk loved his mother, he had done everything possible to please her, and show his grandmother that he could be a grandson she could take pride in.

Never once had he asked for anything of his own. Duty. Honor. Family. Obligation. Loyalty. Those were the oaths of an Andarion male. No matter what others or life had thrown at him, he’d done his best to rise above it and adhere to their customs.

Until now.

For the first time ever, he craved the one thing he knew he could never have.

The gentle touch of a woman’s hand on his bare skin. It would mean his life to taste those lips that lured him toward suicide. But what truly scared him was the part of himself that really didn’t give a shit. The part of him that was willing to die painfully for one night in the arms of a female who didn’t loathe him.

Clearing his throat, he stepped back from her before he gave into his supreme stupidity. “You should probably rest in the tent while I do this.”

Sumi hesitated. She didn’t want to leave him. Strangely, she wanted to walk into his arms and have him hold her. To kiss his lips until she was drunk from passion. That urge was worsened by the knowledge that he’d never taken a lover.

That she would be the first woman to have him inside her body.

If what Thia had said was true, he’d never even been kissed before. How was that possible that no one had sampled such an incredibly sexy beast?

But then she’d seen his photos. He’d spent most of his life around male humans. Probably to avoid temptation.

Which meant he wouldn’t be interested in her.

At all.

He’s your target, moron! Not your boyfriend.

Oh yeah. There was that.