He’d never survive this conversation if she kept kicking him in the gut. He gaped at her. “Is that what you think?”

“You pushed me away and ordered me not to touch you again,” she said in a small, warbling voice. “You don’t have to be my lover, but please allow my touch. I can’t break the curse myself.”

Cededa offered up a silent plea for patience to whomever might be listening. He reached out to lightly stroke her wet locks. She shivered at the caress but still refused to look at him. “That isn’t quite what I said, Imogen. I told you not to touch me then, in that room, in that moment.”

Her brow knitted, and this time she met his gaze with a puzzled one of her own. “There’s a difference?”

He chuffed and offered her a faint smile. “Like a pond compared to the sea.” He sobered. “Your bane has been my blessing. Those desires once dead for me are alive again. I may be resistant to your curse, but I'm no longer resistant to your touch."

Sparks lit Imogen's eyes, and her back straightened. Meekness forsaken, she glared at him. "No offense, Sire, but that's a damn sorry reason to run. Who'd guess the Undying King of Tineroth to be such a coward?" She yelped when he suddenly lunged and dragged her into his arms.

Fragile shoulders and slender arms, soft breasts he longed to cup and nuzzle. She pushed him toward a madness he’d held at bay for more years than the lives of empires. He might be the coward she accused him of being, but she was reckless beyond description. Cededa counted the rapid pulse beats in her neck, tracked the glistening rivulets of rain coursing down her cheeks like tears while she stared at him with wide gray eyes.

His voice sounded guttural to his ears. "What would you have of me, Imogen? A fuck on a filthy floor? In a room where I once swived my wives, my concubines, even my ministers' wives?" He tugged on her hair, drawing her closer, until her mouth nearly touched his. Her quick breath whispered across his lips. "Be glad I walked away. You're an innocent. Untried and ignorant of those pleasures painted on the walls.” He stared at her mouth, plump and glistening with rain. Ripe fruit waiting to be plucked. “I’ll wager you’ve never even been kissed.”

And oh gods did he want to. But if he did, he wouldn’t stop at a kiss. He wouldn’t stop at a hundred kisses unless it was to strip off her clothes and fuck her on a wet altar stone in the rain. Her lids had lowered, and her lips parted at his words. He shook her lightly before pushing her away. “You wouldn't survive me, Imogen. I’ve bedded more than a few hedgewitches in my past and found the pastime pleasurable, but I've no use for innocents. That includes you."

She cowered away from him as if his insults were hammer blows. He unfolded his legs and slipped off the altar stone, eager to flee a second time. She was right. He was a coward.