That washed over her, wild and beautiful, if not without its pain.
She pushed him back against the bed, and he let her. Then she sat up, picking up the pace a she worked his cock inside of her, making him groan.
“Good news,” she told him, looking down on him as she rode him, straight toward that glittering, gleaming edge, where she had every intention of taking them, together. “I’m a warrior of the brotherhood. You couldn’t kill me if you tried.”
And she planned to keep proving that.
Forever.
16
A few days later, Riordan found his king on the roof of the Lodge.
He stood under the glass of the greenhouse that spanned the length of the roof, stretching all the way down to the tower. He stared out at what little of the bay was visible today, far below. Fog clung to the cliffs and the trees, and the bay looked sullen and lost. Rain fell in lazy bursts on the glass above, stopping and starting fitfully.
Wulf looked like he was carved from stone. A statue of a raider king, whose leashed power emanated from him no matter that he was still and not acting the least bit lazy. He hadn’t done much of that since Eiryn and Riordan had told him the story of their weeks on the mainland. Especially what had happened in the Cathedral.
Riordan walked to Wulf’s side and stood with him, happy to soak in the quiet and the rich scent of the earth from the boxes all around them, filled with growing things. It reminded him of his parents. The farm. But for the first time since the spring when he’d been ten, it didn’t cause him pain to think of them.
He had grieved them his whole life, in his way. It was time to let them go.
Riordan felt like a new man. His leg was starting to feel better. He wasn’t on that godawful boat contemplating his imminent death or somewhere on the strange mainland, neck deep in their bizarre rituals and a stranger to himself.
He was home.
And he’d left Eiryn screaming out his name before he’d come up here, having made her come for him repeatedly while sharing a few of his favorite reasons why taking it in the ass was fun. For both of them.
He was fairly sure he had a convert.
And he was then equally sure that his king could read his mind and was about to kill him where he stood when Wulf turned his head and pinned him with that harsh blue stare.
“So, brother,” his king said quietly, which was . . . not good. “Explain to me what you think the word complicated means.”
He almost answered. But it wasn’t ten years ago. Wulf’s little sister could more than handle herself, and it wasn’t his business anyway.
Riordan considered his options. He met Wulf’s stare with his own, and he didn’t bother throwing out a grin to soften it.
“Are you asking as my king or her brother?”
Wulf didn’t smile. “I believe I’m both.”
Riordan took that in. Considered it some more. And decided that even here, when it could mean his head, he wasn’t about to be a little bitch. Not when it mattered.
Not even if it was Wulf he was talking to.
“I love my king,” he said, and he meant it. He would always mean it. “And I’m loyal to him always.” He held Wulf’s gaze. “But my woman’s interfering older brother can kiss my ass.”
Wulf looked at him for a long, taut moment. But when the king shifted his gaze back to the fog and the bay, Riordan had the strangest notion that he’d passed some kind of test.
“Tell me more about this princess,” Wulf said, as if the previous conversation hadn’t happened. Riordan had the feeling it never would again. “I want to know why she would betray her father to dangerous strangers.”
Riordan crossed his arms and settled in. “I don’t get the impression he’s a nice guy. In any capacity.”
“I hope not,” Wulf murmured, that rich current of fury and pure mayhem running through his voice. “Because I have every intention of killing him as painfully as possible. Him and his army. And his little toy bishop, too, while I’m at it.”
Riordan thought of that confessional in the Cathedral. That sick fuck and his minions. All the things the princess had said about her father and the kind of evil bastard he was. He thought of Eiryn taking the bishop down, her midnight gaze gleaming and that lethal smile on her face, and smiled himself. And he thought of that unspoiled, untested city, so garish with light that they wasted it. Overused it. Acted as if it was theirs by right.
As if they were protected there, behind their mountains, when all they really were was bait for a trap that no one had bothered to spring yet.
But they would. And soon.
“Bring it on,” Riordan told his king. “I can’t wait.”
About the Author
USA Today bestselling, RITA nominated, and critically acclaimed author Megan Crane has written a lot of books: from women’s fiction, chick lit, and work-for-hire young adult novels to Harlequin Presents, where she writes as Caitlin Crews. These days her focus is on contemporary romance, from small towns to international glamour, cowboys to bikers, and beyond. She’s taught creative writing classes in places like mediabistro.com and UCLA Extension’s prestigious Writers’ Program, where she finally utilizes the MA and PhD in English Literature she received from the University of York in England. She currently lives in the Pacific Northwest with a husband who draws comics and animation storyboards and their menagerie of ridiculous animals.
Author photography by Courtney Lindberg Photography
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Prologue
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
About the Author
Copyright Page
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
EDGE OF CONTROL. Copyright © 2016 by Megan Crane. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. For information address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.stmartins.com
Cover design: © Patricia "Pickyme" Schmitt
e-ISBN 9781466885349 (e-book)
First Edition: July 2016
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Megan Crane, Edge of Control: (Viking Dystopian Romance)
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