A Baby To Bind His Bride. CAITLIN CREWS

CHAPTER FOUR

      ALL THE CULTS Leonidas had ever heard of in his former life discouraged the departure of their members under any circumstances—sometimes rather violently.

      But he had every intention of walking out of his.

      He rolled out of the bed, leaving her there in this chamber of his that had somehow become most of his world, despite how tempted he was to taste her all over again. All her flushed and sweet flesh, his for the taking, as she’d curled up there and breathed unevenly into his pillows.

      God, how he wanted more.

      But he’d remembered who he was. And that meant he couldn’t stay in these mountains—much less in this prison of a compound—another day.

      He braced himself against the sink in his bathroom and didn’t allow himself to gaze in the mirror that hung there above it. He wasn’t sure he wanted to see what he’d become, now that he knew the difference. Now that he could remember what he had been like unscarred, unscathed.

      When he’d been a different sort of god altogether.

      He took a quick shower, trying to reconcile the different strands of memory—before and after the accident. Leonidas Betancur and the Count. But what he kept dwelling on instead was Susannah, spread out there in his bed with her blond hair like a bright pop against the cheerless browns and grays he’d never noticed were so grim before. She’d looked delicate lying there, the way he remembered her from their wedding, but his body knew the truth. He could still feel the way she’d gripped him, her thighs tight around him and the sweet, hot clutch of her innocence almost too perfect to bear.

      Leonidas shook it off. He toweled dry, expecting he’d have to cajole her out of his bed. Or dry her tears. Or offer some other form of comfort for which he was entirely unprepared and constitutionally ill-suited. Leonidas had no experience with virgins, but conventional wisdom suggested they required more care. More...softness. That wasn’t something he was familiar with, no matter who he thought he was, but he assumed he could muster up a little compassion for the young, sweet wife who had tracked him down out here in the middle of nowhere and returned him to himself. Or he could try, anyway.