Kingdom of Ash

beach, and not wasted those precious minutes.
Mate. His mate.
He should have known about that, too.
Even if rage and grief had turned him into a
miserable bastard, he should have known who
she was, what she was, from the moment he’d
bitten her at Mistward, unable to stop the urge
to claim her. The moment her blood had
landed on his tongue and it had sung to him,
and then refused to leave him alone, its taste
lingering for months.
Instead, they’d brawled. He’d let them
brawl, so lost in his anger and ice. She’d been
just as raging as he, and had spat such a
hateful, unspeakable thing that he’d treated
her like any of the males and females who had
been under his command and mouthed off, but
those early days still haunted him. Though
Rowan knew that if he ever mentioned the
brawling they’d done with a lick of shame,