Brute 159

Chapter 159 

ATASHA’S POV 

“Alright,” I uttered as Cassian’s hand closed around my forearm and pulled me up in one smooth motion. I swung my leg over and settled in front of him, feeling the weight of his presence immediately. 

The saddle was warm, the leather stiff beneath my thighs, and the air carried the faint scent of iron and smoke. His chest brushed against my back as he adjusted the reins, his breath steady while the horse started moving toward the gates at a slow pace. 

“Were moving!” Cassian said. 

I told myself to focus on the road, the crunch of hooves on packed snow, the creak of leather, the distant sound of soldiers shouting orders, but it didn’t help. Every small movement he made translated through me, from his shoulders down to his chest pressed against my spine. The warmth of him seeped through my coat, chasing away the cold that clung to the air. My pulse tripped, too quick, too aware. 

Perhaps asking to be with him was the wrong idea. 

I tried again to think of something else, the captives, the arrows, the ambush. The facts. Anything that would make sense. But the more I tried to anchor myself, the faster my thoughts slipped away, dragging me somewhere else entirely. 

The pool. The way his hand had closed around my body to pull me in. The water hitting my skin. His grip at my waist when I tried to climb out. The look in his eyes when I didn’t let go. I remembered the heat of his breath at my breast and how my body had reacted before I understood what was happening. I forced the memory away and it came back harder, digging its fingers into me. 

Snow banked the road in quiet drifts, the air cold enough to sting, but a slow heat rolled under my skin. It gathered low in my stomach and then lower, a tight pull that made it hard to sit still. My cheeks burned. What is going on? 

I shifted my hips, trying to make a space between my back and his chest, but the effort only drew me in closer. 

His thighs pressed against mine, firm and steady on either side, leaving no room to breathe or think. The movement made the saddle creak, and the horse tossed its head before settling again into its steady rhythm, hooves crunching softly over the snow. 

Each rise and fall of its gait pulled me against him, until the air between us felt charged, too close, too warm for the frozen road ahead. 

What is wrong with me? A few minutes ago I wanted blood. Now my pulse was climbing for a different reason. My core tightened in a way that made me clench my jaw. I curled my fingers around the saddle horn to give my hands a task. It didn’t help. The leather felt too warm where my palms met it, slick with new sweat despite the cold. The collar of my coat stuck to the back of my neck. 

Cassian shifted, reins light in one hand, the other settling at my hip to steady me when the horse stepped around a rut. That simple contact sent a line of heat across my stomach. My breath hitched. I shut my eyes for a second and counted, one, two, three, like I could order my body back into sense. 

His mouth dipped by my ear. “Calm down,” he said, voice low enough that I felt it as much as I heard it. “I can hear your heartbeat.” 

I went still. The words slid straight down my spine. He wasn’t teasing. He was stating a fact. The bond let him. hear it when I couldn’t hide it. The heat on my face flared. I swallowed and found my throat dry. 

“Snow, Atasha,” he added after a beat, like he was giving me a lifeline. “Breathe it in.” 

So I did. I opened my mouth and pulled in air that tasted clean and sharp. It helped for exactly one breath. Then his thumb swept once over the notch of my hip, unthinking, the way someone might calm a skittish horse. My stomach tightened again. Heat crawled from my chest down into the place that already ached. I squeezed my knees and felt the saddle bite back. 

He exhaled through his nose, and I thought, just for a second, that I heard a chuckle. It wasn’t loud. It was the kind that said he knew exactly what my body was doing, and that I knew he knew. I kept my eyes forward and pretended I hadn’t heard it. 

The wind cut across the road and lifted the edge of my hair. Sweat tracked a path down my spine. My palms were damp. I rolled my shoulders like I was stiff from the fight, not desperate to put an inch of space between us. Soon enough, the horse’s gait smoothed as the ground leveled, and every smooth step rocked me back against him. 

“Almost there,” he said, breathing warm against the shell of my ear. 

I nodded because words felt dangerous. If I spoke, I wasn’t sure what would come out, the questions I didn’t want to ask, or the sound my throat made when his hand moved again. 

Then out of nowhere, his left hand slid to my waist to steady me when the horse stepped over a rut. It should have been nothing, just balance and control, but my body reacted like he’d pressed a brand to my skin. Heat shot under my ribs and dropped low, a pulse that matched the rhythm of the horse. My thighs tightened on instinct, and the saddle answered with a grind of leather that made my breath stumble. 

The bond woke up like someone had tugged a wire between us. I felt him through it, warmth, focus, the steady drum of his heart under my spine, and then the echo inside me that wanted closer. 

My skin prickled. Every inch of me felt too aware, the pull of my coat across my chest, the scrape of stitching along the inside of my knee, the exact weight of his palm at my left hip. It wasn’t rough. It wasn’t even firm. It was there, and that was enough to make the ache spread. 

I swallowed and found no moisture in my mouth. My tongue felt clumsy, my lips too hot. A tight throb gathered low in my belly and then lower, a small, stubborn beat that made me press my knees harder into the saddle horn just to ground myself. 

The move brought me back against him, and my pulse jumped again. I could feel my own heartbeat in my fingertips where they gripped the leather. I could feel his in my back, steady and deep, like my body was trying to sync to it. 

He adjusted the reins with his right hand and kept his left where it was, thumb resting in the soft place just inside my hip bone. The slightest shift of that thumb sent another line of heat across my stomach. I drew air in through my nose and let it out slow, but the breath scraped dry on the way down. Snow and pine should have cooled me. It didn’t. My skin felt too tight for my bones. 

“Easy,” he said, mouth near my ear again, voice low enough to drag over nerves already stretched thin. “You’re reacting to the bond. Hold your seat. Wait until we get home.”