"Lunge. Kick. Front swish. Right switch. Kick." Jasper's voice was a low rasp in the damp morning air.
Aveline's chest heaved. Sweat plastered strands of pale gold hair to her temples, the intricate braids coming undone. She lunged, the borrowed dagger feeling clumsy and alien in her hand. Her kick was more of a stumble. She tried the combination again, her movements stiff, like a porcelain doll someone had wound up and pointed in the wrong direction.
"Ouchhh..." she groaned, the sound muffled as she pitched forward onto her hands and knees in the wet grass. The dagger thudded harmlessly beside her.
Jasper sighed. He leaned against a mossy tree, arms crossed. They'd been at this for over an hour in this clearing at the outskirts of the nameless village, the only sounds their ragged breaths and the distant crow of a rooster. "Get up."
"It's pointless," she said, not moving. The damp earth soaked through the knees of her practical trousers, another stolen item that felt like a costume. "I'm not built for this."
"You're built for staying alive," he countered, his tone devoid of its usual lazy charm. It was all business now. "The curse binds you to me, Princess, not the other way around. If something happens to me while you're standing there looking decorative, you die. Get up."
The words, cold and factual, did what his command could not. Aveline pushed herself up, wiping her muddy hands on her thighs. She met his gaze, those nightshade blue eyes watching her with an unnerving intensity. He was right. The dependency was a chain, but it was her chain. Her survival, however grotesque its origin, was now her own responsibility. She bent, retrieved the dagger, and settled back into the ready stance he'd drilled into her.
"Again," she said, her voice quieter, steadier.
Something flickered in his expression—not approval, exactly, but a cessation of outright dismissal. He pushed off the tree. "This time, don't think of it as a knife. It's an extension of your arm. Your enemy is here." He moved suddenly, a blur of dark clothing, and tapped her sternum with two fingers. The contact was brief, clinical, but it made her breath catch. "Your job isn't to win a duel. It's to create enough space, enough damage, to run. Aim for the soft parts. Throat. Eyes. Gut."
He demonstrated the modified sequence, his body a study in lethal grace. Lunge. A controlled explosion of movement. Kick. Not high, but brutal and forward, aimed at a knee. The swishes of the blade were short, vicious arcs meant for close quarters. He finished, not even winded. "Your turn."
Aveline swallowed. She didn't think. She just moved. Lunge. Her body remembered the mechanics this time. Kick. It connected with the imaginary target with a force that surprised her. Front swish. Right switch. The blade cut the air with a faint whistle. Kick. She held the final pose, trembling from exertion.
Silence.
Jasper studied her. "Better."
It was the closest thing to praise she'd ever heard from him. A ridiculous warmth bloomed in her chest, immediately followed by a wave of self-loathing. She shouldn't crave his approval. She shouldn't feel anything but revulsion. Yet, the cursed bond was a live wire in her veins, humming with every shared look, every moment of proximity. It twisted everything.
They traveled later that day, after a meal of hard cheese and tougher bread. The forest path was uneven, roots snaking across the dirt, but their bodies, healed from the food and the inn, carried them with a newfound resilience. Two days' travel left to the witch, Jasper said. The map in his head was as precise as his thievery.
Aveline found her energy returning in unpredictable surges. The stifling fear that had clung to her since awakening was slowly being burned away by physical effort and the grim focus of survival. Now, on the open road with the sun dappling through the canopy, a strange, restless energy took hold.
She began to hop over the larger roots instead of stepping around them. She skipped a few paces, then walked, then traced the edge of the path with one foot like a tightrope walker. It was a childish, unconscious thing, a remnant of a self not yet burdened by curses and criminals.
Jasper walked a few paces ahead, a silent shadow. He glanced back once, saw her mid-skip, and rolled his eyes heavenward. But as she continued, a faint, unwilling curve touched his lips. He turned his face away quickly, but not before she caught it.
He never knew he'd like having an acquaintance before. The thought came to him unbidden, unwelcome. Companionship was a liability. Chatter was a risk. Yet, her presence, this princess-turned-pupil, was not the grating burden he'd expected. There was a quiet determination beneath her grace that he grudgingly respected. And her energy, this sudden, hopping vitality, was… oddly devoid of pretense. It was just her.
"Do you ever walk in a straight line?" he asked, not turning around.
"It's a boring way to travel," she replied, landing solidly after a small jump. "And you're one to talk. I've seen the way you move. It's all curves and shadows. Never straight."
He did turn then, a genuine smirk playing on his lips. "Straight lines are for guards and dead men."
They made camp as dusk bled into night, finding a shallow cave formation that offered shelter from the chill. Jasper built a small, smokeless fire with practiced ease while Aveline laid out their bedrolls. The space between them was the usual careful distance, but the air felt different tonight. Less charged with outright hostility, more with a tangled, unspoken awareness.
They ate in silence. The firelight danced over his sharp features, softening nothing. He caught her staring.
"What?"
She looked down at her hands. "Why are you helping me? Truly? You could drag me to this witch, dump me at her feet, and be done with it. The training… it's more than the curse requires."
Jasper poked the fire with a stick. The embers sparked. "A liability that can handle itself is less of a liability."
"That's not all of it."
He was quiet for a long moment. The sounds of the night forest filled the space: crickets, the rustle of some small creature, the crackle of their fire. "The hex is gone," he said finally, his voice low. "The fairy's… influence. What I did in the tower. That wasn't me. But what happened after…" He trailed off, his jaw tight. "The curse binding us is my fault. My actions triggered it. I deal with my own messes."
Aveline's heart hammered against her ribs. He'd never acknowledged it so plainly. The violation was a chasm between them, but his guilt was a bridge made of rotten wood—unstable, dangerous, but there. "I see," she whispered.
He looked at her then, and the fire reflected in his eyes made them look like dark pools of liquid ink. "Do you?"
The question hung in the air, heavy and unanswerable. Did she see the monster, the reluctant protector, the cursed anchor? They were all him. The bond in her chest gave a painful throb, a physical pull toward him. It was more than magic now. It was memory. The feel of his hands in the inn, not taking, but giving. The unexpected tenderness of his fingers brushing her hair. The way he watched her now, not with predatory hunger, but with a complicated, weary intensity.
She stood up abruptly, needing to break the gaze. "I'm going to wash the mud off. From the training."
A small stream burbled nearby, visible as a silver thread in the moonlight. She moved toward it, feeling his eyes on her back until she was swallowed by the shadows between the trees.
The water was icy. She cupped it in her hands, splashing her face, scrubbing at the dirt on her arms. The cold was a shock, a welcome clarity. She was about to turn back when she heard a soft footfall behind her.
She spun, her hand flying to the dagger at her belt—his lesson instinctive now.
It was him. Jasper stood at the tree line, silhouetted against the distant glow of their fire. He'd followed her. Not closely, but enough. To guard? Or something else?
"You shouldn't wander off," he said, his voice a low rumble in the dark.
"The curse would have told you if I was in real danger," she replied, her own voice steadier than she felt. "Wouldn't it? That sickening pull."
He took a step forward, into the dappled moonlight by the stream. "Maybe I wasn't checking on the curse."
The air left her lungs. He moved closer, each step deliberate. He stopped an arm's length away. The scent of him—woodsmoke, leather, and something uniquely Jasper—wrapped around her. She could see the pale smoothness of his skin in the moonlight, the dark waves of his hair, the glint of that single earring.
"What are you doing?" Her whisper was barely audible over the stream.
"Looking at my mess," he murmured, his gaze tracing the line of her jaw, the column of her throat. His eyes were full of a dark, conflicted heat. It wasn't the mindless hunger of the hex. This was conscious. This was choice.
Her body responded before her mind could form a protest. A flush spread from her chest up her neck. Her skin prickled with awareness. The cursed bond sang between them, a taut wire vibrating with potential. This was the dangerous intimacy they'd forged in the inn, stripped of exhaustion and aftermath, raw and present in the moonlit dark.
Jasper reached out. Not for her face, but for her hand, the one still resting on the dagger's hilt. His gloved fingers closed over hers, warm and firm. Slowly, he pried her grip loose, lifting her hand away from the weapon. He turned her palm upward, studying it as if reading her fate in its lines.
"You're learning," he said, his thumb stroking a slow, deliberate arc across her palm. The touch was electric, shooting straight up her arm. "But you're still shaking."
"I'm cold," she lied, her breath forming a faint cloud in the air.
He knew it was a lie. A ghost of that smirk returned. "Are you?"
He brought her palm to his mouth.
His lips were warm, shockingly so against her cool skin. He didn't kiss it. He pressed her open palm against his lips, his breath hot, and held it there. His eyes locked on hers, watching her reaction from beneath those half-lidded lashes. It was an act of possession, of testing, of something perilously close to reverence.
Aveline's knees went weak. A soft, involuntary sound escaped her—a gasp that was swallowed by the night. Every nerve ending was focused on that small point of contact, the rough texture of his gloves against her wrist, the devastating softness of his lips on her skin. The memory of other touches, unwanted then, confusing now, flooded her. This was different. He was waiting. He was asking.
She didn't pull away.
Encouraged, or perhaps condemned by her silence, Jasper's other hand came up to cradle her jaw. His thumb brushed the apple of her cheek, a mimicry of his touch in the inn, but now his intent was clear, undiluted. His gaze dropped to her mouth.
The pull of the curse was nothing compared to the pull she felt now. It was a gravitational force, drawing her toward his heat, his darkness, the beautiful, infamous criminal who had ruined and remade her world. Her lips parted.
He closed the final distance.
His mouth covered hers.
It wasn't like the hungry, desperate kiss in the tower's shadow, or the sated, complicated one after the inn. This was slow. Deliberate. A question and an answer all at once. His lips moved against hers with a focused intensity, tasting, exploring, claiming. His tongue traced the seam of her lips, and she opened for him with a shuddering sigh.
The kiss deepened, turning hot and searching. Jasper's hand slid from her jaw into her hair, dislodging the last of her braids, his fingers tangling in the waves of pale gold. He pulled her closer, until her body was flush against his. She could feel the hard planes of his chest, the rapid beat of his heart, the unmistakable, rigid proof of his arousal pressing against her abdomen.
Her own body ignited. A deep, aching warmth pooled low in her belly. Her hands, trapped between them, crept up to clutch at the front of his tunic. She kissed him back, tentatively at first, then with a growing hunger that mirrored his. It was a surrender to the bond, to the attraction, to the terrifying, exhilarating reality of wanting the man she was supposed to hate.
He broke the kiss, both of them breathing raggedly. He rested his forehead against hers, his eyes shut tight, as if fighting a war within himself. "Aveline," he breathed, her name a raw sound in the darkness.
Hearing her name on his lips, spoken like that, shattered the last of her resistance. She tilted her head up, seeking his mouth again.
This time, the kiss was all fire. Jasper turned them, pressing her back against the rough bark of a wide tree. His hands were everywhere—skimming her sides, gripping her hips, sliding under the hem of her tunic to find the warm skin of her waist. She arched into him, a silent plea.
He kissed a blazing trail down her throat, his teeth grazing the sensitive spot where her pulse hammered. "Tell me to stop," he growled against her skin, his voice thick with desire. His hand slid higher, his thumb brushing the underside of her breast through the fabric of her clothes.
She couldn't. The word wouldn't form. All she could do was gasp, her fingers digging into his shoulders. Her body was alight, every touch fanning the flames. The cold night air, the sound of the stream, the distant fire—it all faded into a blur of sensation centered on him.
His mouth returned to hers, swallowing her moans. His hand finally cupped her breast fully, his thumb circling her nipple until it peaked into a hard, aching point. She cried out into the kiss, the sensation almost too much.
He pulled back just enough to look at her, his face a mask of fierce want and lingering conflict. "Last chance, Princess."
Her answer was to fumble with the fastenings of his trousers, her movements clumsy with need. Her fingers brushed against the hard, hot length of him, and they both shuddered.
That was all the permission he needed. Jasper's hands went to the laces of her own trousers, working them open with a thief's deft speed. The cold air hit her bared skin, followed immediately by the scorching heat of his body as he pressed against her. He hooked a hand under her knee, hiking her leg up around his hip, opening her to him.
He positioned himself at her entrance, the broad head of his cock nudging against her slick heat. Aveline's eyes flew open, meeting his. In the moonlight, his expression was utterly ravaged—by want, by guilt, by a desperate kind of need that had nothing to do with any fairy's curse. This was the threshold. The moment before the irrevocable.
He held there, suspended, his body trembling with the effort of restraint. Waiting for her. Always waiting now.
Her green eyes, wide and dark with desire, held his. She gave the faintest, almost imperceptible nod.
Jasper's control snapped.
He pushed into her with a single, deep thrust.
The stretch was immediate, a sharp, full ache that stole her breath. Aveline’s head fell back against the tree bark, a choked gasp tearing from her throat. Jasper went still, buried to the hilt inside her, his body a rigid line of tension against hers. His forehead pressed into the crook of her neck, his breathing ragged and hot on her skin.
“Gods,” he gritted out, the word vibrating through her.
She felt impossibly full, stretched around him, her body clenching in startled, involuntary pulses. The initial shock melted into a deeper, radiating heat. He was so deep. She could feel every inch of him, a hard, claiming presence that left no room for anything else. Her fingers scrabbled against his shoulders, holding on.
Slowly, he began to move.
He withdrew almost completely, a slow, dragging slide that made her whimper at the loss, then pushed back in with the same deliberate, measured pace. It was a torture of control. Each thrust was deep, achingly slow, allowing her to feel everything—the way her body yielded, the slick, wet friction, the precise point where he filled her completely. His hands gripped her hips, his thumbs digging into the soft flesh of her inner thighs where her leg was hooked around him.
“Look at me,” he rasped.
Her eyes, which had squeezed shut, fluttered open. His face was inches from hers, his nightshade-blue eyes dark with a focused intensity. Sweat beaded at his temples, dampening the dark waves of his hair. He was watching her, studying every flicker of sensation that crossed her face. There was no cruelty in his gaze now, only a raw, consuming hunger, and beneath it, a thread of something like awe.
He kept that slow, devastating rhythm, each thrust a promise and a punishment. The rough bark scraped against her back through her tunic, a counterpoint to the smooth, hot slide of him inside her. The sounds were obscene in the quiet forest—the wet, rhythmic slap of their bodies meeting, their mingled, ragged breaths, her soft, broken cries.
The coil of pleasure tightened low in her belly, building with each deep, penetrating stroke. It was different from the frantic, desperate peak in the tower. This was slower, heavier, a tide rising from the depths of her. She could feel it gathering, an inevitable pressure. Her nails bit into the leather of his jerkin.
“Jasper,” she gasped, a warning and a plea.
His control fractured. His thrusts lost their measured pace, growing harder, faster, driving her back against the tree with a force that shook the leaves above them. The new angle hit something inside her that made stars burst behind her eyelids.
“Come on, Princess,” he growled, his voice rough with strain. “Let go.”
It shattered her. The orgasm ripped through her in deep, rolling waves, wringing a sharp cry from her throat. Her body clamped down around him, milking his length in frantic, rhythmic pulses. She shook with it, her vision blurring, every nerve alight.
Feeling her convulse around him broke the last of his restraint. With a raw, guttural sound, he drove into her one final, brutal time and held there, his body shuddering as he spilled himself deep inside her. Heat flooded her, a shocking, intimate claim. He buried his face in her hair, his own release wracking through him in silent, powerful tremors.
For a long moment, they stayed like that, locked together, panting into the cool night air. The only sound was the stream and their slowing heartbeats. Slowly, the tension bled from Jasper’s frame. He carefully lowered her leg from his hip, his movements gentle as he withdrew from her body. Aveline sagged against the tree, her legs trembling too much to hold her.
He caught her before she could slide down, his arms wrapping around her to keep her upright. He didn’t speak. He simply held her against his chest, one hand cradling the back of her head, his chin resting on her crown. They stood in the aftermath, tangled and spent.
Eventually, he bent and retrieved her trousers, helping her step into them and fasten the laces with a quiet, practical efficiency. He did the same for himself. Then, instead of leading her back to camp, he sat down at the base of the tree and pulled her into his lap, her back against his chest.
He began to kiss her.
Not with hunger, but with a soft, lingering tenderness that felt more dangerous than anything that had come before. His lips brushed the shell of her ear, the line of her jaw, the sensitive skin beneath it. He kissed her temple, her cheekbone, the corner of her mouth. Each kiss was light, almost chaste, a silent exploration.
A bubble of unexpected laughter rose in her chest, born from sheer overwhelm and the absurd tickle of his lips on her neck. It escaped as a breathy giggle.
She put a hand over his mouth to stop him. “That tickles.”
He went still. Then his tongue darted out, a hot, wet stripe against her palm. She yelped and pushed his face away. He let her, a mock pout forming on his stupidly handsome face, his dark eyes glinting with amusement in the moonlight.
The pout lasted only a second before he hooked an arm around her waist and stood, lifting her with him as if she weighed nothing. “Enough distractions,” he said, his voice a low rumble. He set her on her feet, kept a firm arm around her shoulders, and began steering them back toward the shallow cave they’d chosen for shelter.
Inside, the fire had burned down to embers. He guided her to their bedrolls, laid side-by-side as usual. She crawled onto hers, exhaustion hitting her like a physical weight. The day’s training, the travel, the emotional whiplash, the intense physical release—it all crashed down at once. Her limbs felt heavy, her mind pleasantly blank.
She felt him lie down beside her, his body a solid line of heat at her back. He pulled a blanket over them both. Within moments, the deep, even rhythm of her breathing signaled she was asleep.
Jasper lay awake, staring at the cave ceiling.
He turned his head on the rolled-up cloak he used as a pillow, watching her. In sleep, the Princess Aveline looked younger than her eighteen years. The composed intelligence was gone, replaced by a vulnerable softness. Moonlight from the cave entrance caught the pale gold of her hair, fanned out around her like a halo. Her lips were slightly parted.
His own mess. His spectacular, catastrophic mess.
A fairy’s hex had made him an animal. His own actions had made him a monster. And now this cursed bond, this magical tether, had made him a guardian. He, Jasper Nightshade, the most wanted thief in Askeria, was responsible for a royal princess. If they were caught, he wouldn’t be brought to trial. He’d be beheaded on the spot, his head mounted on a spike as a warning. The irony was so thick he could taste it.
His gaze traced the line of her cheek, the sweep of her lashes against her skin. His hand moved of its own volition, his fingers gently brushing a stray strand of hair from her forehead. The silk of it slid against his calloused skin.
The plan was simple. Find the witch. Break the curse. Return her to her gilded cage. Disappear. It was the only way. She was a complication he couldn’t afford, a living, breathing death sentence with emerald eyes and a laugh that made his chest feel tight.
He leaned over, his shadow falling across her sleeping face. He pressed his lips to her forehead in a kiss so light it was barely a touch. A farewell already forming in the silence.
Yeah. He’d return her and leave.
He settled back, closed his eyes, and willed himself toward a sleep that didn’t come.