Read Online Kisri: ... and the Beast, Book 2 by Moira Rogers - Free Book Online

only lions with more wealth and power than you are related to me.”
    No, Mal would likely object because he knew him better than Kisri did, and had judged him unsuitable. “Wealth and power aren’t the sum total of the things that make a marriage happy.”
    Her fingernails bit into his scalp. “For such a celebrated warrior, you are a coward. How many excuses will you find before you confess that you simply do not wish to take me as your mate?”
    It was too much. His fingers bit into her hips, but he couldn’t force himself to release her. “You’ve been spoiled, Kisri. You’ve gotten everything you ever wanted, including me, with no thought of consequence or denial.”
    “I’ve been spoiled,” she agreed softly. “I got a taste of what it is like, to live without the protection of the royal family. To have men desperate to conquer me, to mate me and hope they can break my spirit before I fight free of the bond. You are the only one who had nothing to gain and everything to lose, and I’m sorry.” Her hands fell to the back of the chair again, struggling to push away, to break his grip on her hips. “I’m sorry.”
    He held tight. “If it were up to you, what would we do?”
    Her face was closed off to him, eyes hard and unyielding. “If it were up to me, I would be mated to a man who wanted me. Who would fight to have me, not shame me into leaving by reminding me that he is a slave to my selfish, royal whims.”
    The words found their mark, and a fresh well of pain surged through him. He dropped his hands. “I think I prefer your cousin’s blows. They’re cleaner.”
    Kisri surged out of his lap and strode to the opposite side of the tent, skittish energy rolling in a wave after her. “What do you expect me to say? I forced you into an intimacy that will shadow the rest of your life. You’re the one who is trapped. Perhaps I do not wish to wake up every day next to a man who hates me. Who is only with me because I was stupid enough to voice a desire that my royal cousin might enforce with his wrath.”
    Ennon rose. “Your cousin has the power to make life difficult for you. He could disown you, Kisri.”
    Oddly, the words made her laugh. “And you could cross the room and snap my neck with your bare hands. How do you think I became spoiled, Ennon? Malrion defied family and tradition to let me live free of royal expectations. To be a girl who climbed trees and fought with swords and had the childhood no one allowed him. He won’t disown me.”
    It gave him hope. “Even if you marry a thoroughly unsuitable cad?”
    “I imagine that would depend on if the unsuitable cad planned to make me miserable. He’d be a fool to marry me if he intended to continue being a cad.” Kisri didn’t smile. “Do you?”
    “Plan to marry you, or plan to keep being a cad?”
    She didn’t answer. Instead she looked away, her shoulders slumped, her entire posture full of defeated misery. “I could love you so easily, Ennon, but in this I have no desire to be spoiled. If you have a care for me at all, do me the favor of following your heart. Rejection will sting far less in the long run than having you choose me out of duty or fear instead of desire and affection.”
    Somehow, his foolish, clumsy words had confused her. “My duty and my fear would drive me to leave you be, Kisri. To let you live a life free of me.”
    A shiver made her entire body tremble. “And your heart?”
    He could not lie. “My heart? My heart is yours,” he confessed hoarsely.
    “Follow your heart, and you can claim mine.”
    Could it be so simple after all? No more complicated than making the choice to try? Ennon took a step closer. “Marry me, Kisri.”
    She tilted her head and considered him, the first hint of a smile playing around the edges of her full lips. “You’re a cad and I’m a spoiled brat. Are you brave enough to see if we can simply be a lion and lioness in love?”
    “If you’re certain it’s what you want.” That