Darkness Seduced (Primal Heat Trilogy #2) (Order of the Blade) by Stephanie Rowe

been shown what beautiful truly meant. He’d been so startled by the noise that shouldn’t have been there that he’d lost his concentration for a split second. It was in that instant that they’d collided with the rock and he’d lost his grip on Lily. That slight moment of distraction had nearly killed her, and he’d nearly lost his mind trying to get back to her.
    What the hell was wrong with him? Yeah, the Order needed Lily, but it had felt too fucking personal in the river when he’d lost her. And when he’d ripped off her blouse, he’d nearly gone to his knees at the sight of her body. Blue with cold, bruised, with cuts on her hands, he’d nearly tackled her right there, desperate to claim her and offer her his ability to heal. To nourish her body and spirit back to life, to feel her skin against his in the very personal, very private way of a man and a woman.
    “Fuck.” That was the talk of a Calydon who’d met his sheva , the one woman who was his true mate. Every Calydon was destined to meet his sheva and bond with her, singing poems of true love and eternal happiness, and of course, mind-blowing sex.
    But the minute they completed all the stages of the bond and sealed their fate, they were destined to destroy each other and everything they cared about. Both of them dead, utter destruction, no happy ending for anyone. The male would go rogue, and his woman would have to kill him to stop him, and then die herself. Destiny. Fate. Hell. Yeah, one couple seemed to have skated through, but that exception meant nothing, not when there were two thousand years of destiny winning.
    Of course, the couple would make it to the point of mutual destruction only if the Order didn’t find and kill them first, before they could complete the bond and bring down everyone around them. Preemptive strikes were part of the Order mission. Kill the warrior, not the woman, unless it was an Order member, in which case he was deemed too valuable to eliminate and his sheva would be the one to die.
    Yeah, he knew all about that fucking rule.
    Gideon tangled his fingers in Lily’s knotted hair, trying to work out the mats. She shifted against him, and her sweatshirt rode up beneath his hand. His thumb brushed against her bare back and he felt his body harden instantly. He set his hands on her hips, drinking in the feel of her body in his grasp, as desire built inside him, a raging, powerful need that actually hurt it was so intense.
    He cursed and dropped his hands before he could do something he’d never do to a woman who was passed out from exhaustion, to a woman who’d summoned the internal strength to trust him when there was no trust left in her soul.
    His need for Lily was so beyond anything he’d ever felt before...it was too intense. Unnatural. Or was it? Maybe it wasn’t a big deal. He was a Calydon, after all, and Calydons had a thing for women. His need for her could simply be lust. Or it could be admiration for her strength, or even his Calydon instincts surging to the surface to protect an innocent in his care. She wasn’t his destiny, knocking at his door to bring utter destruction to both of them.
    He knew that, with absolute certainty, because there was no way she could be his sheva . He’d already met his sheva five hundred years ago, and she’d been killed by another Order member, per their oath. As much as Gideon wanted Lily, it didn’t mean a damn thing, no matter how intense it felt. She wasn’t his sheva , and anything else was something he could manage.
    He felt relief settle in his bones. Everything was under control.
    Gideon raised his hand to her hair again and fiddled with the tangled strands. He got one knot out and went to work on another, her damp hair so fragile in his callused fingers.
    She moved restlessly in her sleep, her knee falling against his groin in the most seductive of temptations. Lily sighed and nuzzled against his neck, and he turned his head to press his face into her cheek.