Capture of a Heart Read Online Free PDF Page A

that he could fight but never defeat.
    He stole a glance at her where she slept, propped up on the cushions of the bed. She had moved back against the far side of the bed, blankets barely covering the swell of her chest. His heart jerked inside his chest as he lifted his gaze and found slanted eyes glaring back at him. He had felt sure she had been asleep, but as the flicker of firelight across her dark-brown skin displayed, she was quite awake.
    “Are you sleeping, Gavenas?”
    Not since she had arrived, but rather than admit to it, he muttered as if he hadn’t heard her correctly. “Eh?”
    “Are you sleeping?” she repeated, softly but direct. “I’m in your bed, and you seem to like that table, although it doesn’t seem to allow you true rest.”
    “I assure you I sleep fine, and not solely at the table.”
    “Where, then?”
    Gavenas wondered if he were drowning in the details of his lie. That Shoraya had so easily placed him on the defensive made him even more uncomfortable. He hadn’t been sleeping well since she had arrived, and the lack of the bed really had little to do with it. “Outside.”
    “You don’t have to. This bed is big enough, and, well, you’ve kept it clean and nice-smelling.”
    Gavenas caught himself before he could raise a hand to his spinning brow. The idea of sharing the bed with her had occurred to him too many times to count, and yet her offer made the numerous excuses he had come up with seem paltry. He stretched as if he weren’t ready for a long nap beside her. “I would not impose on a guest.”
    “And I hate imposing upon a host. You look so tired.”
    He turned his back to her and the very invitation of the open space that she had made for him on the bed. He shifted his gaze to the numerous piles of flowers, plants, and roots that could have been dissected, the minerals that could have been ground. He even had unfinished spices to cure, and yet there was no task he wanted to complete or needed to. “I am well.”
    “I will not harm you.”
    He gripped the edge of the table, digging his nails into the wood, and closed his eyes to recite a silent prayer. His back ached, and he regretted his stubbornness. She had mentioned causing him harm, but he knew where the true threat lay. “Rest, Deipma,” he sighed before coming to a stand. He moved to a branch of a shelf and collected his mortar and pestle. He also gathered a handful of herbs, which might be a distraction if he ground them a good deal.
    The task proved to work in passing time, but upon hearing the soft sounds of Shoraya’s snoring, Gavenas once again fell victim to contemplation.
    If he but rested upon the edge of the mattress, near her warmth and upon the soothing cushions of his bed, surely there could be no harm in that. He could control the curiosity in his blood to know her skin, to cradle her in his arms. Better than avoidance, he would show her that he was no weakling.
    As the glow from the hearth’s coals weakened, Gavenas stood to stoke them. He added another log within the pit and tended the warmth idly. That too was a chore to buy him time against the inevitable.
    When he reached the pallet, he determinedly kept his focus on the edge. He turned his back to her and sat, letting his gaze rove over the expanse of his den and the crackling specter of the fire.
    As he eased down to lie on his side, he noted the dark wood resilient under the appetite of the flames, bearing it, illuminated by it. Even as the logs cracked and bent beneath the intense heat, they were defiant. Like the myth of legendary ancestors of the Deipma standing before a legion of dragons and refusing to give up their mountains.
    He imagined Shoraya standing at the forefront with those sleek blades of hers held aloft and her chin raised high…as he drifted off to sleep.

Chapter Five
    Shoraya was not an innocent in the ways and desires of males. In her mountain home, she had claimed quite a few dark coves to spirit lovers away to. She