“Have you lost your mind?”

His brow furrowed as those expressive eyebrows of his came together. “I’ve said nothing that isn’t true. I remember you, Your Highness,” he said, in a voice way too full of passion. I took a step back, shaking my head.

“You remember me? What are you talking about? From where? What do you remember?”

“From the training academy, when I was there on temporary instructor duty. You had a huge infatuation for me then. It was quite noticeable, and everyone teased me about it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Infatuation. Is that not the word? A fondness? An immature fascination…whatever you want to call it. I’m sure those are the right words.”

“The word is ‘crush.’ And so what if I had a little one?” I cried, feeling hot and cold with embarrassment all over. How dare this man confront me about some juvenile feelings I might have had for him once long ago. Maybe I still had a few of them now, but I’d never act on them. I was mortified that he thought I would. Was this because I’d let Venkarr kiss me? Was he throwing that back in my face? Or because of what happened earlier?

I answered him stiffly. “That’s all in the past now.”

“Good, I hoped it would be. But then today when you grabbed me inappropriately, I was concerned. Your father has charged me with protecting you. These feelings are totally unsuitable, and I hope I don’t have to speak to him about them.”

“How dare you? Are you threatening me?”

He looked confused, and I almost took pity on him—almost. But I was far too outraged that he’d threatened to tell my father on me like I was a child.

“Colonel, what happened earlier today was an accident. I explained that. And what you’re talking about—that silly crush I had—happened when I was sixteen. And it wasn’t me who had a hard-on when they ran out of this room earlier. Don’t pretend you don’t know what that is, either, because I’ve heard plenty of Tygerians use human slang, and you know exactly what I’m talking about.”

He gave me a look that was so offended it caused a shiver to slide down my spine. I wondered if that face was perhaps the last one a lot of people had seen before this warrior ripped out their throats. “My body reacted to you pulling at my clothes and putting your hands on me. It was a biological response, and I can assure you it was entirely inadvertent.”

“Oh, you mean like an accident? Like what I did?”

He stared at me for another long moment and then nodded. “I don’t think we need to speak of this any further. I see we understand each other.”

“Oh, I understand perfectly. You’re a dick.”

“A…a what?”

“Nothing, don’t worry about it.”

“It can’t happen again. Are we clear?”

“Oh, I’m crystal clear. I’m just not so sure about you.”

His face reddened again, and I could see he was furious. “How dare you turn this around on me?”

“Well, you were the one hanging onto my hand all day and giving me orders like you owned me.”

“It’s my job and my responsibility to keep you safe and by my side. If you didn’t act like such a child, it wouldn’t be necessary.”

“You didn’t seem to think I was such a child when you struggled with me at my door this morning and threw me to the ground.”

“Gods, that’s such a wicked lie, and you know it! I never threw you anywhere.”

“Did so.”

“I did not.” He put up a hand and rubbed the spot between his eyes. “You’re giving me a headache.”

“Good!”

I knew it was juvenile, but the word came out before I could stop it. He gave me a wounded, angry look and turned to leave.

And I flew at him, jumping up on his back and intending to pull him to the floor if I could. That’s how crazy he made me, but I was tired of him turning his back and walking away from me.

He shrugged me off and shoved me back away from him, and I slammed back into the wall. I was a little stunned for a moment and I saw the panic in his eyes. It was an extreme aberration for an Imperial guard to put his hands on a royal at all, but especially like that. It just never happened, and I must have pushed him beyond his limits. Beyond all reason.

It didn’t hurt me at all, because I think he must have used only a little of his strength, but he looked horrified at what he’d done. At what I’d pushed him to do. He reached for me, but I shoved his hand away.

“Who do you think you’re pushing around?” I shouted.

His eyes widened and he took an aggressive step toward me, pushing me back to the wall and placing his hand over my mouth so I couldn’t keep yelling.

“You talk too much. And you’re too loud. And-and you’re impossible. What’s wrong with you? You know I didn’t mean to hurt you, and you jumped on me. I should have had my head examined before taking this ridiculous duty. I need to send your father a message and tell him I can’t do this anymore. I won’t do it.”

Behind his hand, I shouted, “Oh, fuck you!” and his eyes turned that weird shade of emerald again.

“Be quiet,” he hissed. “I’m warning you. Or else I won’t be responsible for what happens.”

I mumbled behind his hand, and he pulled his palm away from my mouth a tiny bit to hear me better.

“What was that? I’ll give you one last chance to tell me you understand and apologize, and I’ll let you go. We’ll never speak of any of this again, and I won’t message your father.”

I managed to get a hand free and yank at his wrist. “I said, fuck you and the horse you rode in on!”

It wasn’t the right thing to say. It was silly, mostly, and it made no sense. It was human slang again that I’d heard Blake say once. Or maybe it was Ryan. Humans did seem to have the best curse words, and the ones I was with the most cursed a lot. And while the first part was fine—well, not fine, because I might as well have spit in his face—the second part about the horse made no sense at all. I’d heard other humans say it from time to time, so I asked Ryan, my brother Mikos’s mate, about it. He said a horse was an animal on earth, though we didn’t have anything like them on Tygeria. He had only laughed when I asked him to explain further and said it was too hard to explain, and I shouldn’t curse so much.

There were some large animals called arrizes that were similar to horses, but they were on my brother Vannos’s planet of Moravia, and there was no indication that anyone ever fucked them. I don’t even think it would be possible. It didn’t matter though—the words were funny to me, and the message came through loud and clear.

He twisted me around to face the wall, because I guess he couldn’t stand to keep looking at me. His hand went back over my mouth, and he started breathing hard. He didn’t know what I meant by what I’d said, but he knew he’d been insulted. I stuck out my tongue and licked his palm. I don’t know why I did it—a momentary madness, I guess. He moaned when I did, though, so I licked him again and looked over my shoulder provocatively into his eyes while I did it. That’s when he seemed to lose his mind.

He began to tear at my clothes. It was kind of a remarkable thing to do, and I thought at first, he was only doing it to prove some kind of point or maybe to humiliate me. But whatever the reason was, I was totally onboard with it. I was suddenly so hot for him, I thought I’d spontaneously combust. I even helped him or tried to, but he slapped my hands away. It was then I took a good look at him and realized he wasn’t just hot and bothered—he was totally out of control.

He was transforming. Shifting into his tyger.

It was only partial, but he was making a guttural, growling sound, and I felt just the tip of his claws on my skin as he pulled off my pants and my boots. He was sniffing me all over too, which was further proof that he had partially shifted, and I took another good look at his face and almost passed out. Tygerians only shifted when they had lost all reason. They had to be in the grip of some powerful passion or emotion, and they were at their most dangerous when it happened. Usually, it meant they were about to tear you apart. I should have been scared to death because of that reason alone, but I wasn’t.

Because I knew instinctively that he wasn’t doing it because we were fighting, and he wanted to kill me. No, he wanted to fuck me. And he was determined to do it.