by Nadine Mutas
More dark power poured off him, twined around her hand in prickling shadows as she massaged his head, caressed his wolf ears. That compelling, tenebrous magic of his that coiled around her arm seemed to caress her in turn, and she inhaled sharply at the sensation. Not in fear, but in welcome.
As her body went molten with longing for more of that touch, she withdrew her hand, clenched in her lap.
A tug on that bond inside her had her tumbling forward, off the boulder, until she fell on the wolf, had to grab his fur with both hands to steady herself.
“You jerk,” she hissed and raised her hand to slap at him.
He danced out of her reach on agile wolf legs, his tail swinging high, his mouth open in a grin, eyes sparkling with challenge. Was he—? Yes, he was playing with her. Not as in toying, not the kind of predatory amusement of a cat batting around its prey, but a real, honest enticement to have fun.
The Demon Lord invited her to play.
The corners of her mouth wanted to twitch upward again, a fuzzy sort of warmth spreading in her chest. Dropping her raised hand, she feigned sudden interest in retying her shoes, saw him move out of the corner of her eye.
She jumped up just as he lunged with his head aimed to thump against her back. She was quick—but he was quicker. He still half caught her with a head bump on her side, making her stagger as she darted out of his way.
Not missing a beat, he dashed after her.
With a muffled shriek, she zig-zagged around trees, her heart pounding up into her throat, adrenaline pumping through her veins. The good kind of adrenaline, the one that left you gasping for breath with a wide grin in your heart.
If only she had control of her powers, she’d send a rocket of sparks shooting after him to singe his tail. But as it was, she could only run, had nothing in her arsenal to turn the tables on him—except… The idea was as devious as it was thrilling, making her pulse hammer even faster.
As she darted around yet another tree, Arawn hot on her heels—he was clearly holding back, could have tackled her a thousand times already—she brought up a memory, let the details flood her mind.
And then, with what little skill she’d scrounged together after years of training with her grandmother, she lowered those fragile shields around her thoughts and sent the images out.
Skin on skin, coarse hair tickling her face, her lips closing around…
A crash behind her, a growling yelp. She turned, swinging with one arm around a tree, to see the wolf scrambling to his feet after what looked like a nasty tumble.
“Missed a step?” she asked with a grin.
He stilled, his expression sharpening into hunger tempered with…awe? A low tremor took hold of her at the intensity of his attention.
The air shimmered around him, misting in shadows and light. The being prowling over to her the next second might have been human in shape, but every inch the same feral hunter as the wolf she petted minutes ago.
Petted.
Heat shot up into her neck, her face, sweat coating her skin. As her eyes tracked down the expanse of impressive muscles and pure, unfettered strength crammed into the mouthwatering form of a man who could be the dictionary definition of “beefcake,” the realization that she’d basically caressed him—albeit in wolf form—dispelled her thoughts for a moment. Fur or not, for him that touch must have been…
“…invigorating,” he murmured.
She startled, and wrenched her gaze from the part of his anatomy that clearly had received most of that invigoration.
“I have been called many names,” he said, leaning close, “but ‘beefcake’ is a new one.”
She’d left her mind open to him. “Oh, gods.”
“Just me,” he corrected with a smirk.
He leaned closer still, his heat rolling up and over her like waves to the shore, and she froze, her heart thumping as he…grabbed a pair of pants from somewhere behind her, stepped back and pulled them on.
She whipped her head around, caught a glimpse of a dryad vanishing back into her tree. Facing him again, she asked, “Do all of the tree nymphs just hang around waiting for you with a pair of pants?”
“They are a patient and undemanding lot.”
“I feel watched.”
“We could always go to your cabin and close the curtains.”
The flood of effervescent warmth inside her would surely bubble over at any moment. Clearing her throat, she inched away from him, from the sensual promise in his regard. “So, will you study the spell again?”
“If you let me.”
She gave a jerky nod. She wanted those powers, not just to chase him with sparks in play, but to—finally—be able to defend herself, dammit. All her life she’d been dependent on others for protection. Always the liability, never the asset.
I don’t want to be weak anymore.
“The beast inside me,” she said softly, “it’s strong, right?”
His eyes seemed to bore into her. “Every Old One was as powerful as an entire witch community.”
Holy crap. That kind of force… “I want that.” A whisper. A pledge.
His eyes gleamed. “As is your birthright.”
Swallowing, she took a seat on a fallen log. “Go ahead.”
She inhaled a startled breath as his presence entered her mind. Rough silk over her senses, a gentle caress from those powers that were humming with brute strength, yet ever careful not to touch what she didn’t offer. Entirely different from the violence of her only other experience of having someone else in her head…
His finger under her chin. “Eyes on me, Wildfire.”
With a shuddering breath, she looked up at him, at that face of raw male beauty, held his gaze with a thundering heart. And the horrors wanting to claw at her fell away, eclipsed by her fascination with every harsh line of his features, the depth of swirling shadows in his eyes.
That awareness inside her stretched on a sigh, pressed against her core. Wings flaring in the dark, whispers of smoke, and an age-old ferocity that gentled at Arawn’s nearness.
Come get me.
Arawn could almost make out what lurked at the bottom of Maeve’s soul, that ancient creature so at home in the flicker of flames, the blistering heat of a mighty blaze. And yet its form was hidden in shadows still, the fog of its confinement so thick it wouldn’t fully reveal the beast.
Again he examined the intricacies of the spell, probed the layers and the locks with the same kind of cautious consideration a bomb disposal expert might show an armed explosive device. If he could not be sure where to start the dismantling, he’d rather leave it alone for a while longer, lest he trigger a blast that might erase the spirit of the redhead who’d entered his lair a subdued, withdrawn thing, only to blossom into a female who eagerly met the Demon Lord’s dare to play.
She’d grinned at him.
Grinned.
It had taken every ounce of his finely-honed self-control not to kiss the curve of her lips in that moment, push her up against that tree and devour her. Whatever tenuous trust he’d built with her would have crumbled to dust at that move, shattering something between them that no power in the universe would be able to mend.
So, he waited, hungered, contented himself with an ever-growing list of things he wanted to do to her once she was warm and willing in his bed. Or on a boulder. Or the mossy ground. Or… He created a new list just for all the locations where he planned to pleasure her.
This time, he stopped the session before her energy levels were so low she was in danger of toppling over when she stood. Withdrawing from her mind with a subtle sensual caress that made her part her lips on a soft sound—his body hardening in reaction—he grounded her back in the physical world by twirling a lock of her fiery hair around his fingers, tugging gently.
“Hungry?”
Her eyes skittered to his mouth in response, and she clenched her thighs together in a move she probably wasn’t even aware of. Her breath a tad faster, she licked her lips—and he remember
ed with torturous clarity the memory she’d sent him earlier. Yet again, his thoughts stuttered to a halt at the erotic allure of her dream, of sensing her imagined pleasure as her mouth closed around his cock.
“Just tell me when,” he murmured, his fingers still tangled in her hair, “you would like to put me on the menu.”
Copper lashes fluttered over eyes gone liquid fire kissed with smoke, her cheeks painted with a lovely blush.
A brush across his outer awareness, which was cast wide so he could monitor the area, the mental approach coming from Barnabas, the fox shifter he sent out last night. Equivalent to a polite knock, the male let him know from a distance that he was on his way to Arawn, the shifter’s tact one of the reasons Arawn appreciated him so.
“Wait here,” he said to the witch who was well and truly enthralling him, and headed out to meet Barnabas.
The log on which he left Maeve now several rows of trees away, he nodded at the fox, his attention darting to the box in the male’s hands.
“I assume you found it.”
Barnabas bowed. “Of course, my lord.”
Arawn accepted a square package the size of a shoe box, thanked the shifter and sent him off again. Opening the lid, he examined the content, ran his finger over the object’s edge. Satisfied with the quality of the workmanship, he closed the box, returned to the spot where Maeve waited.
Her delicate ginger brows drew together as she noticed the package. “What’s that?”
“A gift.”
Frown deepening, she took the box from his hand, opened it. A soft sound of surprise. Carefully, she lifted the bowl from its cushion, turned it to study it from all sides, her features slack with open astonishment. Lacquered in hues of dark red, the ceramic dish was interveined by gold threads.
“Kintsugi,” he said in answer to the question written on her face. “It is a Japanese craft of mending fractured objects by gluing the broken pieces together using a golden lacquer. In this philosophy, breakage and repair are part of the history of an object, and instead of disguising the fracture points, they are highlighted and embraced as a form of beauty. If something breaks, it does not lose its value or appeal.”
Her breath hitched, her lashes fluttering yet again, over eyes shimmering wet.
“When our bodies break,” he added gently, “we heal, and we often realize we are stronger at the mended points.”
She inhaled on a shudder, the hands holding the bowl trembling. An echo of her emotions pinged along the bond between them, so piercing, so consuming, he couldn’t quite name it. The moisture in her eyes spilled over, silent tears tracking down her cheeks.
He shifted his weight, curled his fingers into his palm. Had he miscalculated? Had what was meant as a thoughtful gift hurt her in a way he hadn’t intended? Was he beyond arrogance to have relied on thousands of years’ experience learning to read people to correctly guess their desires and fears? Perhaps he should have—
“Thank you,” she whispered.
He held his breath.
She swallowed, wiped the tears away with the heel of one hand, the other cradling the bowl. “Thank you for this.”
“You are not broken,” he said, his voice pitched low. “But if you feel you are, if you cannot help seeing yourself that way, then regard yourself as kintsugi.”
He turned, wanting to leave her to settle her thoughts and feelings.
A touch on his hand. The warmth of her fingers on his.
“Arawn.”
Chapter 19
Heart aflutter in her throat, Maeve held on to Arawn’s hand, watched him slowly turn around to her. The contact of his fingers on hers was a hot brand she felt searing through the fiber of her soul. His shadowed green eyes studied her face, seemed to strip her bare of all the layers she liked to hide behind.
“Tell me,” she said, her voice brittle, “something people don’t know about you.”
The crumbling walls of her composure, eroded by the depth of insight and consideration behind his gift, threatened to collapse, leave her exposed and shaken amid the awareness of just how well he knew her. She needed something in return, a piece of him she could shelter.
He regarded her for a long moment, and whatever he read on her face prompted him to grant her wish. “I do not like to sleep.”
He stepped closer, and she clasped his hand more fully.
“I have trained myself,” he went on, “to go without sleep for weeks while still being able to function, and when I do take a rest, it is only for a few short hours. I do not allow anyone to sleep next to me. Ever. My bed…the one I use for sleeping”—a smile playing around his mouth—“is in a secret room hidden so far beneath the earth, and behind wards so thick a hundred Elder witches could not breach them. I am the only one who has ever set foot in there.”
That…was not simply a dislike of sleeping. Precautions like these spoke of fear. If there was one thing Maeve had become an expert in, it was the kind of compulsive behavior dictated by the scars terror would claw into your soul. Her heartbeat drummed in her head at the realization that Arawn…could be afraid.
Of what? What could possibly have been powerful enough to leave such an indelible mark on his soul?
A part of her longed to ask him, and yet it would be foolish to do so. She didn’t have the right to request he bare his pain to her, not when it obviously went so deep. She knew all about the intricacies of vulnerability and sore spots in the heart and mind, and she’d be the last person to poke at someone’s wounds, would rather wait to be given the gift of his trust in this, when he was ready to share with her of his own accord.
And she wanted that trust.
She marveled at the feeling, at the desire to be the one he entrusted with those aspects of him that were fragile with destructive potential.
Gods knew she was familiar with that combination.
So instead of prodding him for an explanation of his statement, she nodded. “I get that.”
Because she truly did. And she didn’t need to know the root of his fear to understand the implications, the way it would become second nature.
“I thought you would.” One side of his mouth tilted up.
She was transfixed by the sensuality of that half smile. By his lips, which seemed the only soft part in a face that could have been hewn from hard rock. She’d felt the touch of those lips on her lashes, the caress of his breath on her nose, her cheeks, a sensory memory she hadn’t been able to shake since that moment in her cabin.
Her mouth went dry while the craving she’d failed to stifle over the past days infused her blood with prickling fire, pushed at her.
She rose to her feet, tugged at his hand. “Sit down.”
A gleam in his eyes. “Giving me orders?”
“I may want,” she said, excitement pulsing under her skin, “to put you on the menu.”
She didn’t even see him sit down. One moment he stood in front of her, the next he lounged on the log, his hands on the moss-covered bark on either side of him, his shoulder muscles flexing. A looming predator, no matter what position he was in, no matter how relaxed and lazy he appeared, his undivided attention and sensual intent merely hidden well behind a veneer of languid idleness.
She didn’t fool herself. He was still very much a wolf on the prowl, his sights firmly set on her. It was fascinating to realize she rather enjoyed being stalked by him.
He lounged in that quintessentially male way of taking up the entirety of any available space, his legs spread wide, and heat flushed her at the thought that he might have taken her bold declaration to mean something even bolder.
“Just a kiss,” she whispered, clearing her throat.
Not that an insistently hungry part of her didn’t yearn to reenact the images she sent him earlier, but tackling that particular fantasy was still a far-off goal.
“We can work our way down the menu.” The spark of his sly smile lit his eyes. “In time.”
“In time,” she agreed on a whisper, and set the
box with the bowl down beside the log.
He leaned back a little, the heat of his attention pulling her closer, and she stepped between his legs. Her knees brushed against his thighs, his power curling around her.
“Keep your hands on the log,” she murmured, her fingers itching to stroke his skin once more. All that glorious skin over taut muscles, the breathtaking display laid out for her by his lack of a shirt yet again.
“Pushy.” An intimate rumble.
But he complied with perfect, prowling patience, with that unyielding focus that clearly said he was indulging her while he took pleasure in drawing her in even further. She knew his easy agreeability for what it was—simply another measured step in a game he still very much controlled.
She was okay with it, as long as the pretense of control he granted her allowed her to stave off the insidious fear that might yet lunge at her.
She laid both her hands on his shoulders. His muscles tensed under her touch, his heat seeping into her. Breath coming faster, she stroked over those impressive shoulder muscles and up to his neck. Corded strength under silken skin, power humming beneath her palms.
Dark energy twined around her arms…to her waist. A sneaky caress, one she found herself utterly incapable of rebuking. His hands remained on the log beside him, his posture all calm attention, and for the epicenter of her fears, that was what counted.
Up to his face her fingers went, gliding over the stubble on his jaw, the strong lines of his chin…to the sensual feast of his lips. Her pulse ticked low in her body, heat and desire unfolding with each beat of her heart, rolling out into her every nerve.
She let her fingers run over his lips, and she had to clench her thighs tight against the throb of desire at the touch. His power whispered along her hips.
Leaning forward a little, she bent down until only an inch separated their mouths, the air hot from their mingled breaths.