She ignored him, continuing to pace. Her eyes drifted to his blazing eyes, and she frowned.
Really, it was unfair that he was so unnaturally good looking.
It was how the Elves had managed to colonize her human ancestors; they’d mistakenly believed that a people who looked so regal couldn’t be anything less than noble in their dealings with humans.
History had proved those long dead humans to have been very, very wrong. Now, everyone knew that the Elves’ inhuman beauty only matched their inhuman nature.
Not for the first time, Ella cursed her naïve, sixteen-year-old-self for believing she knew better than centuries of lore, and deciding to approach an injured Elf in the woods.
That one naïve decision had led her here today. Pacing before an Elf while she battled the twin desires to slap his face—but also to run her fingers through his hair.
Would it be as soft as it looked?
Her fingers itched to know.
As her pacing increased in speed, Ryu narrowed his eyes at her.
“Are you ignoring me, human?”
“My name is nothuman,” she snapped automatically, and then bit her lip at the gleam in his eye. One point for him, then.
“Are you ignoring me,Ella?” he asked, putting emphasis on her name as he smirked.
“Say something worth listening to, then,” she shot back, smirking when he frowned. She still had the upper hand if she was capable of getting to him, then.
“Do as I say!”
“Never!”
“You will if you ever want to go home!”
They were standing toe to toe now, shouting in each other’s faces, and Ella could see the little flecks of silver in his blue-grey eyes as he glared at her. They seemed to be drifting across the endless blue of his eyes, and a long moment passed in silence before Ella realized she had been staring dreamily as she followed their movement.
She blinked, and gave her head a little shake. More nefarious Elven magic, designed to make her lose her head. Well, she wasn’t falling for it. She wouldnotyield.
“Stop looking at me like that,” Ryu murmured, frowning.
“Like what?” Ella said, but her voice seemed to have lost its bite.Keep your head, she told herself.
“Like you want to becloser,” Ryu said.
Ella gasped. “Of all the big-headed—I have never wanted—”
Ryu scowled, his unearthly face losing its attractiveness as frown lines bracketed his eyes and mouth. It was a relief to see him looking so affected, sohuman, that Ella would’ve smiled in triumph, if she hadn’t been spitting mad with anger.
“I should’ve expected you to be a liar, human,” he snarled, looking pointedly down at the space between them, and Ella was suddenly aware of how close they had come as they’d been hissing at each other.
Well, she wasn’t going to back down. She wasn’t afraid of him.
“Step away then,” she said.
“You first.”
They stared at each other for a timeless moment, and then suddenly, before she could quite understand if he moved first or she did, he had slanted his mouth over hers in a burst of passion. His lips coaxed hers open, tangling their tongues together, and she shuddered at the wave of lust that slammed into her, overwhelming all her senses.
Ella clutched at Ryu’s robes, determined not to be swept away. She wouldnotlose her head, she reminded herself.
If anything, this was the perfect chance for her to bend her captor toherwill. If she could soften his heart toward her, maybe she could even escape…
