Could I ever escape?
What if he wanted to…killme?
My eyes darted around the cave, taking in my surroundings.
There was a small fire ringed in stone, and a low wooden shelf stacked with pelts and dried herbs. The walls were rough-hewn, uneven: this wasn’t a hut, but a cave, maybe. I couldn’t see the entrance, but the air smelled of smoke, pine, and a primal musk that stirred something deep within me. Fresh kill—a hare—hung near the back, already skinned.
Everything here was clean, ordered, and practical.
Except him.
He turned.
His eyes found mine as if he already knew I was awake. He registered no surprise or tension. Just cool, steady focus.
I scrambled upright, nearly tripping over the fur blanket, and shoved myself backward until my shoulders slammed against the cold stone. “Don’t touch me.”
He didn’t flinch.
Didn’t rise.
Just kept crouching, a predator who didn’t need to prove its power.
“You’re not dead,” he said, his voice low and rough. If I closed my eyes, I might almost think he sounded human, but there was a dark undercurrent that sent shivers down my spine.
“You’re welcome,” he added pointedly, as if in response to imagined gratitude.
I stared.
That was it?
“You kidnapped me.”
“I carried you.” He paused, glowering. “Would you prefer if I’d left you to the wolves?”
My mouth opened, then snapped shut. “You still dragged me off.”
“You fainted.”
“I didnotfaint.”
“You went down like a sack of grain.” His tone wasn’t mocking, just a flat statement of fact, which somehow made it worse.
“I was concussed,” I snapped, my temper flaring.
That earned a single blink. “And bleeding.”
He finally stood.
Gods.
He was even bigger standing. The firelight painted gold across the planes of his chest, the deep line of muscle down his stomach, and the jagged scar running from his collarbone to his hip. There were more scars, old and new, a map of violence etched into his green,inhumanskin, a history I suddenly, irrationally longed to trace with my fingertips. One eye had a faint crease at the brow, as if it had been broken once and never quite healed straight, adding to his rugged appeal.
His tusks weren’t comical. They were sharp, pale against the darker skin of his face. They weren’t too long, just long enough to remind me he wasn’t human.
But every inch of him called to the most primal parts of me.
My body started doing strange things. I ordered it tostop.
