She moved past him, drawn towards the water like a compass needle finding north. Her fingers trailed along the glowing walls, and everywhere she touched, the algae brightened in response, as if recognizing a kindred spirit.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” she whispered. “The light… it’s almost like?—”
“Like you.”
She turned to face him, and in the soft luminescence, her skin glowed brighter than the cavern itself, a beacon of living light, and his beast roared with possessive triumph.
Beautiful. Perfect. OURS.
“The water’s fresh,” he managed, though his throat had gone tight. “Clean. Good for bathing, if you want. I thought after having been out all day…”
It’s a practical offer,he told himself.Nothing more.
The way she looked at him suggested she knew exactly how much he was lying.
“Bathing,” she repeated, her voice soft and considering. “Here?”
“I’ll wait outside. Guard the entrance.” He was already stepping back, already trying to put distance between himself and the magnetic pull of her presence. “Take as long as you need.”
“Valrek.”
He stopped.
She was still facing him, her chin lifted and her shoulders squared, though he could see the rapid flutter of her pulse at the base of her throat. Ribbons of color fluttered over her skin.
“What if…” She swallowed, and the small movement of her throat made his beast snarl with want. “What if I didn’t want you to wait outside?”
He had to clench his fist on the rock to stop himself from immediately sweeping her up in his arms.
“Ariella.”
“You don’t have to. I mean. If you don’t want… I just thought—” She was stumbling over herself now, the confident woman who’d found him by sound alone suddenly reduced to flustered uncertainty. “In the meadow today, you held me, and I thought maybe… But if I misread?—”
“You didn’t misread.”
She went very still.
“Then stay.” Her voice was barely a whisper. “Please.”
Every rational thought in his head screamed at him to refuse. She was human—mostly—and he was a broken Vultor warrior with nothing to offer but a sea cave and a half-breed child and the beast that lived beneath his skin.
But his beast didn’t care about rational thoughts. His beast cared about the female standing before him, glowing like a fallen star, asking him to stay. His hands moved to the ties of his tunic.
Her breath caught as he pulled the garment over his head and let it fall to the stone floor. The cool air of the cavern kissed his bare chest, but he barely felt it—not when her eyes were tracing the landscape of his body with an expression that made his blood run hot.
“Your scars,” she breathed. “I saw some of them before, but…”
“There are more.”
She nodded slowly, her gaze following the silvered lines that crisscrossed his torso. Battle wounds, mostly. Fighting for a pack that had ultimately cast him out. Fighting for the entertainment of strangers when he had nowhere else to go. Fighting to protect his daughter. He waited for the revulsion, the fear that humans usually displayed when confronted with evidence of Vultor violence.
Instead, she stepped closer.
“Can I touch them?”
“Yes.”
Her fingers were cool against his heated skin, tracing the ridge of a scar that ran from his collarbone to his navel. He’d gotten that one in a border skirmish, defending territory that no longer belonged to him. It had healed badly, puckered and raised, and he’d always thought of it as ugly.
