Praying that he wouldn’t lose this gamble, Taevas eased back onto his haunches and swiped a hand across his sweaty brow. “Shiya,” he rasped, “I’m sorry I scared you. I don’t know what I did, but whatever it was, I never intended to frighten you off. I just want to talk, okay?”
He held his breath and waited. There was no response.
“If there’s something I can do to make you feel safe, I’ll do it. I understand that it’s alarming to have me in your roost,metsalill.I should’ve been more reassuring. I want to fix that. Please let me.”
When a full minute passed, he asked, “Are you all right? You didn’t hurt yourself, did you?”
Could she see him? Without access to the internet, there was no way for Taevas to know how good a nymph’s night vision might be. A chill ran down his spine at the thought of her running blindly through the woods. She could’ve tripped and broken her leg. She could’ve hit her head on a rock, and the only reason she wasn’t replying to him was because she was bleeding out somewhere just beyond his sight. Or worse.
Growing more alarmed by the second, Taevas struggled tokeep the gentle facade up.If she doesn’t answer me in the next minute, I’m tearing this place apart.
“Come out,minu metsalill.Please.”
There was no response. At least, nothing verbal. Taevas couldn’t say whether it was a choice she made or simply an involuntary reaction on her part, but there was the smallest movement in the ferns and tangled vines directly before him. Without thinking, his right hand shot into the foliage.
His claws closed around a delicate ankle.
Her flesh was petal-soft and warm beneath the pads of his fingers. As soon as he made contact, Taevas was astonished to see her shape resolve itself in the depths of the shadows in the hollow beneath the birch trees. A chill ran down his spine.
He’d been staring right at her from less than a foot away.
Alashiya didn’t jerk her leg to be free. She didn’t make a sound and hardly seemed to breathe. She watched him from her hiding spot, her arms wrapped tightly around her knees and the whites of her eyes visible within the shadows of the roots. They almost appeared to cage her in. Now that he could see her clearly, Taevas got the uneasy sense that the plants and roots in the hollow were leaning toward her, like they were trying to block her from view — or draw her into the depths of the earth, never to be seen again.
The hair prickled on the back of his neck. It was hard to banish the feeling that he was being keenly observed by an entity that hadn’t yet decided if he was an enemy or not.
Swallowing, Taevas said, “Shiya, are you hurt?”
“Not yet.” Her voice was as soft as the brush of leaves against one another.
“Not yet?” Taevas glanced around sharply, straining for any sight or sound of an enemy. “What are you afraid of?”
When he turned his attention back to her, he discovered that peculiar look on her face again — the one that said she had absolutely no idea what to make of him.
“You,” she answered, at last pulling her leg from his grip.Alashiya pressed herself deeper into the hollow. To his great alarm, he noticed the edges of her began to blur, as if the very earthen wall of the hollow was beginning to close around her.
Taevas lunged for her. The scent of crushed and broken greenery perfumed the air as he wrestled her out of the hollow as gently as he could. It didn’t seem to matter. Alashiya was a soft creature, but she had a belly full of fire. When threatened, she lashed out with everything she had.
It was unfortunate for her that even with his current weakness, her nails and teeth and blows didn’t stand a chance against him. Only when she went for his injured wings did Taevas have to put some real effort into restraining her.
“Stop this!” he barked, pinning her wrists beside her ears. His knees sunk into the loamy soil on either side of her hips. Alashiya lay splayed out beneath him, her curls tangled in the fans of ferns. Her chest rose and fell with every panting breath. Electricity buzzed in the air around them — a nearly tangible chemistry that set his blood on fire.
His cock, always deeply rebellious when it came to her, jerked behind the damn button-up fly of his borrowed pants. He wanted to tear her pretty dress down the middle, free those perfect, heavy breasts, and feast on her until the last of his strength left him. Taevas wanted her wet and squirming beneath him. He wanted her soft hands on his cock. Heneededto spread those perfect, full thighs and rut between them like a beast, and then he needed her to arch her back and scream when she came, so she’d never, ever run from him again.
But none of it would happen when she looked at him likethat.
“Alashiya,” he growled, voice roughened by need and exhaustion, “I amnotgoing to hurt you.”
“Then why did you chase me?”
Taevas’s brow furrowed. “Why? Shiya, youran.You could’ve gotten hurt.”
She shook her head. “So?”
“So? I wasworried.I’m grateful you took me into your home. You treated my wounds. You’ve been kind. We’ve sat together for hours. You’ve told me about your life. You’ve stroked my skin and whispered soft things to me. Whatpossiblemotivation could I have to hurt you?”
Her throat, glistening with a thin sheen of sweat in the moonlight, bobbed with a nervous swallow. “I don’t know. It didn’t seem so bad when you were— when you were the other thing, but now you’re a man. It’s different.”
Under normal circumstances, he’d agree. The idea of Alashiya inviting strange, nude men into her home threatened to give him a heart attack. But he wasn’t some random man. He washerclient. They’d known one another for ten interminable years. And even if that wasn’t true, he was the Isand of the Draakonriik.
