“Am I arrogant?” Bael allows me just enough space to glance up at him, our breaths mingling. “If I wanted you naked, little huntress, then I wouldn’t need to pin you down. I would simply command you to strip.”
“And I would do it because you seem to have some mistaken idea that I’m some sort of obedient woman?” I’m fairly certain the burning manor backlights me as I say it. “In case it’s not apparent by now, I have an issue with men who try to tell me what to do.”
Bael reaches out slowly, brushing the back of his thumb nail down my cheek. “You would do it because some part of you recognizes the predator inside me. And it’s not fear I see in your eyes. Some part of you wants to be hunted. Some part of you wants to run. Pin you down? You’re the one that breathed those words into life. Is that what you want, little firebrand? You want me to hunt you down? You want me to pin you to the forest floor, to tear this pretty little gown from your body, to fuck my way into you as you beg and writhe beneath me?”
The words steal my breath and send my mind reeling. They’re not true. They can’t be. Because what he’s suggesting should be anathema, and yet, for some strange reason my cunt grows wet at the thought.
I would never let a man do that to me.
Never.
Yet the picture his words paint fills my vision.
Dangerous. I knew it for truth when I saw him in those cells, but I never truly realized how dangerous hecouldbe.
His whisper is molten as his lips brush against my ear. “If I told you to strip right now, you would do it. And you wouldwantto do it. And when I told you what a good girl you are for obeying me, your sleek little body would betray you, the way it’s betraying you now. You’re wet, aren’t you? I can smell it on you. And I haven’t even touched you yet.”
“I…” Have nothing to say to that. My brain has gone missing. Instead, it’s focusing on his words, picturing those enormous battle-scarred hands fisting in the flimsy silk of my bodice and tearing it clean up the middle.
I don’t hate that thought.
Not even a little. Not at all.
His smile makes the ground drop out from under me, before it suddenly vanishes. “Now be a good girl and strip out of that fucking dress before I stop being a gentleman. Put your new clothes on. Say thank you. And then get your fucking boots and focus. We need to get out of here before this fire draws unsavory attention.”
His words punch hard.Fuck. What am I doing? Kari is missing. Rhykus is out there somewhere. And we’re standing beside the biggest bonfire in the Labyrinth, with hundreds of bride hunters out there all searching for their one shot at a female.
And I’m still reeling from the concept of this man claiming me.
“You have got to be kidding me,” I growl, holding up a loose shirt and trying to retain some semblance of control. “You think I want you?”
The argument is weak and we both know it.
“Your eyeslinger, sweetheart.”
“Fuck you. Oh, and I’m not giving your knife back.”
His eyes thin, but not malevolently. “I wouldn’t dream of taking it back. You won it from me fairly.”
Fairly. “That wasn’t what you were saying in that cell.”
“I changed my mind.”
He hasn’t changed his mind. He’s up to something.
“Have I won your name yet?” he asks.
“No. Turn around.”
Bael obeys, growling under his breath as he crosses his arms over his chest. I swiftly rifle through my new wardrobe. The leather leggings smell new, and the thin white silk shirt is distinctly feminine. It’s not what I’d pick for a hunt, but beggars cannot afford to say no, and at least there’s a black leather coatto go over it, a pair of socks and some kind of heeled slipper. I unwind a thread of linen, wondering what it is, when realization clicks. He even thought of something to bind my breasts with.
I don’t understand him at all.
“Where did you get these from?” I haul the leggings on underneath my skirt, unsure what to think of that. He’s an ass, but this is incredibly thoughtful.
“We needed supplies. Whilst you were talking to the women, I went and found them.”
“You went into a burning house to fetch me new clothes?” Because these had to have come from some of the women’s rooms, unlike my purloined boots.
