All the little feathers down the griffin’s neck fluff. But he subsides, shooting a look at me. “This bride yours?”
“We are currently… allies,” Bael murmurs, gesturing Pharyces to lean closer whilst he murmurs in his ear.
I press closer in an effort to hear, but the satyr steps between us, smiling a determined smile. She’s protective of Pharyces.
Bael finally tilts his head toward me, his mouth twisting as if he can taste something unpleasant.
“What? What’s wrong? Don’t they have a room?”
“They have a room,” he says grimly.“There’s just one small problem with it.”
“What do you mean there’s only one bed?” I demand as Bael shuts the door behind us.
Instantly the room shrinks.
He’s promised a truce, but I glance to the side as I sense him moving behind me. An enormous shadow, the heat of his body seems to envelope mine, almost caressing me with its intensity.
“This is a Hunt Inn.” His low voice shivers over my damp skin. “It’s a place meant for claiming a bride in comfort. Hardly the place where you’ll find two beds.”
Instead, there’s one enormous monstrosity dominating the room.
I sling my wet coat off my shoulders and drape it over the back of a chair. It’s an odd shape, and it takes me a moment to realize?—
There’s a collar attached to the back of the chair. Shackles on the armrests. And whilst there are slats for someone to sit upon, there’s definitely space for a cock to shove its way through.
Part of me wants to rip my coat right back off it.
“Lovely.” I take a slow tour of the room. Silk sheets on the bed. Candle light gleaming from a pair of lanterns. A divan by the fireplace. A locked cabinet whose contents I don’t want to know. A bath in a wet area to the side. And a wooden X-shaped cross by the far corner, with leather cuffs at each end of the X.
“Do I want to?—?”
“No,” he replies, with an amused tilt of his mouth as he follows my gaze. “Unless you’re particularly curious.”
I circle the cross. Beside it, there’s an array of small hand-held whips on a tray.
He promised me a spanking. “If you’ve brought me here purely to make good on your threats to repay me for stealing your knife…”
Bael laughs as he crosses the room to the bathtub, twisting the taps so that water spills forth. “The room’s clean. It’s dry. And I’ve paid enough for the privilege of an uninterrupted night here. We can get some rest without having to be on our guard ’til morning.”
My heart skips a beat.At least one of us will…
“And you need sleep and something to eat,” he continues. “Your body expended a lot of energy in the healing. I know you want to push on tonight, but if you’re going to get Kari back, you’ll need to be at your best. I ordered dinner to be sent up. It should be here shortly. Why don’t you take the chance to bathe?”
I eye the bathtub. “You’re kidding, right?”
“What’s wrong?” He crosses his arms over his chest as if he’s enjoying the moment. “Feeling shy, are we?”
Feeling considerably out of my depth. It’s not just the fact that we’re sharing a room together, and that the bath is out in the open.
I saw his claws. And his hood slipped in the common room below, with several men sucking in sharp, horrified gasps as they recognized him.
They’re afraid of him.
What manner of man does he have to be to earn that fear?
Or is he even a man…?
I close my eyes and release a slow breath. It can’t be true. He healed me and the tender way he touched me afterwards… It feels like betrayal. Like a knife through the chest.
