“Well, your profile is pretty out there now,” she said. “Which is problem number two.”
“You know who I am?” I hissed, shocked. I still hadn’t let my hood down fully.
“I’m not talking about the fact you won’t let me see your face. I’m talking aboutthat.” She uncrossed her arms to point at me. Between my legs.
I glanced down to see my pants were positively tented to the breaking point. Shit. I hurriedly tucked my raging boner up under my belt. “I’m sorry. That’s not on purpose.”
“So you don’t want me?”
My snarl echoed down the hallway. “I want nothing more in this moment than you. The things I would do to you, the ways I would make you scream my name from the pleasure you experience are endless. But I willnever, everforce you into something you don’t want. Now, can we go? I need to get you out of here and to somewhere safe.”
“And where is that?”
She didn’t keep arguing about the rogue boner, so I had to hope she accepted my explanation. I didn’t blame her for being on edge about it. Given what she’d just gone through—the hunter’s dick was still swollen and poking out from where he lay crumpled—it was easy for her to misinterpret the visual signs of my desire for her in the heat of it all.
“I’m still working on that,” I grunted, though deep down, I knew I probably didn’t have any choice.
Despite the added visibility and risk, the safest place for her to be would be as close to me as possible. That way I could keep an eye on her until we had figured out just how we were going to announce to the rest of the kingdom that wewere mated. That meant taking her home.
“So you came in here to rescue me, but you didn’t have a plan?” She sounded hesitant.
“I’m one for one so far. You’re safe with me …”
“Anna,” she supplied to my unspoken question.
Anna. My mate’s name was Anna. Even now as I stared at her, memorizing every line of her perfect round face, I knew it suited her. A beautiful name, like the beautiful woman she was.
“Caz,” I offered in return with my most charming smile. “Now, mate, can I complete the rescue? Will you trust me enough to come with me?”
She looked from me, to the dead hunter still holding his exposed dick, and then back. “Well, I certainly don’t want to stay here.”
“Good, then take my hand and we can leave this place. Forever.”
I waited, my hand outstretched, but instead of taking it, Anna shook her head and planted her feet firmly on the ground.
“No.”
Eight
Anna
His jawdropped in time with his arm. “What do you mean, no? The hunters will come looking soon. We can’t stay here, Anna.”
I clenched at the sound of my name on his lips. His entire tone changed when he said it, like he was savoring the tastiest bite of a perfectly cooked steak. A throaty, masculine purr.
Orb-damn it all, it sounded amazing. Intoxicating. My skin flushed as I fought down a sudden urge to go to him. To wrap myself up in him and wear him like a second skin. I just wanted to be that close to him. Forever.
“We can’t leave without finding my friends,” I said, stubbornly pushing through the near feverish desire to jump him. He had rejected me, left me in a cage. I could not,would not, forget that.
The dead hunter’s body next to us chose that moment to relax, some of its muscles losing tension. And it voided itself.
That did more to help my restraint than anything else. The smell that wafted up only further killed it. I never thought on my wildestdays that I would be thanking a dead corpse for shitting itself, but the times were indeed strange, and there I was, doing just that.
“Ugh.” Caz looked down at the corpse. “We’re not staying here. Where are they?”
“I don’t know. I looked a lot of places down there already, but I didn’t see them. So, maybe up here?” I pointed the direction from which he’d come.
“Maybe.”
