“You shouldn’t call me that.” The words were out of her mouth before she even realized what she said.
His finger paused. His gaze went from her forehead and it snapped down to her eyes. They were close. So close that it made her dizzy with want and nerves. In his eyes, she could see how his irises shifted between blues. Some threads were light, some were so dark they looked black. She found she couldn’t look away, though everything in her screamed that she needed to.
“It is what you are to me,” was what he said in reply, quietly.
The fire crackled loudly next to them and Crystal swallowed, feeling like she couldn’t get enough air.
“I already told you—”
“That you do not seek anything, even sex, with me,” he finished for her, though he frowned as he said it.
Gently, he smoothed his fingertip, cool and sticky with the substance, over the cut on her forehead. For a brief moment, she closed her eyes.
What would it be like? What would it be like with him? She’d had one terrible, toxic relationship in her lifetime. But then she looked around at her friends, at the women she considered sisters, who were loved and cherished by their mates. Crystal could admit to herself that she’d been envious. Deeply envious because she’d never known love like that. Only familial love. Leo might have loved her once, but it was a terrible, dark love that she should never have wanted in the first place.
She didn’t want to be this way. Always guarded around males. Always suspicious. With her female friends, she felt like herself. She liked who she was because there were no walls around her then, no pressures. What would it be like if she could be that way with a male who claimed he was her own mate?
Tears pricked the corners of her eyes at the thought and to her mortification, one escaped and rolled down her cheek.
Cruxan made a gruff sound and his finger paused on her skin.
“Luxiva,” he murmured, his tone anguished. “What is this?”
“Please,” she whispered, looking at him. “Please.”
She didn’t even know what she was begging for.
His brow furrowed.
“I can’t give you what you want, Cruxan,” she finally whispered.
“You do not know what I want, female,” was his soft reply.
Her breath hitched. Something passed between them, though she couldn’t say what, and the moment felt entirely too intimate and she felt entirely too vulnerable.
The scent of burning meat met her nostrils and she turned away, taking her bark spatula and flipping the fillets over again. The world seemed to rush in around her, as if being close to Cruxan, staring into those pretty eyes, had made it all disappear.
And, as if life resumed, that was when the rains began.
Chapter Twelve
“Female,please.”
Cruxan heard the edge in his tone, but he was worried. Again, he was reminded of the fragility of humans as he watched his female shiver, as he heard her teeth rattle. His fists clenched as he looked down at her, doing his best to shield the rain from her body, to protect the fire that was in danger of going out.
The storm came on suddenly. Cruxan cursed, now regretting not finding a more suitable camp. Perhaps a cave in the mountain.
The sky roared. The mountain seemed to rattle with every thunderous groan the sky gave. Sheets of rain poured over them and the little overhang from thefacevdid very little to shield them from it.
Hisluxivawas cold. Drenched, her golden hair clinging to her pale cheeks and neck. She had her arms wrapped around her body and every tremble made him want to roar. Everything in him was in turmoil. He’d been begging her, to let him warm her. He didn’t feel the harshness of the cold, not like she did.
When the rains had come, they’d started slow. But as the sky darkened, as night began to fall, they’d only picked up in intensity.
And Cruxan could do nothing to spare his female the cold. He was helpless, watching her suffer. He’d had furs and rations on his hovercraft, for emergencies like these. Now, he could give her nothing.
Except his heat. Which she would not accept.
The fire flickered, damp. Any moment now, it would be extinguished, her only source of heat gone. Cruxan feared what would happen then, if his female remained stubborn.
