Not a moment later, I heard the entrance flap hit against the hide wall. When I turned, Rowin was entering. Those eyes were fastened on me, running from my hair to my bare feet and back. It was probably the first time he’d seen me soclean, I realized.
His nostrils flared. I felt my cheeks flush when his gaze heated. The sudden tension was thick. Thick enough that I even saw thelirillaback away, as if to escape the intensity of her horde king’s eyes.
“Good,” he rasped, his voice gruff and husky. “Rothi kiv.”
A moment later, the Dakkari female exited the tent, not looking back at me once. I felt panic rise in my throat as I watched her long hair disappear through the entrance.
Then Rowin was approaching me.
The firelight made his skin gleam gold. He was bare-chested again, though he was wearing a fur loincloth, mottled with beige and white, instead of the trews he’d been wearing this morning. It took me a moment to realize the bulge underneath the loincloth wasrising.
My lips parted and my gaze flashed up to his in surprise. Though I’d rested, I began to feel a little dizzy.
Rowin moved towards me, wearing that predatory look. One I recognized. Like I was his prey. I was reminded that he’d told me he liked tohunt.
And he seemed every bit the hunter tonight. All golden muscles and scarred flesh.
I froze when he circled me, stepping over my chain. At my back, I heard him inhale, like he wassmellingme?
His fingers brushed through my hair and I felt him lift the strands. With my scalp tingling, I bit my lip, my heart drumming in my chest. He rubbed my hair between his clawed fingers and then let it fall. I felt the brush of his hand at the base of my neck and then that hand was running down the length of my spine.
I gasped, his slow touch unexpected. My nipples pebbled even tighter, though it was warm in thevoliki. Since the dress was thin, I felt his touch like it was on my bare flesh.
His fingers paused when they reached the cleft of my buttocks. I didn’t even realize I was holding my breath until I released it as he moved again. He circled back around my front, his touch sliding across my hip until it rested on my pelvic bone, just above my sex.
What was most alarming wasn’t that he was so incredibly close. It wasn’t that he was looking at me like he’d looked at me in the fog. It wasn’t that his gaze flicked to my lips like he would kiss me again.
What was most alarming was that my body wasrespondingto him. Heat pooled low, tight and pleasurable and unexpected. His scent invaded my nostrils and wove down my throat. His warmth seeped into me.
And when he spoke, I nearly shivered at the velvety richness of that dark voice.
“You will meet the horde this night,” he informed me.
My half-lidded eyes snapped fully open. I tried to move back but his other hand wrapped around my waist. The hand that was pressed below my belly rose. And rose. And rose. Sliding between the valley of my breasts…to wrap around my throat.
To keep me in place, I realized. His touch was overbearing, dominant. Yet, it didn’t frighten me. I wasn’t worried that he would squeeze. I was worried that his words weren’t a jest.
“No,” I whispered.
“Lysi,” he murmured, his thumb tracing the outline of my jaw. His eyes flicked back to my lips. He pressed closer, close enough that I felt his cock against my belly.
My eyes widened as I felt the outline of it, hard and impossibly thick even through his fur loincloth.
“You will show them your power. You will show them how you control the fog.”
I stilled.
“Ahh,lysi,” he purred. “We go to the fog this night. But will you truly try to run from me,reisarkia? Remember, I like the chase. And if I have to recover you again, you won’t like what I will do in retaliation.”
“You would strike me?” I whispered, fastening my eyes on his, feeling a surge of bravery as I did. “Hurt me?”
He smiled, that disarming, cold grin. “Nik. Never strike you. But I have other ways of making you yield to me.”
I couldn’t suppress my shiver that time and seeing it made his smile widen.
“Do well tonight and I might even leave you unchained as you sleep.”
Thatmade my spine snap. My voice hardened. “Am I your pet now? You take me out when you wish and then punish me when I don’t behave?”
