“Everything all right?” A vaguely familiar voice called from the direction they had come. Eric’s head whipped around, not releasing her.
A tall, broad-shouldered man with long, light brown hair strolled toward him. His chiseled jaw was clenched, his hazel eyes darting between the two of them. Eric’s grip on her tightened, nails digging into her flesh in warning, but she barely noticed. Amber’s eyes had widened. She recognized the newcomer. She had bantered with him on more than one occasion when he had stopped her to correct her footing while teaching her self-defense. He had quipped with her and made her laugh. Cillian. What was he doing here?
Her brow knitted together, her jaw hanging open in wild disbelief. Cillian glanced at her and gave her a barely perceptible shake of his head. Somehow, she understood precisely what he was trying to tell her: don’t react, pretend you don’t know me. Her jaw clamped shut, but she couldn’t erase her dumbfounded expression. Cillian let his gaze slide away from her, as if bored, to rest on Eric.
“Just a little lovers’ quarrel.” Eric’s arm wrapped around her, pulling her tight against him. “Isn’t that right, darling?”
Amber stayed motionless.
“Isn’t that right?” Eric hissed again, jostling her.
Silently, unable to look at either of them, Amber nodded meekly.
“Didn’t look like a lovers’ quarrel,” Cillian said, raising one eyebrow. He jerked his head at Amber, but didn’t take his eyes off Eric. His expression was unreadable, and she wondered if she was imagining the tightness in his shoulders, the anger seeming to radiate off him.
Eric snarled, his eyes narrowing. He considered Cillian for a long moment, clearly calculating how to approach the situation. Cillian knew Eric was bullshitting. The question to Eric was what he planned to do about it.
“How about this?” Eric began, still holding tightly onto her. “I’ll pay you good money to walk away and pretend you didn’t see any of this.”
Amber managed to drag her eyes away from the forest floor to glance at Cillian. He watched her with a curious, speculative gaze, his lips a thin line. Amber tried to decipher what might be going on behind those eyes, but couldn’t for the life of her discern what it was.
“I don’t see how a few extra coins in my pocket are all that much incentive,” Cillian mused. “I think you would need to sweeten the deal a bit.”
Her eyes widened. Was he actually considering letting this monster take her away? He had been one of the shifters who had helped rescue her from the Ironbrand pack. She had thought he wanted to protect women.
Eric tilted his head, considering Cillian. “What did you have in mind?” Eric asked. Something about Cillian, maybe his stance or the indifferent expression, seemed to reassure Eric that he didn’t need to pretend this was a simple lover’s spat.
Again, Cillian met Amber’s eyes. Something lurked behind that hungry gaze, something that he was trying to communicate to her, only she couldn’t figure out what he might be trying to tell her. Despite the danger and the situation, something about the intensity of his gaze made her breath catch.
That evaporated at his next few words.
“I think a few minutes alone with her, along with some cash, would work. What do you think?”
Eric smirked. Amber could only gawk. Cillian couldn’t mean what she thought he did, could he? She had never imagined he would be the type of person to do that to a woman. But all she could see was that hunger, that lust in his eyes.
Her stomach plummeted. She had thought that maybe Cillian would rescue her. She hadn’t expected he would ever do something like this.
“No!” Amber tried to wrestle away from Eric. He only grasped her tighter.
“Knock it off,” Eric snapped. “I’m having a conversation here.” Back to Cillian, he said, “She can be a bit stubborn. Sometimes she forgets her manners.”
Cillian grunted. He rubbed his chin, eyes sliding over to Amber once more, regarding her with that same lust-filled interest. But this time, his other hand softly, almost imperceptibly tapped his elbow, a sign that he had shown the women during one of the training sessions when he and Jasper were talking about how they silently communicated with one another in the field. It took her a moment to recognize the gesture, but then it clicked.
Follow along.
“I’ll take her off your hands for you if she’s that much of a hassle,” Cillian said, shrugging casually.
Comprehension dawned, along with relief that she tried to keep off her features. He wasn’t interested in her that way. He was trying to get her away from Eric.
Eric’s beady eyes watched Cillian, head tilted. A slow, calculating smile began to spread over his face. The sight alone was enough to make Amber’s skin crawl.
“I don’t know,” Eric drawled, though she could practically see the dollar signs in his eyes. He pulled her tighter against him. “She’s pretty special to me. She’s not the smartest girl I’ve ever met, but you’ve got to admit she’s got an incredible body. Hard to want to give that up.”
“Hmm.” Cillian looked Amber up and down, almost appraisingly. She knew it was an act, but something about his gaze still heated her entire body, despite everything going on around them. Her pounding heart, for once, had nothing to do with her terror at the situation and everything to do with that searing look. “She’s not bad to look at, sure. But you don’t seem to know how to control her.”
Eric snarled. “I know how to control her just fine.”
Cillian rolled his eyes. “Look. I’m not going to stand around here and pretend to bargain with you all day. I’ve got better things to do. So if you’re going to drag this out, I’m going to go.”
