Page 36 of Given to the Black King

“They are afraid to leave us alone.”

“They are afraid of you.”

“They are learning to be afraid of you.”

That pleases me more than it should.

He stands across the table with his coat off and his sleeves rolled to the elbow. The cuts on his forearm have closed. I can still see the dark lines where his claws went in.

My gaze lingers.

He breathes in once, deep enough that his chest expands.

“I did not wash my wrist,” I say.

His attention snaps to my face.

“Since the hall.” I hold up the hand he scented. “I wanted to know whether you would notice.”

“I noticed when you entered the stairwell.”

Heat moves through me.

“How much can you smell?”

“Your skin. Fear. Blood. Arousal.” His gaze drops to my mouth. “Not decisions. Not permission.”

“That seems inconveniently ethical.”

“It is worse from this side.”

He turns back to the map. One claw slides out beneath his forefinger and pins the paper to the table.

I walk around the end.

He does not move away. That is new.

“What does the law forbid besides the bite?” I ask.

“Nothing.”

The claw cuts a narrow line through the southern pass.

“And what do you forbid?”

“Your throat near my fangs.”

“Anything else?”

His jaw works.

“Say stop, and I stop. Push me away, and I go. If you go still and cannot speak, I stop.”

“That was not what I meant.”

“I know.”

I come close enough to feel his heat. “What else?”