Night after night, I’ve slept on hard ground. Now he gives me a blanket?
I look up, baffled. “What’s this for?”
“I got tired of hearing you shivering all night. It keeps me up.” When I still stare at him in bewilderment, he grumbles, “Take it. That’s an order.”
Unfolding the blanket with bound wrists is not the easiest task, and after a few pathetic attempts to stretch it out over my legs, he sighs impatiently and crouches down.
“Let me.”
His hands make quick work of smoothing the blanket over my body. He wraps it around my back and brings it around in the front to tuck under my bound hands. Like he’s bundling up a child, he rubs my shoulders.
“There, little violet. Maybe this way I’ll get some goddamned sleep for once.”
For all his grumbling, he doesn’t pull away. He stays close enough that I can see the stubble on his jaw, a small scar above his left eye I hadn’t noticed before. He really is as gorgeous as the gods themselves, illustrated so exquisitely in the Book of the Immortals. All he lacks are pointed ears and glowing fey lines. How many times did I flip through that book, sighing over the scantily clad portraits of Vale and Woudix and Artain?
My heart starts clanging in my chest, and I curse my traitorous body, knowing Wolf can hear every thrust of my heart. What else can he sense about me with his godkiss? Does my sweat smell different when I’m thinking about him? Can he feel my sped-up breath clouding against his skin?
His rough palm cups my jaw, gently tilting my head toward his. The move is so bold that I’m left speechless. He’s never touched me before, unless it’s to bend me to his will. His eyes drop to my lips. There’s a look in them I haven’t seen before.
Dark, glistening, hungry.
My own gaze lowers to his bare chest like it’s pulled there by invisible ropes. When he gave me his shirt to wear that first night, I didn’t think about how it would leave him shirtless. It’s not my fault his scarred body fascinates me. It’s the damn convent’s fault. My damn father’s fault. Keeping a libidinous teenage girl locked up with no one to look at for over a decade but wrinkled old women and some faded illustrations, and it’s no wonder I’m aching with curiosity about the first man I see.
Damn Immortals.
His thumb drags down my cheek to my jugular, and my eyes sink closed. My lips part. He has to hear how my heart is racing. He has to know what that means.
“Sabine.”
His voice is hoarse. His hand falls to his borrowed shirt on my shoulder, fingers twisting in the fabric. His touch sets my skin on fire, and all I can think is:
I shouldn’t want more. I want more . . .
His mouth is only a breath’s distance from my own, and I wait, and wait, but nothing happens. I open my eyes, overwhelmed and unsure, not knowing if I should kiss him, slap him, or shove him away. His brown irises are filled with such powerful want that they’re as velvety dark as Myst’s.
Our eyes lock, and a spark shoots straight from my head down to my toes.
A muscle jumps in his jaw.
Then, an owl hoots from the canopy. It breaks the moment, and he looks away. He drops his hand.
For a long time, neither one of us speaks.
Eventually, he finishes tucking the blanket edges roughly around me, then stands.
“Good night, Lady Sabine.”
His voice is hard as iron.
I’m voiceless. My lips are still parted. The shock of what I just felt begins to dawn on me, and it’s leaving me quaking, despite the blanket’s warmth.
What was I thinking?
As soon as Wolf’s back is turned, I fish Adan’s shell out of the cradle of my ear. I squeeze it, trying to shock some sense back into me. Would I have let Wolf kiss me? Have I gone mad? I would have betrayed Adan—for what? A grumpy, godkissed hunter who hates me?
My toes curl as I try to make sense of the altercation. For as much as I tell myself it was simply a fleeting attraction fueled by curiosity, I’m not sure I believe it. Seeing that Wolf thought to get an extra apple for Myst, and the fact that he shared his real name with me, let alone that he’s had every opportunity to hurt me but hasn’t, has made a small but irrevocable shift in the way I feel about him.
I can’t sleep, and it seems to take forever before I hear Wolf’s snores from across the clearing. Once I’m certain he is deeply asleep, I call to the tiny forest mouse who’s been riding in Wolf’s rucksack since the first night, when I shared my rabbit meat with it.
Little friend, will you help now?
Ready! it answers as it pops its head out.
I hold my wrists out to the mouse, who gnaws at the rope with stalwart determination. In ten minutes, it chews through all my binds.
Onto my shoulder, I tell it. Hurry.
The mouse scampers up my sleeve and settles in beneath the shirt’s collar. I move as silently as I can toward Myst, fully aware that with Wolf’s keen hearing, even a rustle of leaves could wake him.
But it has to be tonight. I hadn’t intended to run until we passed Middleford, but since Wolf changed our route, he’s forced my hand. I can’t afford to head in the opposite direction from where Adan waits.
I climb onto a fallen log and slip onto Myst’s back. I allow myself one final look at Wolf, asleep by the fire. He looks troubled in his sleep, twitchy like he’s dreaming of a fight.
Absently, I run my hand over the sleeve of his shirt hugging my shoulder, dragging my fingers to end at my breastbone, the hollow where my godkissed birthmark rests.
I saw a different side to him tonight—but that’s just one more reason why I have to run. The last thing I need is to start caring about a beast.
Go, Myst.
It won’t be easy to evade a godkissed hunter, but I’m confident that as skilled as Wolf is, I’m cleverer. I’ve had time to study his power and think through how to evade him.
With careful, silent steps, Myst leaves the clearing behind. It isn’t until we’re half a mile away that I finally dig my heels into her sides.
Beneath my collar, the mouse clings on tight.
Now, run as fast as you can, I tell Myst.
Chapter 8
Wolf
When I wake, the coals are cold. The moon cuts a jagged sliver in the black night. Judging by her lingering scent, Sabine has been gone for about two hours.
I crouch next to her blanket, examining her binds’ frayed ends, which could only be made by a set of small rodent teeth.
The hunt is on, I think.
I’ve known this was coming since the first day of the ride. It was only a matter of time before Sabine and Myst bolted to meet up with that moronic lover of hers. And I can’t deny that a dark part of me has been looking forward to this moment. The anticipation of Sabine’s escape has been like an itch prickling at my skin, hooking my interest, needling my heightened senses.
Damn, I love the chase.
My veins are already blowing up with adrenaline that throbs incessantly, demanding I chase after her now. But I tuck that urgency away. I can’t let the thrill of the chase dull my reason. This is no simple fox hunt, and my quarry is much more precious than any deer or grouse. It complicates things that Sabine is godkissed, too. For all I know, she could send a swarm of locusts to devour the flesh from my bones.
The thought, though dark, does nothing to lessen my arousal. Hunting someone with a power rivaling my own is nothing short of intoxicating. Yet as I make quick work of selecting arrows for my bow—not to harm her, only to threaten her—momentary darkness sobers my excitement.