“Nah, I don’t think so,” I tell her even as my mouth waters and my fangs threaten to elongate with every rapid pound of her heart.
I want to taste her. Want to feel the softness of her body leaning into mine as I drink my fill. As I drink and drink and— I cut off the thought. Force myself to look her up and down disparagingly before answering, “I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t even make an appetizer.”
I step closer, determined to intimidate her—determined to get her out of here before all hell breaks loose and she gets hurt “Maybe a quick snack, though.” I snap my teeth fast and hard. Then do my best to ignore the way she shivers at the sound.
It’s so much fucking harder than it should be. Especially when she refuses to back down like anyone—everyone—else would. Instead she asks, “What is wrong with you?”
And shit. I nearly laugh at that, because “Got a century or three?” That just might be long enough to scratch the surface of my answer, if I was honest.
“You know what? You really don’t have to be such a—”
Behind us, everyone is circling, straining to hear. None of them is stupid enough to actually wander by too close, but I can feel them there just around the corner. Listening. Waiting. Strategizing.
Which means enough is more than enough. Time to get serious about scaring her away. “Don’t tell me what I have to be,” I growl. “Not when you don’t have a clue what you’ve wandered into here.”
“Oh no!” She does a mock-afraid face, then asks, “Is this the part of the story where you tell me about the big, bad monsters out here in the big, bad Alaskan wilderness?”
And damn, but she impresses me. Sure, it’s frustrating as hell that she’s not taking any of this seriously, but it’s hard to blame her when all she knows is what she’s getting from me. In fact, I’m impressed she’s doing such a good job of holding her own—not many people can against me.
Which is why I respond, “No, this is the part of the story where I show you the big, bad monsters right here in this castle.” I step forward, closing the small distance she managed to put between us.
She needs to know that if she’s going to walk around this place challenging people like that, there will be consequences. Better that she learn it from me than from one of the shifters who likes to claw first and ask questions later.
She must read the intent in my face, because she takes one trembling step back. Then another. And another.
But I follow suit, moving one step forward for every step she takes backward, until she’s pressed right up against the edge of the chess table. Nowhere else to go.
I need to scare her, need to make her run from this place as far and as fast as she can. But the closer I get to her, the more I lean toward her, the more I want to do anything but scare her away.
She feels so good pressed against me, smells so good, that it’s hard to focus on the endgame. And when she moves, her body bumping into mine again and again, it’s even harder to remember what the endgame is.
“What are—？” Her breath catches in her throat. “What are you doing?”
I don’t answer right away—because I don’t have an answer beyond, The wrong thing. I’m doing the wrong thing. But knowing that doesn’t seem to matter when she’s right here in front of me, her brown eyes alive with a million different emotions that make me feel things I haven’t let myself feel in way too long.
But none of those is the answer I need to give her right now. None of them is even a thought I should have. So instead of saying what I want to say, I pick up one of the dragon pieces. Then hold it for her to see and answer, “You’re the one who wanted to see the monsters.”
She barely glances at the piece. Instead she sneers, “I’m not afraid of a three-inch dragon.”
Silly girl. “Yeah, well, you should be.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not.” Her voice is strained, and I start to think that maybe I’m getting through to her. Except right now, she doesn’t smell afraid. In fact, she smells— Fuck, no. I’m not going to go there, no matter how much I suddenly want to.
Instead, I pull back enough to put some space between us. And to watch her freak out a little as the silence between us grows longer and longer.
Eventually, I break the silence—and the tension building between us—because I know that she won’t. “So if you aren’t afraid of things that go bump in the night, what are you afraid of?” And then I work really hard to pretend that her answer doesn’t matter to me.