“That’s not what I’m doing,” I said, shaking my head, even as his words sank inside me and I knew the truth in them, I took another step backward until the fabric of the tent brushed against my head.
“That is exactly what you’re doing,” he said with a smirk, unlacing the neck of his tunic. He pulled it from the waist of his trousers, lifting the fabric off over his head so he stood shirtless in front of me.
“What are you doing?” I asked, pulling my cloak tighter around myself. It was far too cold to sleep naked, the cool wind outside stealing through the fabric of the tent itself.
I would not be keeping him warm.
I swallowed as I tried not to look down at the sculpted muscle covering his stomach, and at the strength in his chest and broad shoulders. He’d been unbelievably attractive as a human man, his body appearing as if it was crafted through hard work. But as a Fae male, there was something about him that no human could hope to achieve. An effortless beauty that reminded me too much of the carving of him in the stone cliff, with the two women kneeling at his feet and ready to worship him.
My throat burned, the acrid taste of bile swirling in my gut as I considered all the women he must have been with before me. All the centuries of history he must have had before finding his pathetic, barely-experienced human mate.
He tilted his head to the side as if he could sense the emotion surging within me, the rage I felt over knowing that countless women before me had known his body in the way I did now. He turned, draping his shirt over the knotted ties in the cloth so that it hung there.
“What exactly is my star feeling jealous of now?” he asked as he turned back to face me. His eyes darkened as he prowled forward, closing the distance between us. He stood before me, towering over me and truly emphasizing how small I was in comparison to him. His Fae size was larger somehow, taller than any man I’d ever known, as if his soul and the power it held was too big for the confines of a mortal size.
“I hate you,” I said, unable to deny the jealousy coursing through me. As much as I wanted to deny it, the words wouldn’t come past the swirling sickness I felt in my gut.
“Do you often get jealous over toys that you hate?” he asked, bending down to grasp a handful of the undisturbed snow at the edge of the tent. He lifted it to my face, touching the cold fluff to my skin and using the moisture to wipe away the blood splatter that felt hard and crusted on my skin. “Or am I just special?”
“You’re a male, not a toy,” I said, trying not to look down at the way the melted snow turned pink with the blood he washed from my face.
He grinned slowly, dropping to his knees in the snow in front of me. The position put his head level with my chest, those gleaming and mischievous dark eyes staring up at me through unfairly long lashes. He raised his wet fingers to my neck, his soft and smooth new skin brushing over the mark and drawing a warm tingle of recognition to the surface of my flesh.
He slowly washed the blood from me, showing delicate care as he pinned me with that alluring gaze. “I’ll be your toy any time you want to play with me, min asteren,” he said, his grin deepening as my cheeks flushed in response to the words. He pressed his face into my stomach, the fabric of my tunic separating us as his hands skated down my sides, skimming over my frame until they settled atop my boots, where he slowly untied the laces. “You still smell like me.”
I swallowed, trying not to think of the implications of his statement. “I’d have washed it from my skin if I could,” I said, the words coming out with all the venom I wanted to convey. I didn’t want to smell like him, didn’t want anything to do with him, even if my body did warm beneath his touch.
“I’d just have to cover you in my scent all over again,” he admitted, pulling the first boot free from my foot. He moved to the other, depositing them to the side as he stared up at me. He furrowed his brow, shifting his gaze to where my wrists were bound together in front of me, staring at them as if he hated them as much as I did. He reached up, touching the shackle on my left wrist, then he waved his hand over the lock, watching as the bronze pieces separated with a clank. The other followed, then he tossed them to the side and raised my wrist to his mouth. Kissing the chafed skin there, he let his lips glide over the injury.
He stood, lifting me off my feet and into his arms as he carried me over to the bedrolls and set me down on one of them. I curled my legs up to my chest as he ran a hand through his hair. “I’ll go get you something to eat,” he said, stepping toward the opening in the tent. He made no move to put his shirt on as he unknotted the tie, peeling open the curtain of fabric.
That jealousy pulsed through me again, thinking of the Fae Marked women or female members of the Wild Hunt who might see him.
He smirked as if he knew it would torment me. “Estrella?” he asked as he stepped outside the tent and spun to face me fully. “If you run, I will hunt you down. I think you know now what will happen when I catch you.”
He pulled the tent flap closed, leaving the fabric to sway in the cool winter breeze as I stared after him. The desire to flee pulsed through me, my limbs tingling with the need for freedom. With the need to move, to wander in the darkness as I had always done.
To roam beneath the stars.
I stared at my boots where he’d set them to the side, trapping me on the bedroll if I wanted to avoid the snow soaking through my socks. Putting them on would cost me valuable time, but I sprang to my feet regardless.
Stepping over the snow and wincing as the cold bit my toes, I shoved my feet into my boots and tied the laces as quickly as humanly possible. Dashing for the entrance to the tent, I slowed just inside the flap and peeled it back slowly.
“Going somewhere, Beasty?” Holt asked, framed by the parted fabric of the tent opening. Arms crossed over his chest, he curled up a brow in challenge as I sputtered and searched for the words that might defy what we both knew to be true.
“I was just—”
“Spare me your lies. Do yourself a favor and turn your skittish ass around and sit back on that bedroll before Caldris gets back and has to be disappointed in you all over again,” he said, nodding his head back toward the inside of the tent behind me.
“Disappointed in me?” I asked, my outrage growing. Only by the grace of not wanting to needlessly alert Caldris to my escape attempt did I keep from raising my voice. “He pretended to be human so I would fall in love with him.”
“Yes, disappointed in you. You’ve got your head stuck so far up your own ass, you can’t see that he would do anything for you. He pretended to be human to give you time to get to know him before you had to deal with the pressures of being his fated mate. Stop acting like an unappreciative brat and see what is right in front of you.” He shook his head as he glared down at me, then he stepped to the side, holding out an arm. As if I would bolt past him and take the opportunity to run when he would be able to point Caldris in the right direction. “He is the same male he was a week ago. The only thing that has changed is you.”
“You expect me to believe you’re just going to let me go?” I asked, narrowing my eyes on him.
“I expect you to believe whether or not you try does not matter to me in the slightest. He will find you and he will drag you back, even if you’re kicking and screaming while he does. It all seems like a pointless waste of energy, if you ask me, but that’s your prerogative.” He shrugged, his lips tipping up with a slow and calculating grin. “Unless you’re hoping for the reward that will come when you’re caught. If you want your mate to fuck you, all you need to do is say the word and I’m sure he will be happy to oblige.”