saw the furs rolled out on the cave floor. He knew what she thought, but he didn’t bother to assuage her fears. Any other male would’ve soothed her, especially if it concerned a fated mate. He felt that impulse even now, deep within, to calm his female’s fears.
He released her, pushing her towards the furs. He felt the loss almost immediately, the loss of contact with her. Pushing it from his mind, he dropped down by the door, leaving the lantern lit. He made sure it had enough fuel to burn through the night. There was nothing he hated more than waking to darkness. Because then he would remember that place.
Erin was still standing, watching him as he unhooked his travel sack from his shoulders and tossed it into an empty corner. The furs he’d lined the floor with tickled his bare flesh as he stretched out on his back. The dim light cast deep shadows on the cave walls. Her shadow did not move once.
“Sleep, female,” he murmured, deep, drugging drowsiness already tugging on his eyelids.
A moment later, he slept.
Jaxor woke to a serrated blade at his throat.
Enemy near my mate, he thought immediately.
Acting on instinct, he grabbed the wrist attached to the blade handle, his mind still in a deep fog. He heard a startled gasp. When he touched smooth skin and registered delicate bones, he growled, his heart stopping, his grip easing. His jerky motions caused the knife to press into his neck, a thin line of blood no doubt appearing in its wake despite the thickness of Luxirian skin.
His gaze flashed up to Erin, who was kneeling over him. Her bonds were cut. Her eyes were wide, but her lips were set in a stern line.
“Are you out of your mind?” he rasped. “I could have killed you!”
Anger and frightened realization made his hands shake. His heart thundered when he realized he could’ve broken her bones with a simple twist of his fingers. He’d been about to! Vrax!
“I want to go back to the Golden City,” she informed him, her voice slightly breathless. From fear? “You will take me back.”
Jaxor’s gaze narrowed and he tilted his chin, baring his throat for her. “I will not, so you may as well cut my throat now, rixella.”
“You don’t think I will?” she whispered, looking down at him. Jaxor took note of their position now that his mind was waking up. How long had he been asleep? Through the crack of the door, he saw it was still dark outside. He still felt tired, his energy extinguished. He couldn’t have been asleep for longer than an hour, he decided.
And his little mate had already gone snooping and found herself a weapon in his stores. He’d been too tired to even consider that she would take one, or wield it against him. An oversight he would not make again.
She was kneeling at his side, her knees dug into the furs. Close enough that the tops of her bare thighs were pressing into his arm. Jaxor could easily roll her over and loosen the blade from her grip, but he was curious to see what she would do.
He didn’t answer her. To spur her on, he snaked his hand, the one lying closest to her legs, up her left thigh. Her flesh was warm and soft, supple. He gripped her hard, pulling her closer, ignoring her surprised gasp. His hand was only inches from her cunt. Frustration tore at him. Tension ran from the tips of his horns all the way to the hardened soles of his feet.
His sleeping quarters were quiet. The lantern flickered. Her eyes were wide and soft and Jaxor thought, strangely, that he could look into them forever.
“Why couldn’t you be like the others?” she whispered. Then her brow furrowed, like she didn’t understand her own words.
His hand spasmed on her upper thigh, surprised, disturbed, cowed by the question. Because he thought he knew exactly what she meant.
“You wish for me to be kind?” he murmured. “You wish I were a gentle beast and completely besotted with you?” He pressed his neck further into the blade, beginning to rise up from his supine position, forcing her to ease her grip. “You are the one with a knife to my throat making demands, luxiva.”
Luxiva. Fated one.
He used it mockingly and he saw her flinch at the word. So, she knew what it meant. She heard the way he twisted a sacred word into a joke. For a moment,