heat briefly, but it was he that broke it.
“Last night was a mistake,” he rasped, studying her face closely as he said it. “It will not happen again, tev?”
She froze but managed to shield her expression—one of disbelief and hurt and anger—before he could see it. If she’d been the gaping sort, her jaw would’ve dropped.
His tone was dismissive. As if what happened between them last night—that world-spinning kiss and the orgasm that followed—meant nothing.
She should be relieved. She should be agreeing wholeheartedly with him to save some of her dignity. She should be the one saying last night had been a mistake. He was the asshole who had kidnapped her in the first place.
Erin hated that she felt hurt by his words. She couldn’t stand it.
Then again, there was nothing for her to do but nod. “Right,” she said softly, looking away from him. It wasn’t like she’d been planning to hate-kiss him again, anyways. Right?
“Rixella—”
Erin cleared her throat, hoping it would clear away some of the awkward tension between them. It was a hard thing to do, considering she was standing there in a tunic stained with his seed. And he was telling her last night was a mistake?
“I should probably clean out the cave,” she said, since she couldn’t think of anything else to say. It would give her something to do, help keep her mind off him. “It’s a bit of a mess in there.”
Just what does he plan to do with me? she wondered, turning away from him, her head swimming. A part of Erin had believed he’d brought her there because…because he planned to keep her. She was his fated mate. He’d admitted that much himself. And one thing she knew about Luxirian fated mates was that it was a forever type of deal. There was some major cosmic voodoo at work when it came to fated mates.
But if he told her getting to second base last night had been a mistake, that it wouldn’t happen again…then what the hell was he planning?
Regardless, Erin knew she should be on her toes. He was keeping her in the dark. If he didn’t plan on keeping her as his mate, then it meant he would use her for something else.
Fear jolted in her belly. She felt his gaze on the back of her neck, but she hurried inside the cave quickly. She looked around at the mess. Mess she could handle. Mess could easily be cleaned, fixed, tidied. There was nothing she liked more than cleaning.
Pushing back her hair, ignoring the way her head pounded, Erin got to work.
Jaxor was working at the furnace when she finished clearing out the cave. Earlier, after she’d dumped all the bloody furs out, with a plan to wash them that day, she’d seen him pumping out water from the base near the waterfall. When she emerged then, she saw the thin layer of water was mostly gone, leaving the stone floor of the crater wet and shimmering, but flood-free.
Now, the stone was beginning to dry, albeit slowly. The suns were peeking out every now and again from behind a thick shield of clouds.
Jaxor had changed his clothes, donning a pair of brown hide pants and a loose, dark grey tunic with a hole near his shoulder. She was still unused to seeing him with short hair. She wondered what he thought about it, if he liked it, but figured it didn’t matter. She’d already swept his hair out of the cave, piling it near the entrance until she could dispose of it. It had brought a flush to her face, looking at those silky strands, knowing what had happened after they’d fluttered to the floor last night. Remembering the heat between them, the intimacy of being so close to him…
Jaxor was hammering something near the furnace. Around it, the ground was dry, so she knew it burned hot. For the first time, she noticed that the kekevir was gone. There was no evidence that it had ever been there. The rain and the drainage holes erased any trace of blood and gore.
Erin allowed herself to watch Jaxor for only a moment before she turned to go back inside, planning to scrub the cave floor clean of his blood with an old tunic of his, one from the bundle she’d brought inside the cave yesterday. It didn’t take her long to do. By the time she was done, her knees were red and roughened and she felt even grimier than