Captive of Wolves (Bound to the Fae #1) - Eva Chase Page 0,73

so dark I can barely make out the door.

It’s probably locked. I wouldn’t be able to go to his bedroom anyway. I’ll just walk over there and show myself that, and maybe then I’ll be able to set aside these thoughts until at least tomorrow.

I pad across the floor on my bare feet, my nightgown teasing across my lower thighs. The trek sends my mind tumbling back to last night, to gripping the knob like I am now and to all the stress and pain that came after.

My throat squeezes shut. I close my eyes, just holding onto the door.

Tonight can’t be like that. Kellan is gone—as gone as any living thing can be. And I don’t have any more salt. I’m going to twist the knob, and nothing will—

It turns in my grasp, smooth and silent. I’m so startled I let go, and the latch clicks back into place. Staring at the knob, I swivel it again, and it releases just like before.

They didn’t lock me in tonight. Is that Sylas’s way of repaying the trust I showed him by staying—giving me free run of the keep even while they’re sleeping? I can’t imagine he overlooked that security measure by accident this soon after I broke past it once.

Now that I know I can go through with my plan, I’m suddenly a whole lot less sure of it. I ease the door open, and then I stand there peering into the hall for several heartbeats, not quite able to convince my feet to move. The thoughts that brought me to this point rise up again. More heat pools between my legs.

The unlocked door is a gift. It could almost be an invitation. I think I’m more likely to regret ignoring it than accepting it.

I slip into the hall and make my slow, limping way toward the other end where my captors have their bedrooms. I noted them in my explorations before—at least, the ones that opened at my curious nudge. Whitt’s was locked to me until he pulled me into it in the middle of my panic attack the other day; Kellan’s I never saw at all, not that I’d want to.

Sylas and August never bothered to secure theirs, I guess thinking there was nothing in there they needed to hide. It was easy to tell which was which even with my quick peeks. Sylas’s had larger, grander furniture in vibrant rosewood, everything neatly in its place, while August had clothes hanging from the bed posts, and the air held a whiff of fresh baking that must have carried with him from the kitchen.

Sylas’s room remains unlocked. The soft rumble of his sleeping breath travels through the darkness. With the curtains drawn over his window and only faint light seeping from the hall behind me into the room, I can only make out the vaguest shape of his bed and his large form beneath the covers. The distinctive scent that reaches my nose, like rich earth and woodsmoke, tells me I’m in the right place.

My pulse starts to race. Where do I go from here? Can I really just walk right up to him and…?

It seems I can. My feet carry me to the massive bed—it’s got to be at least half again the size mine is, and mine’s already the biggest bed I’ve ever slept in. This one is high, too. I rest my hands on the edge of the mattress, my eyes adapting as much as they can to the darkness, watching Sylas’s sleeping body sprawled down the middle of that expanse.

Maybe I could just curl up next to him and see what he’d like to do with me when he wakes up? My coming here should be a pretty clear proposition. I have the feeling I’ll make a fool of myself if I try to express my intentions in words.

I turn to heft myself onto the bed ass-first, roll to lie on my back—

A muscular arm shoves me down into the mattress with much more force than I was prepared for. A squeak slips from my throat. Sylas stares down at me, braced over my body with his arm clamped across my chest, so close the fall of his wavy hair grazes my cheek.

My lungs have only just started to clench in panic at being pinned when his expression shifts from defensive to confused. As his brow furrows, he sets his hand beside me and pushes himself higher, still peering at me. I can’t shake the