Taken (Fae's Captive #5) - Lily Archer Page 0,36

entirety of our trip, if you like.”

“That’s a trap,” he muses.

I shrug. “Seems fair to me.”

“Fair, but a terrible way to get information, and definitely a trap.”

“How so?”

A lizard skitters across our path and disappears into the light sand. Not so barren after all.

“It’s a high cost. I want to know everything about you, but perhaps I don’t want you to know all about me. After all, I have a lot more years than you. I’ve … done things. And I can’t say I’m proud of everything in my past.” He swipes his dark hair out of his face and tucks it behind his pointed ear.

“Nervous much?” I fake my bravado, because I realize he’s right, and this is a trap—for both of us. Can I tell him my secrets? I can try, but I have to know he’s got skin in the game. This is the only way. “If we do it like this, we can only ask the other questions that we can bear to give our own answers to. So, if we’re brave, we’ll learn a lot about each other. If we’re not, then … Then I guess maybe it’s not really meant to be.”

“Your clever mind serves double duty as a torture implement.” He sighs. “And it is meant to be, with or without the questions.”

“You don’t have to take my offer.” I kick at the sand though it’s beginning to chafe the skin of my feet inside my thin shoes. “We can remain happy strangers.”

“We aren’t strangers.” He whips around and blocks me, his looming figure broad and muscled and deliciously masculine. “We’re mates.”

“We are?” I blink innocently. “What’s my favorite food, then?”

Now he’s the one blinking.

“See? How can we be mates when we don’t even know each other?”

“That doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to me.” I put my hands on my hips. “What I said before about the bond driving you—I meant it. I’m not just going to go along for the ride because your instincts tell you ‘go rut with her, she’s the one.’”

His jaw hardens. “That’s not what—”

“So you can accept my terms, or you can go find yourself another mate.” I don’t know why I’m being so hard on him. Maybe that cheap wine went to my brain and caused it to warp out of shape. Or maybe—I take a deep breath—maybe I know this is the only way that things can work between us. And there is no maybe about this last fact: my foolish human heart wants this to work.

I gentle my tone and put one hand to his scarred cheek, running my thumb along the old wound. “I want to know you.” I drop my palm to his chest, the steady thrum of his heart against my palm. “All of you. And I want you to know what you’re getting yourself into. I’m not some innocent like Taylor. Not a fae in disguise. I’m a changeling. A slave. And I have scars that run deeper than anyone has ever seen. If I’m going to show them to you, then I need to see yours as well.”

He covers my hand with his own, his warmth seeping into me as his gaze softens. “If this is what you need, then I agree.”

“No conditions?” I arch a brow.

“None other than the terms you’ve already stated. If one asks the question, then they must also answer it.”

“Deal?”

He leans down. “Seal it with a kiss?”

I tilt my head back to meet him and give him the slightest nod.

His mouth is a brand on mine, the magic of our pact stinging through me like the tingle of lightning. He pulls me to him, our bodies pulsing with life as the eternal sands look on silently, our secrets safe within their ever-shifting dunes.

18

Gareth

“I don’t like it.” I roll my shoulders, the tension there almost unbearable as we stride toward the wide gates of Cranthum.

“Stop being a ninny.” Beth pulls lightly at the stolen rope I’ve used to bind her hands. “This isn’t the first time I’ve been tied up.” She cuts her eyes at me, devious to the core. “And I certainly hope it won’t be the last.”

I white-knuckle the rope, the image of Beth tied naked to my bed like a spike of fire down my spine. Her naughty mouth deserves some rough kissing, and I intend to give it to her as soon as we’re free of this slaver’s town.

“Don’t worry.” She slows her pace to trail behind me as wagons and other travelers line