was back again.
It was another revelation. His dark magic more potent and all-encompassing than she had ever imagined.
She had no way to guard against it. Ancients help her, but she wanted it to go on forever.
“Is that related to why you have no name and are untouched?” He never ceased his slow strokes.
“Y-yes.” She fought not to lift her hips. “I tell you before. I Gazi.”
“Explain.” The hand that had been pinning her wrists to her belly snaked behind her neck, gripping her easily. But instead of using it to force her mouth to his shaft, he simply pressed his strong fingers into the tendons and worked the tense muscles between this thumb and finger.
She let out a soft sigh, her body melting deeper into his hands.
Her captor let out a low groan, as if he was the one being touched. “Nayla…yes, open to me. Just like that. Dragath hells, you’re so damn beautiful. Your surrender so damn sweet.”
The white-hot pleasure inside her flared higher. Beautiful. No one had ever called her that before.
“Tell me, Nayla.” His demands were as relentless as his touches. “Tell me why you’re Gazi.”
Her neck lolled forward under the force of his soothing touch. “My father like you. An Other.”
“He was one of my kind?”
“Mmmm.” The pleasure of his touches kept growing, as addictive as his attention. “That…that is why I am Gazi. I not pure pack. That why my fangs tiny. Why ears small, my ridges slight, my skin strange color. I not like my people or yours. I defect—”
His grip on her neck tightened. “Don’t even finish that sentence.” His hold loosened, his fingers dancing across her neck and shoulders once more, kneading the muscles. “You may be a mix, but it doesn’t make you defective. It makes you…extraordinary.”
Her heart fluttered.
He allowed her no quarter. “So, because you’re a mix, you get treated differently than the others in your pack?”
“Y-yes. I alone sent into Other territory. Rest of pack too important to risk.”
A low growl ran through him. She wasn’t sure why.
“Is this Ramm someone special?” His tone was deceptively casual, though his hand never stopped its slow, rhythmic assault.
“To pack?” She hadn’t expected his line of questioning to go this route. Still, it was true that Ramm was one of the most revered hunters after Talg.
“No, not to pack,” he rasped. “To you? Does he have a claim on you?”
She shook her head, the hunger and heat stealing her thoughts.
“Words, Nayla.” He squeezed the back of her neck again.
She swallowed a moan, that forceful rebuke only adding to the fire slowly winding its way through her veins. “No. No claim. He is to be mated to Deshi.”
To have her captor ask such a thing about Ramm showed how little he knew. Such a thing was forbidden. A warrior like Ramm could never pollute his line with a Gazi. Even if…sometimes it had almost looked like longing in Ramm’s gaze when he looked at her, but she suspected she’d just confused pity with her own secret wishes. “He no interest in me.”
For once, she didn’t care. Because traitorous, dangerous thoughts were creeping into her brain. Like how, because of Talg’s rules, Ramm would never dare to hold her like this. How no hunter from her pack would ever give her a name or show her what her body could feel.
She tried to staunch the disloyalty, but like the fire beneath her skin, the alarming thoughts spread.
“I can read body language, Nayla, and you’re wrong. He wants you back, bad.” Her captor’s hold tightened. “It doesn’t matter. He won’t find you. You’re mine.”
Surprise exploded through her. “I not yours. Or his. I Gazi. Cursed.” A shred of reason returned, slicing through the slow haze of pleasure. He was confusing her. Trying to make her believe she could belong to someone and have them belong to her.
That could not be. Even if Talg’s prediction that touching her would lead to a horrific death had proven untrue, it did not change her tainted origins. “My ending always the same. To die alone.”
“Bullshit.” Her captor’s hand tangled in her hair, but this time it wasn’t gentle. He dragged her face upward until their noses nearly touched. “You’re not dying.”
Her emotions shot from lust to anger. Did he think her a fool? “I know my ending.” Her chin lifted. “Either you or pack kill me. Outcome same. I protect pack anyway. I prove my worth.” Her gaze dropped to the big hand now pressed to her thigh. “No