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“Shall I chase it down and ensure its properly disciplined for frightening you?”
“Let it slither along on its merry way.” She feigned a shiver. “I have a feeling even Fluffy couldn’t find it now.”
Riaz stopped in his tracks. “You doubt me?”
“Your masterful snake-sleuthing skills?” Her eyebrows rose. “Yes.”
His wolf perked, tail wagging, as he rose to the challenge. Salivating with the need to show her just how quickly he could find the stray animal, he said, “Oh, my darling Lady of Darkness, you’re on.”
Her fingers swiftly tightened around his, yanking him to a stop when he went to turn. “Riaz—don’t. I was just kidding. I believe you. Please—please don’t go find it.”
Fighting a smile, he asked, “How else would I prove my superior detective abilities?”
Riaz could literally see the wheels turning in her head, scrambling for anything to stop his attempt to find the snake. He’d never seen low-key panic on her face before, and he waited patiently for her response, happily memorizing every second of her bewilderment. He had a feeling it was rare.
“What about a game instead?”
He focused on her suspiciously. “A game? What type of game?”
“How about we see whether your tracking skills are a match for my speed?”
The competitive tilt of her head and sly smirk that followed told him exactly what he needed to know. Under his skin, the wolf leapt in anticipation, tearing at Riaz’s control with the sudden need to shift.
“Five minutes to find you, one minute head start.”
Fire blazed in Cortana’s eyes. “And if I win?”
“Oh, Pet,” Riaz challenged, stepping close to inhale her scent once more. “You won’t.”
A rumble of pleasure purred in his chest as her face lit with unapologetic zeal, eager to prove him wrong. Shifting foot to foot, Cortana whipped around, taking off before he could even say go.
Like a pup, the shift overtook him as soon as she was out of earshot and his control wavered. On four paws, he shook his coat to settle it, letting his tongue loll out from his mouth to taste the air.
Raising his nose to catch her delectable scent, Riaz was true to his word and counted down from sixty seconds to afford her the chance to get away.
But there would be no escaping him.
Chapter Twenty-One
Cortana’s legs pumped, carrying her further into the sparsely forested grove. Her smile widened, exhilaration racing through her blood. She was playing hide and seek with a scrumptious beast—and she’d never had so much fun.
The way Riaz had looked at the funeral had broken her heart. When he’d confessed the guilt he was carrying for Benny’s death, she decided she was going to do everything in her power to distract him, even just for tonight. It had gotten her into a world of sensuous, exciting trouble and for once, she was going to throw caution to the wind.
Deciding to make things more difficult, she circled back on her track, then leapt across a stream onto the bark of a tree. Shooting up the trunk, Cortana went supernaturally still.
Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.
By the second hand on her watch, two minutes had passed. A smug chuckle threatened to give away her position, but she held back her amusement. Riaz would never find her. Vampires were far quicker than their wolfy counterparts, and with her split trail, there was no possible way that—
A blur of mahogany fur darted by below.
Cortana froze. The wolf had found her—but he’d bypassed her position in the tree and hadn’t realized she had doubled back. She remained where she was, confident and content. Thirty seconds passed, and her excitement at winning their game went into overdrive.
A soft bark from below made her stomach drop.
At the base of the tree, his wolf scratched his nails against the bark. His tongue lolled out of his mouth in that goofy wolfy smile, and Cortana couldn’t help herself any longer.
She laughed.
