Another dead end.
I choose a different path, this one sloping downward into darkness. The air gets warmer as I descend, heated by thermal vents that make the stone uncomfortably hot under my bare feet. Sweat beads on my skin, but it's not just from exertion. My body responds to his proximity like I'm programmed to.
This passage opens into a circular chamber maybe twenty feet across. Smooth walls rise forty feet straight up to open sky. No handholds. No cracks. No way out except the way I came.
And he's standing in the entrance.
“Caught you.”
“You herded me here.”
“You followed willingly. Your body knew where to go.” He steps into the chamber, not approaching directly but positioning himself near the far wall. “Do you understand now? Every path you chose led exactly where I wanted you to be.”
The space feels smaller with him in it. His presence fills the chamber like heat from a furnace, radiating that alien musk that makes my mouth water despite my fear.
“What do you want?”
“The same thing your body wants. The same thing you've been clawing stone to achieve.” His yellow-orange eyes track over the evidence of my desperation—torn clothes, bloodyfingertips, the way I can't stand still because the need is eating me alive. “Tell me what you need.”
“I need out of this canyon.”
“What does your body need?”
The question hangs in the air between us. My body knows the answer, has been screaming it for days. But saying it feels like surrender.
“I don't?—”
“Yes, you do. Your scent tells me everything. The way you respond when I speak. The way your breathing changes when I move closer.” He demonstrates, taking a single step in my direction. My heart rate spikes immediately. “Ask me.”
“Ask you what?”
“For what you need. Use your words, little female.”
The endearment should anger me. Instead, it makes something clench low in my belly. “I need... touch.”
“Where?”
My hand moves to my throat without conscious thought, fingers pressing against the pulse point where he marked me with his scent days ago. “Here.”
“And?”
Lower. Always lower, to where the need pools and builds. “Between my legs.”
“Ask me to touch you there.”
The words stick in my throat. Saying them makes it real, makes this surrender instead of something that's just happening to me.
“Please.” It comes out barely a whisper.
“Please what?”
“Please touch me between my legs.”
“Better. But not desperate enough yet.”
Instead of approaching, he settles back against the wall. Watching me with the patience of something that has all the time in the universe.
“You're going to make me beg prettier than that.”
