Page 12 of The Hunter

With her damp red hair spread around her head, she glared up at him. “You going to untie me now?”

“No.”

“What? Are you serious? You can’t just⁠—”

“Be silent, little thorn” he growled in vrix, emphasizing the words with a snap of his mandible fangs.

Lacey flinched and pressed her lips together.

“You will stay,” he continued, pointing at the bed, “and you will think. You went into the Tangle alone, bleeding. You gave word to no one. Do you wish for death? Are you that foolish?”

“What do you even care?” she muttered in English.

He surged forward, dropping himself over Lacey with all four hands planted on the bed to either side of her, stopping with his face a thread’s width from hers. She gasped, eyes flaring as his hair fell around them, shadowing the rest of the world and leaving only her.

The spot where she’d bitten him pulsed, the sensation dull, delicious, maddening.

“You are my tribe,” he rasped. “You are my family. You are⁠—”

Mine.

The word caught in his throat, refusing to emerge.

Lacey stared up at him, brows drawn together, eyes searching.

Silence stretched between them, heavy and thick.

This close, they were sharing breath, and he could feel the heat coming off her body. Her scent, more potent than that of any female vrix, made his thoughts hazy with lust.

Fuck.

He needed to leave.

Telok exhaled heavily. Those eyes of hers held him there, beckoned him to lose himself…

Go. Now.

He shoved himself up and spun away, striding to the door. He whipped the curtain up, ducked to move through, and hesitated as something pulled taut in his chest.

Clenching his fists, Telok forced himself to leave her.

CHAPTER 4

Lacey groaned, pressing her hands to her lower abdomen as she sat, doubled over, atop her pallet. She squeezed her eyes shut against the intense pain radiating from her pelvis. She’d always had terrible cramps during her periods, but this? This was absolutely debilitating. She couldn’t think, couldn’t sit still, couldn’t sleep. There was only agony.

A soothing hand rubbed her back.

“You’ll be okay,” Ahmya said softly from where she was kneeling beside Lacey.

“If by okay, you mean I’m going to keel over in the next hour, then sure. Anything to not feel this anymore.”

“There will be no dying.”

Lacey snorted at Ahmya’s mollifying tone.

The light crunching of footsteps on the woven grass rug alerted her to Diego’s approach.

“Here,” he said. “Drink this.”