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She’d given up on the idea of assuaging the need, telling herself she’d deal with it, she’d done it before.
But the sound of Niko’s voice through the door had only exacerbated the problem. He’d had knocked again after maybe thirty minutes, telling her she had dinner on a cart outside her room. The hungry creature in her had told her to open the door and touch him, take him. He wanted her too. She could taste his arousal in the air.
But she’d only stood there on the other side, shaking and miserable.
After getting the cart and eating what she could get past the knot in her throat, she started preparing for bed, staring at her reflection as she dragged her brush through her hair.
One accidental touch from him in the elevator had been enough to weaken her knees and turn her blood molten, until it flowed like silken lava through her veins.
The food, in comparison, could have been sawdust. She hadn’t felt like eating, but Therian biology demanded she eat, so she ate.
Now, standing in front of the mirror, she questioned the decision she’d made as she slowly, methodically chewed the chicken, the vegetables, the slices of cheese and the warm, yeasty hunk of bread.
They’d known. The group of men and women from the military base, those who’d been Pretern, they’d known. The men had all but scented it on her, and the women had realized something was off as well. It wouldn’t take much to understand what it was, although the typical Therian female didn’t have to go around in a stage of raging sexual torment.
Not that Zee was typical.
More than a few Therians had made it clear they didn’t even accept her as one of their own.
That was a rejection she’d learn how to deal with, but the public humiliation?
A different matter.
Taking a deep breath, Zee closed her eyes and thought things through one more time.
She didn’t have to go to him, humiliate herself even further. But if she didn’t, the bigger humiliation that awaited... ?
Once they got to Durham-Starfell...
“No,” she said softly. “I’m not doing that.”
If she slaked this fever-hot need for him here, now, away from where the pack’s core members lived, she could hold her head up for as long as it took to convince him that he’d done enough to make amends and he could let her go.
“He won’t let go,” the wolf told her, a quiet murmur in the back of her mind. “We’re his. He’s ours.”
“No,” Zee said, firming her jaw as she glared at her reflection. He hadn’t been hers for a very long time. She wasn’t foolish enough to lie about how much he still drew her—all parts of her, but she wasn’t the girl she’d once been, the silly fool who’d believed that maybe she really could have a fairy tale, a happy ever after.
Tightening her hand on the brush, she lowered it to her side and stared at her reflection. Embers of that long-buried anger still burned inside, fanned to life by the humiliation she suspected waited for her. Maybe a happy ending wasn’t in the cards for her.
But she could have this.
Damn it, it was the very least he owed her.
Hunger a pulse in her mouth, she put the brush down and looked herself over. She hadn’t come dressed to seduce, doubted she’d even know how, but the simple white button-down looked good on her. She spent enough time outside in her mortal skin that the sun’s kiss kept her complexion a gentle gold and her hair was a wild spill of waves that framed her face.
All lingering hints of youthful softness were gone, the heart-shaped features dominated by her eyes. Now, those eyes had gone dark, likely with a mix of nerves and need.
“Go on,” she whispered. “Do it.”
Turning on her heel, she left the bathroom and slid from her bedroom. She was halfway to his room when the door opened, the golden light from an unseen lamp limning his tall, lean body from behind and casting his features into shadow. But her night vision was keen and she could see eyes flick past her shoulder, searching for any sort of threat, before coming to rest on her face.
“Zee? Is something wrong?”
The nervous butterflies in her belly had migrated up to her throat and she had to clear it twice before she could speak.
“Take me to bed.”
The blue of his eyes went neon, glowing with an uncontrolled hunger that even a Prime with his level of power couldn’t overcome. One hand clenched on the door, the other fisting on the frame where it rested near his head.
