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The stranger from this afternoon sat cross-legged a short distance away. His shoulders were braced, and hands fisted in his lap, obscuring his full nakedness. One arm looked healthy in the moonlight while the other...
I winced.
It was swollen and angry, the jagged wound pulsing crimson in the night.
He followed my stare, his lips thinning. “It looks worse than it is.”
I doubted that.
It looked like an injury that could destroy the usefulness of his arm or even steal his life.
I backed away, stepping once again into the river’s shallows. There were no watery whispers. No strange blue glow. It was just a river, and I was just a girl staring at the male who’d tried to capture her the last time they met.
Regardless that he was hurt, he could still take me, still harm me.
Where’s Syn?
The fleeting thought came with hope and concern. Hope because she’d protect me. Concern because the man was already hurt enough without another bite.
The last I’d seen of the lynx, she’d padded into Hyath’s lupic during the naming feast and hadn’t come back out.
I was on my own. And that tingled my skin with terror and trepidation.
Holding up my hand, I commanded, “Stay back.”
He tilted his head, his tangled, dirty black hair merging with the night. “I didn’t move.” He looked down at where he sat. “And I won’t if it’ll grant you peace.” His lips pursed as the tendons in his neck tightened. For a moment, he seemed at a loss for words, shaking his head and blinking as if he struggled to focus. “I won’t harm you,” he murmured, his tone dark and almost vicious all while remaining so quiet. “I would never harm you. I just...wanted you to know that.”
Shrugging, he winced as he looked me up and down, his eyes lingering on my nakedness. Glancing at the shed bison fur I’d left lying on the ground, he cleared his throat. “I prefer you without the fur.”
Heat flared in my cheeks as I ducked for the covering and hastily wrapped it around my hips. With numb fingers, I tied it coarsely before clamping my arms around my chest. The Nhil preferred to hide their true forms. There must be a reason, and that reason was good enough for me around this unknown male. “W-Who are you?” I stuck my chin in the air. “Why are you here? How did you find me?”
“You already know who I am.” With a grunt and sway, he climbed to his feet. “And I’m here because you are.” His lean, muscular chest strained as he sucked in a heavy breath. His skin glittered with dampness, yet he hadn’t been in the river. His hair was dry, and there were no wet footprints to say he’d swum before I’d arrived.
Fevers.
The word sprang into my head. I suddenly understood why Niya and the rest of the clan were so wary of this sickness. How easily it’d stripped his strength and left him panting for air. How quickly it’d tinged his skin with greyness, making him fight to stay on his feet.
My heart clenched; I went toward him without thinking. “You should sit back down...before you fall.”
His belly tightened as he sucked in a breath. “You’re suddenly concerned about me?”
“You’re not well. It’s heartless not to care if someone isn’t well.”
“You seemed particularly heartless this afternoon.”
My chin raised in defence. “This afternoon was a shock.”
“For both of us.” He sucked in a shallow breath. “Don’t you think I’m not as overwhelmed as you are? That finding you but not recognising you isn’t hurting me in ways I can’t explain?” He shrugged once, not hiding his dejection or despair. “I’d hoped that when I finally found someone from my past that everything would come flooding back. But it didn’t. You look at me as if I’m a monster and flinched when I touched—”
“You’re not a monster.”
“How do you know?” His black eyelashes caught the moonlight. “You haven’t tried to remember me.”
I didn’t know how to reply.
He filled the silence with the same chilly confessions he had when we first met. “The more I’m around you, the more I know it is you. There’s something about you that fills my heart with home. I won’t stop until you feel it too. Even if that means standing here, in pain, doing whatever it takes to make you trust me.”
I couldn’t look away from the smoky depths of his gaze. “I-I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“Say you’ll give me a chance. One chance to prove to you that I am the one you lost.” He chewed on a thought. “Kiss me.”
“What?”
“I’ve tasted you in my dreams. I’m sure if I just kissed you, we’d remember and—”
“I’m not kissing you.”
“Not yet at least.” He smirked before hissing through his teeth and adjusting his arm. “You’re mine. I don’t care if you need time to see it.”
