AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Yes, I do.”
“No, you don’t.” She lifted the arrow to the moonlight, and I noticed a faint dark gleam streaking its shaft. “Seeing as I just pulled this out of the driver’s cranium.”
I blinked at her, the first fingers of cold fear stealing into my rib cage as she shouldered her bow and gracefully tucked the arrow back into its quiver.
“Your driver had solid silver dagger tucked in the back of his breeches that he intended to drive straight into your silly heart.”
My mind whirled with this new information. “How do I know you’re not the one who intends to kill me?”
She took a step toward me. “Scent me.”
All moisture suddenly evaporated from my mouth. “Pardon?”
The night glinted blue off her hair as she cocked her head. “You’re meant to be an apex predator, aren’t you? You ought to know a threat.” The fine shoreline of her jaw lifted, exposing a smooth expanse of neck. I both saw and smelled the faint pulsing of her jugular vein. “Scent me.”
My face turned to her like a flower to the sun and I dragged my nose over the warm silk of her skin. The scent receptors in my sinuses quadrupling as the primal part of me hunted to the surface.
She’d ridden through a rainstorm in a forest. Ozone and leather. Alder. Oak. Rowan. Wild cherry. Pollen and mold spores. The decadent spice of red wine.
Something else.
Deeper. Warmer. Like the freshly turned earth in autumn.
Arousal.
Quite of its own volition, my body matched its rhythms to hers. Breath for breath. Heartbeat for heartbeat. Every flutter, quiver, and clench she experienced, I experienced too.
Love at first…scent?
I lifted my lips and nose from her neck, our breaths in a cantilevered panting rhythm.
All at once, I knew.
She felt it, too. Saw what I saw. Smelled what I smelled.
It’s how she had known I wasn’t wearing a petticoat. And that I like to ride bareback. She could smell the horsehair on my naked thighs beneath the layers of my travelling dress and cloak.
The effect of this knowledge was even more devastating than her words had been.
“I’d like to rephrase my original question,” I said, dizzy, and breathless.
“Yes?” Her voice was husky.
“What are you?”
Slim, surprisingly strong fingers closed over my throat as her eyes flared orange like glowing coals in the shadows. “Salvation.”
I pulled my cloak tighter around me against the early spring chill. The rain was coming hard and fast.
The mysterious huntress stalked around the side of the pub, where a giant black mount was secured to the wooden fence post with a rope lead.
“Get on,” she ordered, working at the coarse chords with deft, leather-gloved fingers.
I stared from her to the horse and felt a nib of fear growing roots in my belly. “I appreciate the offer, but I don’t need to be saved.”
She tossed the rope over the horse’s thick neck and patted its flank. “Yes, you do.”
I planted my feet on the cobblestones. “But I really don’t, though.”
