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Something hardened against my belly, and my eyes opened wide.
He was turned on.
I’d turned him on.
“The damn bond is affecting my body,” he growled at me.
“Same,” I whispered back. I was pretty sure fae senses were good enough that he could probably smell my own growing desire. At least I wasn’t the only one who had to deal with that awkwardness.
“You smell terrible,” he added.
It sounded like he was trying to convince himself, though.
“So do you,” I lied.
The smell on his skin was something deep and wild, and enticed me far, far too much.
I couldn’t say that, though.
So we both just went to sleep.
The second day went a lot like the first one.
Kierden only spoke to me to grumble about how many stops I made him take. He didn’t ask my name, or about my tower. I didn’t ask about his kingdom, or his friends.
We just traveled.
And made an incredible number of stops for food, all of which frustrated the king. They made me happy, though.
We spent the second night the same way we had the first, with both of us denying our growing lust, and then began another day that went exactly the way the first two had gone.
We made it out of the Broken Woods as the last sun set on the third night, and camped near the beginning of a massive strip of desert called the Timeless Sands. It was a no-man’s-land of sorts, where humans and magical beings would go to trade or simply coexist. I knew it was full of crime, and had never wanted to see it for myself.
It wasn’t safe for the esu to sleep outside alone there, so we all packed together in Kierden’s shelter. I ended up trapped between Bright and the king. Her sharp claws and teeth led me to burrow against Kierden, and despite a few grumbles, he didn’t tell me to move.
We all woke up a little more tired the next day, and resumed our journey in grim silence.
Halfway through the morning, we approached a small town. Kierden made me wait a short distance away with the esu while he went in, and a few minutes later, he came back with a big bag of assorted food items for me.
I thanked him profusely, and it seemed to soften him a little. He was much less bitter as we made our way through the desert over the next two and a half days with significantly fewer stops for food. There wasn’t much growing anyway, outside of the cacti. My magic made fruits and flowers blossom on the spiky green plants, but we didn’t eat them.
Kierden and I didn’t become friends, but I had stopped disliking him so much, at least.
He relaxed much more when we finally made it through the desert and into the fiercely-beautiful jungle that was the Endless Wilds. Thick, massive trees packed the space, climbing so far into the sky that they concealed the suns entirely. Their branches and trunks were wrapped in winding vines that brought color everywhere the vibrant human-sized leaves did not.
The esu moved much faster through the jungle, rejuvenated by the thick trees and branches they ran through. The jungle was their home, and it showed.
Kierden and I still didn’t talk more than was necessary, or share stories. Despite the hardness I felt against my belly every night when we went to sleep, and the warmth that flooded my body, neither of us acknowledged our physical responses to each other again, or made an effort to become friends.
Both of us knew what our connection was—his selfish attempt to save his own life.
And even though I hadn’t admitted it to him, he was saving my life too.
Eight days had gone by when Bright finally warned me that we were approaching the city. Just a little light from one of our moons filtered through the leaves and branches above us, but my eyesight seemed to have gotten better after the connection with Kierden was established, because I could see just fine.
Traveling with a grumpy fae king was a world’s improvement from the awful life I’d lived in that tower. My belly was full and there were no ropes on my wrists or ankles. The temporary mate bond was a chain of its own, but for some reason it didn’t feel like one.
Hope made my eyes bright and my stomach curl with excitement. Getting closer to a city where I could start fresh with a chance to actually live my life… veil, it was a rush.
