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Or a promise…
CHAPTERSEVEN
“Let me help you next time,” I murmur.
“You can help me by melting the lock with dragonfire.” He’s holding my waist tighter, every muscle in his body tense.
“I’m not afraid of you.”
That’s a lie, isn’t it? The knot tightening in my gut speaks the truth. I don’t know if I want to kill him or kiss him.
He releases me and retreats. “You should be.”
Lust and anger battle inside me. “You should have never captured me.”
“I’m beginning to regret it myself,” he says, mildly.
“You think I’m crazy?”
“No.” He pauses. “Dangerous. Powerful. Wild.”
He thinks I’m powerful? My stomach flutters at the flattery.
I inhale a slow, calming breath through my nose. “Don’t worry, I can be obedient. Isn’t that what you want?”
Rook shakes his head and returns to the saddlebag. He takes out a bundle of clothes and tosses it to me.
“Put these on.” He’s not looking at my nakedness.
“Untie my hands.”
He obeys without a word, one hand lingering by the hilt of his dagger. Like I would be stupid enough to attack him again, with the damn aellurium collar around my neck. I yank on the clothes. The linen shirt falls to my knees, too big for me, and the cotton trousers cling around my hips. They’re not women’s clothing but some of his.
Damn it, they smell like him. Infuriatingly sexy.
He waits for me to finish dressing before he takes my wrists and binds them again. I wince as the rope chafes my already tender skin. I’m too soft as a woman. I miss the gleaming, hard armor of my scales.
Rook tugs on the knot. “Too tight?”
“A little,” I mutter. “Afraid I might try to escape again?”
“I don’t want to hurt you, Pyrah.”
“Is that a threat?”
“No.”
He loosens the knot on the ropes and takes me by the wrists, gently, to look at the welts. My pulse throbs beneath his fingertips. The blunt edges of his claws bite ever so slightly into my skin. He’s just holding me there, his silvery eyebrows drawn into a frown as he inspects my injuries.
“Why do you care?” My words have no fire in them.
“It’s my responsibility to keep you relatively unharmed.”
“Relatively?”
He locks gazes with me. “Don’t try to attack me. Don’t try to run.”
His thumb traces my wrist, avoiding the angry red skin. Why does this feel so intimate? He’s barely touching me, and I’m wearing more clothes than I have in years. No man has ever been this tender to me before.
