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“You’re baring your teeth at me.”
“I’m smiling, you bastard.”
He raises his eyebrows. “That’s a terrifying smile.”
But clearly, he isn’t terrified. Who the hell is he?
CHAPTERTWO
“What’s your name?” I ask him. Muscles sore, I stumble to my feet and lock my shaking knees. “Have I heard of you?”
“Doubt it.”
He’s over a head taller than me, after I have shifted. It’s impossible not to be intimidated by the way he looms over me. I’m well aware of my nakedness, but he’s not even looking. I square my shoulders and dare him to touch me.
If he does, I can tear out his guts.
Might be hard without fangs and claws. I’m unarmed, but he isn’t. On his back, he’s carrying both a crossbow and a longsword; at his belt are two daggers. I wonder which one of us has faster reflexes.
He’s still holding out the aellurium collar as if he’s about to crown me, as if I will fall down on my knees for him.
“I don’t want to kill you,” he says.
“Can’t say the same.”
He narrows his eyes, just a little. “Don’t make this difficult.”
Warily, he approaches me and lifts the collar to my neck. When he does, the chain at my throat loosens.
I lunge.
One of my hands fists his hair. The other grabs the hilt of his dagger. I yank his head back and jerk the blade free, then freeze when cool steel caresses the pulse in my throat.
His second dagger.
“You’re faster,” I say, my mouth dry.
He locks gazes with me, his eyes burning. “Drop my dagger.”
I let the blade clatter on the treasure littering the floor. I’m still holding him with my fist tight in his hair.
“What do you want from me?” I ask again, but this time it’s a murmur.
The steel leaves my throat. “To make you stop fighting.”
“Do you want…this?”
I loosen my fingers in his hair and lean closer, my breasts brushing against the leather of his armor. Desire coils inside my belly like a snake about to strike. I can’t believe how fast my own body betrays me, craving the touch of my enemy.
His pupils dilate. “No.” He growls the word.
I sneer to hide my shame. “Not distracting enough for you?”
He slips the aellurium collar around my neck. Magic skitters across my skin.
“I wasn’t the one distracted,” he says.
The aellurium smothers the dragon inside me like a hand over my mouth, and my knees betray me by buckling. He catches me by the elbow, his touch firm. I breathe through my nose until the urge to retch passes.
