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The hearth’s warmth enveloped the small cabin while she wore a hole in the wood flooring. Chewing on her lip, Blair’s thoughts were a twisted tangle of a soul-deep yearning for affection and the unshakeable desire to remain aloof and unattached. She couldn’t deny the fact that Kaien compelled her, but the freedom she’d experienced for the last seven and a half centuries of her life had defined her.
When she wanted to enjoy herself, she did. When she wanted to savor the taste of wind and the openness of wild spaces, she escaped. And when she wanted to run, she ran.
While it’d never been quite enough to fill the void within her, roaming from place to place and pleasure to pleasure didn’t allow her enough time to become stagnate—or to believe that she’d been shackled by society.
Kaien was the outlier. The Raeth sparked things within her that she’d kept hidden and buried beneath layers of feigned indifference.
He cleared his throat. “If you keep this up, you’ll never heal.”
“Well, you’re certainly not helping, Raeth.”
A huff of impatience. “What would you like me to do? Trek ninety miles to the nearest town for a bottle of painkillers and some Band-Aids?”
“You’re such a smartass,” Blair hissed, casting him a wicked smile.
“Pot, meet kettle.”
He raised a single eyebrow, his lips curving ever so slightly. Assured at her benevolence, the intimate connection of his gaze disappeared behind the short cover ofOld Man and the Sea.
“Are you just going to look at a dead tree all night and hallucinate?”
Kaien’s eyes disappeared behind his eyelids for a long moment before he locked gazes with her once more. “It’s called reading. I’d recommend it, but I’m not sure if you’re literate or not.”
“That’s quite a barb coming from someone who can’t even chop wood without bloodying themselves.”
As a slow, mischievous smile crawled over his lips, Blair shivered in a way that had nothing to do with the cold. Instead of continuing in her pacing, she plopped down beside him on the couch.
When he once again returned his attention to the book, her curiosity got the better of her. She inched closer, leaning in closer to read over his shoulder.
The Raeth shifted the book toward her ever so slightly, turning the pages so she could read the text. Intruding into his personal space, his spicy aroma washed over her senses. A fire lit under her skin, her pulse pounding in her ears at their close proximity.
Undoubtedly, it was a side effect of their embryonic mating bond. Blair craved more, and she edged closer under the guise of reading.
“Do you want a book, Blair?”
“This one’s fine, thanks.”
The gentle chuckle that rumbled in his chest made her stomach flip, her toes curling. Tilting her face back to catch his handsome profile, she snuck a glance out of the corner of her eye. There was a slight shadow of a smile that remained on his lips even though he’d refocused on the text he held. Chest tightening with an unfamiliar sensation, Blair decided to gently rest her head against his shoulder.
Not because she was tired or in pain, but because she wanted to.
Chapter Eleven
Blairhadfallenasleepmore than an hour ago, her head on his shoulder. The soft whisper of her breath caressed his skin, a heavy flush of emotion that both calmed and excited him. After her injury, she’d need more sleep, and he hadn’t wanted to disturb her.
But the hearth was gradually dying, the embers of the once brilliant flame now mere flickers. Outside, the sky was gradually beginning to lighten to a cerulean blue, chasing away the somber midnight colors that’d swamped them in darkness.
Gently, Kaien wrapped his arms around his would-be mate, allowing himself a bare moment to merely appreciate holding her. His eyes closed of their own accord, savoring every second of the intimate embrace with the woman meant to be his.
Here in his arms, Blair would never want for anything. Not for comfort or care, for connection or company. As her mate, Kaien would strive to make her life a lap of luxury. But she would never let him.
Her bitter human history had soured her to any connection that demanding feeling or intimacy. And, like the gentlemen he was raised to be, he would never force her into a mating she didn’t desire.
Sighing without sound, he inched out from beneath her slumbering frame. Holding her head and cradling her shoulders with the upmost care, he retreated from the intimacy of their closeness and stood.
Carefully, he lowered her to rest against the couch, her blonde hair a silken tangle around her crown. What he would give to run his hands through it and breathe in her tantalizing scent.
Unable to resist, his eyes traced the feminine outline of her body.
