Page 34 of In Violent Waves

A groan built in the recesses of his hollow chest. He bit his fist to tamp it down. When the arousal that had flooded his senses had passed, he swallowed and prayed that she couldn’t hear it.

He was in a world of monumental muck. The gods had sent her to test him, dredging up his wildest fantasies and packaging them into a creature of his worst nightmares—the enemy.

He needed to focus on the bad to keep from seeing the good. She was dangerous, more than dangerous. She could bring about the destruction of the entire world.

Lyra shifted under the covers, and Wilder listened. Her breathing was not steady or slow; she was still awake. He had an uncontrollable urge to speak to her, but he bit his tongue. She was not his to assure or comfort. Let her figure this out on her own.

When she flopped onto her other side, he sighed.

“Sorry.”

Wilder didn’t respond.

“I’m not used to sleeping on something this soft.”

He rolled his eyes. The wooden floor dug into his spine.

“How long until morning?” she whispered.

Rage surged through him. Hadn’t he been clear enough that he wanted nothing to do with her?

The silence between them grew taught and when he could no longer bear it, he ground out, “Hours.”

“What will the journey be like?”

He squeezed his eyes shut, letting the frustration flow through him in waves. He needed to stay angry.

“Maybe if you tried closing your eyes and mouth—you’d be able to sleep.”

There. That should have been obvious enough to her.

A bird squawked outside, and the sound pierced through the silent room.

“What was that?” she said, sitting up quickly in bed.

Before he knew it, her feet were thudding against the wooden floor, and she was standing at his feet, clutching her chest.Wilder sat up on his elbows. Moonlight poured through the small gap in the curtains behind her and outlined her body.

Gods dammit.

He had just stopped thinking about her legs, and now here they were.

“It. Was. A. Bird,” he ground out between clenched teeth, breathing sharply through his nose. Which only exacerbated his problem.

“That didn’t sound like any bird I’ve heard before.”

He could see her shoulders rapidly rising and falling.

“You haven’t been here long enough to have heard every bird. Go back to bed.”

Lyra stood there, twisting her shirt in her hands and staring down at him.

“Get in bed and go to sleep. We have a long journey ahead, and I’m not carrying you the entire way there,” he ordered her again.

He lay back down and covered his face with both hands, listening to her bare feet against the wood floors as she walked away.

Lyra drew the curtain back and peered outside. Her breath caught at the same time he smelled them.

The blood-curdling odor of the wulvers.