Page 115 of Hunted

‘If I answer what you have asked,’ I say, voice lower than intended, ‘you will understand things that place you in greater danger by knowing them.’

Her mouth tightens. ‘That feels like a dramatic way of saying yes.’

‘It is a precise way of saying you will keep silent.’

‘Valentin—’

‘No. Listen to me.’

That gets her attention.

‘If you betray what I show you,’ I continue, each word deliberate, ‘the consequences will be severe. For anyone you speak to. For any channel through which it travels. Even for you, little hunter.’

There it is, laid bare and cold.

For the first time since I have known her, she looks hurt.

It is quick, a flicker in the eyes, a tightening at the corners of her mouth, but I see it, and I resent seeing it because it means some part of her expected better of me. Expected trust without threat.

Expected… what, exactly?

Tenderness? Faith?

We’ve known each other for days.

She blinks once, inhales, and when she speaks again, the hurt is gone behind that bright, cutting composure she wields so well. ‘Since we’ve only known each other for like… five minutes,’ she says, with a dry edge that does not quite conceal the bruise beneath it, ‘I won’t let that hurt my feelings. But you can trust me.’

She is correct. That is what unsettles me.

It has been mere days, yet I know the cadence of her breathing, the look she gets before provoking on purpose, the taste of her fury, the sound she makes when pleasure tears through her.

My body remembers the sofa before my mind can stop it. Her tremble beneath my hand. Her arousal blooming richer with every pass of my mouth. The slick, exquisite heat of her.

Netheris take me.

Even now, with Tezra’s murder fresh in my territory and the alley’s discovery making old certainties unstable, my thoughts slide back to Eira Cross with humiliating ease.

Kissing her. Tasting her sublime cunt until she forgot every weapon she carried and every argument she had prepared.

It is untenable.

It is also true.

I drag my mind back into alignment by force and search her face again for intent. I find agitation, grief, indignation, desire she is trying to bury.

And beneath it all… resolve.

If there is calculation there too, she hides it well.

You can trust her.

And if the worst occurs, I will do what is necessary and remove the memory from her.

Decision made, I hold out my hand. ‘Come with me.’

Her gaze drops to it, then lifts to my face, suspicion and intrigue sparking together. ‘Those are usually the words women regret right before being lured into a crypt.’

There is the snark again. Softer now. Threaded with something she cannot quite hide.