Page 116 of Hunted

Excitement.

A beat ticks by. Two. Then she places her hand in mine.

The contact is visceral and immediate, hitting me like storm-tossed heat poured directly into the blood. Her skin is warm, pulse quick at her wrist, fingers strong despite the slight tremor she still carries from shock and grief and everything else this day has become. My own pulse answers with a hard, immediate surge, and my cock, already too aware of her, turns painfully insistent again.

Netheris fires.

Taking her to my bedroom is, in strategic terms, a terrible idea.

And yet that is precisely why I am doing it. Perhaps repeated exposure to these galling, exhilarating sensations will inure me to her effect.

I lead her through the suite, aware of her attention moving over everything. The habit of a hunter remains intact no matter how rattled she is.

I wonder what she is thinking now that she has taken my hand voluntarily. Whether she hears the same electric hum I do in the silence between us.

If her maddening no-fangs rule were not in place, I would not need to guess. I would have sampled her blood by now and known exactly where her thoughts ran. Instead, I am left to read her by pulse, breath and posture.

An absurd downgrade.

We enter my bedroom, and she slows enough that I feel it through our joined hands.

Her eyes move first to the windows, then the carved stone, then the bed, lingering there.

The bed dominates the room, built in another century when furniture was meant to outlast dynasties and send a message while doing so.

Black walnut and iron, the obsidian headboard is inset with hammered iron tracery, vines and thorns and stars threaded into geometric discipline, while the modern mattress sits beneath linen and charcoal silk severe enough to look monastic until one imagines what happens in it.

It has held many a willing bed partner shackled in place for my use. And yet I cannot conjure a single face in this moment.

Not while watching Eira’s mouth part, and… fuck it all to Netheris, nearly undoing me.

‘Good Gods,’ she says, staring. ‘That’s not a bed. That’s a declaration.’

Despite myself, satisfaction moves through me. ‘Indeed. Florence, 1691. Commissioned for a man who intended to impress every guest and terrify every rival who entered his chamber.’

Her gaze flicks to me. ‘And you acquired it how, exactly? Estate sale? Armed robbery? Winner takes all at vampire poker night?’

‘I purchased the palazzo after his heirs bankrupted themselves pretending they still mattered. The bed came with the property.’

Her brows lift. ‘That is offensively on-brand.’

I incline my head. ‘If you wish to investigate it further, I would be happy to provide an up-close tour.’

Colour rises in her cheeks at once.

She purses her lips in that way she does when she is holding back a retort and a reaction at the same time, and the sight drags a groan to the back of my throat that I suppress with effort.

Focus.

I release her hand before the temptation to pull her onto the bed becomes stronger than reason and cross to the far wall, where the artefact stands concealed behind layered black cloth and shadow.

She follows slowly, curiosity overtaking embarrassment.

The Heartshard Glass rests in a stand of forged iron and onyx, narrow and elongated like a cathedral window cut free from its church. Even covered, it alters the room. The air around it feels denser, light and sound behaving differently in its presence.

Eira notices immediately. ‘What’s that?’ she asks, voice lower.

I do not answer yet.