That he wanted her.
He slipped his hand into hers.
She jerked her head up, her gaze colliding with his, a stunned look on her face that quickly faded as she looked down at their hands. Her soft smile stole his heart, had the ache to kiss her growing stronger.
And he would.
As soon as they were alone, he was going to kiss her like there was no tomorrow.
Chapter 13
The vampire had been merciful, something Mackenzie hadn’t been expecting since the main mansion in the sprawling complex of warm yellow buildings that formed the very Italian-looking bastion of the First Legion had Latin carved above the arched entrance.
A motto that read Nulla Misericordia.
No Mercy.
Rather than insisting they discuss the witch immediately, Grave had dispatched guards to the wall and had insisted Mackenzie follow a female servant up to a room on the second floor. The pretty blonde had been all smiles as she had led the way, as she had offered to have a bath drawn for her and had shown her around the elegant eggshell-blue room that was her temporary cage.
Being parted from Hartt had left Mackenzie on edge and she had ended up bluntly turning down the bath, something she regretted now that she was alone, standing before a roaring fire and wishing she were enjoying a nice, long soak to ease her tired muscles.
She hated resurrecting.
It always left her skin feeling too tight, made her irritated for days and made her bones feel achy.
Mackenzie paced away from the enormous white marble fireplace, the wooden floorboards creaking in places as she crossed the spacious room to the four-poster double bed. She sank onto the dark blue covers with a sigh and immediately wanted to stand again. Restlessness was another annoying side-effect of being reborn. She wanted to sleep for days but had far too much energy all at the same time.
She huffed, flopped back onto the bed, and remembered that she was lacking clothing as the oversized black tunic she wore rode up and cool air kissed her thighs. She tugged it down.
Really tugged it down as a soft knock sounded.
Her senses reached out, attempting to identify who was on the other side of the door, but only a jumbled mess came back to her. She hated that too. It would be days before she could pick out things with her senses without them just mashing everything she could feel together into one blob.
“Come in,” she said, a little too cautiously judging by how slowly the door opened.
She leaned to her left, wondering if it was the servant returned to offer her another bath. If it was, Mackenzie would probably snap her arm off.
“You decent?” Hartt’s deep voice curled around her, instantly relaxing her.
Who needed to soak in a tub? Not her, apparently. She just needed to hear the dulcet tones of her enemy-turned-ally.
“I am.” She sat up and smoothed the tunic down, tugging it so it almost covered her knees. Maybe she should have asked the servant for some clothes at least. Even just some panties would have been fine.
She was too aware of the fact she was naked beneath the tunic as the door swung open and Hartt strode into the room wearing only his black armour. Those damned rumours about elf armour were right. It hugged everything.
He looked down at himself, paused and frowned. Suddenly, clothing appeared on him—a top similar to the tunic she wore and black trousers. He had a neat trick. She hadn’t missed the fact he had summoned her something to wear out of thin air too. If she asked him to summon her underwear, could he do that? She wasn’t sure how it worked, whether he could produce anything she wanted or was limited in some fashion.
While the thought of asking him to magic her some underwear was appealing, it also made her cheeks heat.
“How are you feeling?” He frowned as he softly closed the door behind him, his eyes never leaving her face. “You look a little warm.”
Understatement of the century. She was burning up, felt as if she was trying to put out a thousand fires as she kept calling to mind how good he had looked in his armour, how the tiny black scales had followed every valley and peak of his honed torso, revealing a lush amount of detail. Right down to his corded shoulders and the lean muscles of his thighs.
And the impressive bulge that hung between them.
Thankfully, the armour had some modesty there, appeared to be thicker and made him look as if he was wearing a protective cup.
A rather big protective cup.
Her cheeks heated another thousand degrees. If he noticed it, he was kind enough not to say anything. In fact, he seemed rather determined not to look at her, his gaze darting over the limited furnishings and the window, and back to her before it leaped away again. A hint of colour touched his cheeks now.
It seemed the elf was a little embarrassed about her staring at him.
He walked to the royal-blue armchair near the fire, turned it towards her and sat in it.
“I feel better than you look.” She frowned at how pale he was, the only touch of colour the fading blush on his cheeks, and at the shadows that darkened below his stunning violet eyes.
Stunning violet eyes that held banked heat that told her he might have been embarrassed by her gawping at him, but part of him had liked it. She hadn’t only fired herself up.
He combed his fingers through his short blue-black hair, tousling it as he leaned back in the chair. “I could use some sleep.”
Some crazy part of her pushed her to suggest he take a nap next to her. For safety’s sake, or some excuse like it. They should stick together, right? Safety in numbers? Who knew if they could trust the vampires not to kill them while they were sleeping in separate beds?
She ignored it and blamed her resurrection, although it had never made her loose with her tongue or shed her inhibitions before. He might not be the enemy anymore, but getting involved with him was a huge no-no. She preferred to keep things fast and a one-time-only deal, had stuck to that rule for decades. She wasn’t about to break it.
She also ignored the fact that she had tried to tempt him into kissing her, putting that down to temporary insanity too, together with how good it had felt when he had held her hand as if they were lovers.
A word that was never going to apply to them.
She swore it as she looked at him, as they sat in a too-comfortable silence as if simply being close to each other was enough for them.
She searched for something to say, needing to break the silence before she got wild ideas again, fearing she might act on them if he kept looking at her that way, as if he cared about her.
Really cared.
“When you—” he started and then cleared his throat and looked away from her, at the window to his left that overlooked the courtyard.
For a moment, he looked as if he was going to stand and go to it, but then he sighed and his gaze strayed back to her. There was too much worry in his eyes. That look bordered on tender and she panicked.
“I’m fine. Happens all the time,” she blurted and grimaced.
“Die a lot, do we?” He frowned at her and she couldn’t tell whether he was angry with her for being flippant about dying or angry with the people who had killed her in the past. His gaze went to the window again, his irises brighter now, and the tips of his ears grew pointier.
“No.” She rushed that word out when he went to stand, when her jumbled senses detected his agitation and his fury, and she saw in his eyes that he wanted to fight.