“Do you need to eat something more?” He almost sounded tired.
She shook her head. Sitting in his arms had replaced her hunger with a different craving. One she’d never admit.
“Okay, then.” His voice rumbled with determination and command. “It’s time for your next session.”
She rocketed upright in his hold, knocking his chin. “N-now?”
“Do you think I need rope restraints to take what I want from you?” He pressed his mouth to her ear. “I don’t.”
Her eyes widened, heart beating fast.
Yet, a shameful, secret part of her wanted exactly this. Craved the sensation of his hands on her.
It was all so new and wonderous and terrifying. In the past, she’d always crept to the edge of the highest cliffs and looked over, even when the view made her dizzy. The same reckless impulse seethed inside her now, desperate to know if the fire he’d sparked inside her would roar to life, the need coiling tighter and tighter even without the restraints.
“Who is the pack male out looking for you?” He gave her no more warning. His legs widened beneath her, spreading her own.
The cool air caressed her slick center.
She bit back a moan.
His pupils shrank to pinpricks, making her need flame higher.
He liked touching her. Maybe almost as much as she liked his hands on her. For someone who had always been despised and ostracized, it was a heady sensation.
She wondered if he felt as empty as she did when he pulled his touch away?
Her skin flushed pinkish gold at the thought of another commonality between them.
“Tell me his name.”
She expected his demand to be followed by the slide of his rough hand against her skin. Instead, he stroked her hair. His thick fingers gliding through the strands, caretaking, grooming.
The tenderness of the gesture was so shocking, she spoke without thinking. “Ramm. His name is Ramm.”
“Why were you surprised he would be looking for you?”
Her heart slammed harder against her ribs. How had he picked up on that?
But the slow, gentle stroke of his palm against her scalp soothed her once more, each slight tug of his fingers through her hair sending a sizzle of wonder humming down her spine.
She knew he did it on purpose. She knew he sensed her weakness and used it against her. It didn’t matter. Unable to help herself, she leaned into his touch.
She felt pampered. Hunters groomed their pets, but she had never seen one do such things for a mate. They should. It was wonderful.
Pleasure shimmered from her scalp down to her fingertips. “N-none from pack supposed to be this deep in Other territory.”
“Except you.” His fingers were featherlight, his thumb circling her scalp slowly, as if he had all the time in the universe. Her breasts grew heavy. Her nipples hard. A low moan rose in her throat.
He hadn’t even touched her anywhere but her hair, and yet the fire was back again.
It was another revelation. His dark magic more potent and all-encompassing than she had ever imagined.
She had no way to guard against it. Ancients help her, but she wanted it to go on forever.
“Is that related to why you have no name and are untouched?” He never ceased his slow strokes.
“Y-yes.” She fought not to lift her hips. “I tell you before. I Gazi.”
“Explain.” The hand that had been pinning her wrists to her belly snaked behind her neck, gripping her easily. But instead of using it to force her mouth to his shaft, he simply pressed his strong fingers into the tendons and worked the tense muscles between this thumb and finger.
She let out a soft sigh, her body melting deeper into his hands.
Her captor let out a low groan, as if he was the one being touched. “Nayla…yes, open to me. Just like that. Dragath hells, you’re so damn beautiful. Your surrender so damn sweet.”
The white-hot pleasure inside her flared higher. Beautiful. No one had ever called her that before.
“Tell me, Nayla.” His demands were as relentless as his touches. “Tell me why you’re Gazi.”
Her neck lolled forward under the force of his soothing touch. “My father like you. An Other.”
“He was one of my kind?”
“Mmmm.” The pleasure of his touches kept growing, as addictive as his attention. “That…that is why I am Gazi. I not pure pack. That why my fangs tiny. Why ears small, my ridges slight, my skin strange color. I not like my people or yours. I defect—”
His grip on her neck tightened. “Don’t even finish that sentence.” His hold loosened, his fingers dancing across her neck and shoulders once more, kneading the muscles. “You may be a mix, but it doesn’t make you defective. It makes you…extraordinary.”
Her heart fluttered.
He allowed her no quarter. “So, because you’re a mix, you get treated differently than the others in your pack?”
“Y-yes. I alone sent into Other territory. Rest of pack too important to risk.”
A low growl ran through him. She wasn’t sure why.
“Is this Ramm someone special?” His tone was deceptively casual, though his hand never stopped its slow, rhythmic assault.
“To pack?” She hadn’t expected his line of questioning to go this route. Still, it was true that Ramm was one of the most revered hunters after Talg.
“No, not to pack,” he rasped. “To you? Does he have a claim on you?”
She shook her head, the hunger and heat stealing her thoughts.
“Words, Nayla.” He squeezed the back of her neck again.
She swallowed a moan, that forceful rebuke only adding to the fire slowly winding its way through her veins. “No. No claim. He is to be mated to Deshi.”
To have her captor ask such a thing about Ramm showed how little he knew. Such a thing was forbidden. A warrior like Ramm could never pollute his line with a Gazi. Even if…sometimes it had almost looked like longing in Ramm’s gaze when he looked at her, but she suspected she’d just confused pity with her own secret wishes. “He no interest in me.”
For once, she didn’t care. Because traitorous, dangerous thoughts were creeping into her brain. Like how, because of Talg’s rules, Ramm would never dare to hold her like this. How no hunter from her pack would ever give her a name or show her what her body could feel.
She tried to staunch the disloyalty, but like the fire beneath her skin, the alarming thoughts spread.
“I can read body language, Nayla, and you’re wrong. He wants you back, bad.” Her captor’s hold tightened. “It doesn’t matter. He won’t find you. You’re mine.”
Surprise exploded through her. “I not yours. Or his. I Gazi. Cursed.” A shred of reason returned, slicing through the slow haze of pleasure. He was confusing her. Trying to make her believe she could belong to someone and have them belong to her.
That could not be. Even if Talg’s prediction that touching her would lead to a horrific death had proven untrue, it did not change her tainted origins. “My ending always the same. To die alone.”
“Bullshit.” Her captor’s hand tangled in her hair, but this time it wasn’t gentle. He dragged her face upward until their noses nearly touched. “You’re not dying.”
Her emotions shot from lust to anger. Did he think her a fool? “I know my ending.” Her chin lifted. “Either you or pack kill me. Outcome same. I protect pack anyway. I prove my worth.” Her gaze dropped to the big hand now pressed to her thigh. “No matter what you do to me. You can’t save me. I already doomed.”