Needed not to feel the ridges of his muscles against my heaving chest.
“That is not going to happen,” I said with a glare, lifting my free hand to pry at where his fingers gripped me. He somehow didn’t hurt me, but there was no releasing his grip until he willed it.
“Whatever you tell yourself to help you sleep at night, Little One. I sleep quite peacefully with my head filled with thoughts of you, and your breathy voice moaning my name while I devour you,” he said, relaxing his grip on my wrist. I stumbled back, finally gaining that desperately needed space between us.
“Don’t be disgusting,” I snapped, straightening his cloak around my shoulders and pulling it closed tight over where my nipples hardened in response to the way he stared at me. My chest heaved, my arousal and humiliation feeling tangible, stealing the very air from my lungs.
“For you, I can be downright fucking filthy, Estrella, and you will love every Gods damned second of it,” he said, taking a few steps toward me and closing the distance between us once again. He raised a hand, toying with a lock of dark hair where it rested against the fabric of his cloak hanging around my shoulders. I swatted his hand away, gritting my teeth and watching his face light with mirth. “The next time a man like the Lord of Mistfell tries to put his hands on you without your permission, you stab him in the fucking throat,” he said, touching soft fingers to the bottom of my chin and tipping my face up to meet his stare.
Something in those words resonated with me, awakening the part inside that had rebelled against the need to be subservient, for my family. The part of me that had wanted something more.
“Does that include you?” I asked, yanking my head back from his touch.
“If I had any intention of mistreating you, it would. I have no need to violate you like that, Little One. You’ll come to me willingly soon enough,” he said, the arrogance in his voice only driving my aggravation higher. He dropped his hand between us, my body immediately feeling the absence of his touch as he strolled past me and continued down the path.
“We should hurry if we want to reach the mountains by nightfall,” he said casually, as if the tension of the last few moments between us had never happened. I gaped after him for a few seconds, unwillingly staring at the way his muscles seemed to ripple with every movement. He’d be the death of me.
If I didn’t kill him first.
17
The Hollow Mountains were larger than I’d ever dreamed they could be, the rolling peaks towering over us as we traveled along the base. All the texts I’d read in Lord Byron’s library talked of how small they were compared to the Mountains at Rochpar, and even smaller compared to the legendary mountains of Faerie that existed on the other side of the boundary.
Caelum followed my gaze as it tracked up the face for the hundredth time. True to his word, we’d reached the range before dark, but now the sun retreated behind the peaks, bathing the forest at their feet in an eerie golden glow. This far from the boundary with Faerie, the leaves had already turned yellow and orange with the frost and begun falling to the ground. The magic of Faerie was too far to sustain the signs of life through the cold autumn nights.
He’d only spoken to me in passing since the claim that I would come to him, that I’d give him my body willingly one day soon. He couldn’t possibly understand that, while I had no notion of a happily ever after with a man who would be my husband one day, I needed something more than the promise of one night of pleasure.
No matter how I might want to keep my heart my own, I suspected a man like Caelum would slither his way inside and take it for himself, if I let him. With no promise of a tomorrow, or a future at all, such an attachment could only end in heartbreak for me, whether we lived or died. I wasn’t naive enough to think that a man like him would stay interested for long after his initial conquest, if we ever found others like us, anyway.
Such was the way of his intensity—of his power—as it rolled over my skin when he turned his gaze on me. It wasn’t the same as the power I’d felt from the Wild Hunt or the magic of Faerie when the Veil had shattered, but still a force that came from within him.
It wasn’t magical in nature at all, I suspected, but something he’d possessed long before the Mark. It was just Caelum, and that made him all the more dangerous.
“We should find a place to camp for the night,” I murmured finally, hating the way my voice shook with the slightest tremor at the thought of another night exposed to the darkness of the woods.
“I have a better idea. Come with me,” he said, reaching across the space between us to take my hand in his. My hand throbbed with the contact, tiny sparks passing between where we touched and careening up my arm until it glowed with soft white light. It was the first time my Mark had reacted to him so vividly, sending a jolt of shock through me. The dark in his mirrored mine, the faintest hint of purple illuminating the black as his Mark recognized the call from mine.
Something had changed in us; something had shifted, and I was terrified to admit that it might have been my acknowledging the fact that I wanted him in spite of the consequences. Now, my Mark fed on that reaction to his touch.
He led me into the tree line beside us, pausing at the line of thick branches. Peeling back one of them with a mystified smile on his face, he revealed a narrow pathway while I stared in stunned silence.
“I can’t believe this is still here. It’s been years since I last traveled through the Hollows,” he said. The path curved up the side of one of the foothills, disappearing into the darkness of the shaded trees. He pulled me into the pathway, releasing the branch that hid the entrance so that it snapped back into place and disguised it once more.
“What is this place?” I asked, wonder lighting up my eyes as he led me to the very base of the hill, which, standing apart from the other foothills, was more like a butte. Where the path started up the side, curving around to create an easier to manage incline, someone had carved steps into the stone in the areas where it became too steep. More stone lined the path as we rounded the bend to the back of the hill, the surfaces stained with age and cracked from what appeared to be years of neglect.
Trees lined the path on the outside, where Caelum walked beside me, shielding us from view if anyone happened to look up at the butte. On my right, I lifted a hand to trail over the stone of the face. As if the earth itself had melted away to make the walkway, the same stone that lined the steps went as high as I could see when I tipped my head back.