“Good gods,” he said, rolling his eyes, “you know very little of me if you think I’d fear anything that walks in Kingdom. I’ve seen terrors beyond imagining in my realm.”
She’d only been teasing him, but Lilith couldn’t help but wonder about the enigma that was this man. She knew very little of him, other than that Mother had apparently been expecting his arrival for days. Not only that, but she’d urged Lilith to trust him. Something that went against her wolfish nature.
Trust was earned through years and over time, never something blithely given. It unnerved her, the prospect of being alone with this man, but moreso that neither one of her parents had offered up any sort of rebuttal to his pronouncement of taking her on a perilous quest. They’d all but pushed her out of the den, and while she was in heat, too. Something generally considered taboo.
By their blithe manners, she knew they were keeping something from her. She only wished she knew what. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust her parents; she did, implicitly. But that didn’t mean she liked being in the dark about things, either.
Frowning at the sudden, serious turn of her thoughts, she marched ahead. She smelled wolves everywhere, but she and the knight were keeping to the safety of the trails. They’d not be molested so long as they didn’t attempt to infringe upon a rival’s territory. Not even a she-wolf in heat could be molested upon the warded trails; it went against wolf law.
So for now, at least, she felt safe enough.
For a time they ran, and she was yet again impressed by his stamina. Lilith knew very little of the demone; she’d only witnessed them the one time she’d gone to Rumpel’s castle to beg his help.
Apart from the fact that they could alter their physical forms to become living, breathing shadow, she really knew no more. The first time she’d witnessed the metamorphosis, it’d unnerved her. Something so human shouldn’t become mist, and yet she’d been fascinated by them too. In a lot of ways they were like her people, of dual natures, and that was intriguing.
Giles glanced at her. “Are you bored?” he asked without a trace of exhaustion in his words.
“No.” She shook her head. “But I am curious.”
Dressed in jeans as he was, he shouldn’t have the ease of movement. But it was nothing for him to hop over fallen logs and boulders. Never once did he attempt to offer her his hand to help.
She liked that—it meant he saw her as an equal and fully capable.
“About?” he drawled.
The tone of it caused her body to tingle. Wetting her lips, she took two deep breaths, reminding herself that she did not wish to mate with this male; it was simply the heat manifesting.
“You.” She dug her nails, which were as tough as claws, into a sheer rock face, climbing it easily. They could have walked around the stone, but it went in either direction for at least a mile, so they’d lose precious and valuable time doing it.
She glanced down at him when he did not follow. “What’s the matter, knight? Afraid of heights?”
She laughed when his eyes narrowed. But stopped completely when a moment later he shifted into his ebony shadow, keeping pace with her.
Huffing a lank of hair out of her eyes, she smirked. “Show off.”
It was his turn to laugh. The sound of it was still as deep, but when he spoke it was with a sibilance he’d not had while in his physical form. “Sssooo says the rock-climbing wolf.”
Blowing a raspberry, she wiggled right up the mountain face as though it were nothing. Though her biceps did tremble with fatigue by the time she’d finally crawled over its ledge. Bending over, she gazed down into the valley that made up the shifter’s homeland. It wasn’t that she’d never left it before, she had once, but she was no lone wolf and did not enjoy leaving the safety of her pack for long.
The verdant green valley that rolled with moss and sparkling blue waterfalls almost beckoned her back. Blowing out a puff of air, she stood and turned to Giles, who’d once again returned to corporeal form.
“Did I frighten you as my shadow?” he asked quietly.
She meant to laugh his question off, but then her nose caught his scent of smoked cherries and every nerve ending inside of her buzzed to life like sparks of lightning. Clenching her jaw, she forced herself to count to ten before answering.
“I’ve seen your kind before. Come, we still have a journey yet, and there’s a dragon to fight.”
“A dragon?” He frowned. “I read no mention of dragons in these lands.”
Laughing, she shook her head. “I can now see why Rumpel sent you to find me. Don’t worry, knight, I’ll keep you safe.”
The woman got under his skin.
But it wasn’t all bad, he supposed, though she seemed to delight in teasing him, she also never complained that the pace was too hard. He could move faster if he became his shadow, but he didn’t wish to press her too hard.