She could do her other thing, her “magic” trick, but she doubted Father would appreciate her showing off that way. It was a source of shame for any wolf to have any magic at their disposal besides the fire of shifting. A lifetime worth of indoctrination that under no circumstances was she ever to use her magic within the realm of shifters stayed her tingling hands.
He nodded. “I see. You do not know me. ‘Tis understandable, shifter. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Giles Damian of the genus Demone and butler to the dark prince, Rumpelstiltskin.”
He banded an arm around his waist and bowed low.
Her heart jerked. “Rumpel. Bloody hell,” she growled. “Piss.”
His ruby red eyes widened at her words, which was ridiculously adorable, a big, strong man looking as if she’d just spit on his liege rather than issue a minor insult.
“What, knight?”
Dark brows gathered into a tight vee. “How did you know I was a knight?”
Feeling more at ease in the face of his obvious discomfort, she chuckled. “It is the way you act. The ‘‘tis’ and the bowing.” She fluttered her wrist. “You act like no butler I’ve ever met. And just what did you do to those trolls, by the way?”
Leaning against the tree, she crossed her ankles. A thread of breeze whipped through the glen, whipping up the scent of ripe autumn leaves.
“I dispatched them, female.”
“Good gods,” she groaned. “Are you for real?”
Again he looked as if she’d slapped him.
Chuckling she waved her hand. “I can see that you are. At any rate, I thank you for your kindly assistance, though I’m sure I could have handled it. I am a wolf, after all.” She sniffed, tipping her nose into the air.
His eyes narrowed. “Pardon my saying so, but the men had you dead to rights.”
A threatening rumble reverberated through her chest. The words he said were true enough, but for him to even so much as hint that she’d needed the assistance was truly a slap in the face. It was a sign of weakness among her kind and an insult she could not let slip.
Letting her wolf bleed through her eyes, she pounced on the impossibly dark-skinned man. He only had time to band his arm around her middle before they landed with a hard thud on the mossy surface of the forest floor.
Still in human form she pulled her lips back, exposing the sharp length of her canines. “What did you say?”
His brilliant red eyes practically sparkled as he studied her. This man was a predator; she could smell the violence of him. The way his blood quickened, how his heart pounded in his chest. But it didn’t seem to be erratic, as though thumping from terror, no, this thumping was a little harder, a little more fluttery. Like it was heat and fire and excitement rushing through him.
With skin that could so easily blend into shadow and bloody, jeweled eyes; the strong, hawkish nose and the jaw with the slight cleft in its chin when he spoke—she’d only ever seen his kind once before, and that was the night she’d signed her bloody signature on one of Rumpel’s notes.
She’d been an idiot and a fool and had hoped that after five years the blasted man had forgotten about her part of the agreement.
Lilith clenched her razor-sharp nails into the knight’s chest, making him hiss.
She was viscerally aware of the smoothness, the firmness of his body. Like polished marble that heated her palms. He felt wicked and lovely.
She snapped her jaws when he made to wiggle out from beneath her. “Answer me, Giles Damian.” Her voice blended with that of her wolf. A lesser man would have pissed himself by now.
But Giles wore a smirk. “You think to frighten me, wolf, but you cannot. There is nothing in this realm or any other that I fear. Let me up and we can be civil.”
Blinking, intrigued and confused by him, she called her wolf back deep inside and cocked her head. “You fear nothing. That means you’re either dangerous or a fool.”
He dug his fingers firmly into her biceps, easily lifting her off him. So easily, in fact, that she knew he’d allowed her to hold him down. The thought galled.
Laughing, she hopped to her feet. “I’d say you’re a bit of both, knight. Am I right?”
He stood and brushed at the dirt on his black shirt. “Perhaps.”
Licking her lips, she tossed her hair over her shoulders. If power wouldn’t work, perhaps seduction might. She straightened her shoulders, thrust her breasts out and slightly notched her knee, fixing a subtle pout to her lips.
“So the Prince of Darkness requires I come to him, is that it?” She wet her lips, narrowing her eyes when she noted his never strayed south. What was this man? A eunuch?
“No.” He shook his head. “He requires you to journey with me.”
She laughed. “Show me proof or go away. You’re mad if you think I would willingly go anywhere with you, stranger.”
He sighed. “So be it.”