Her heart thundered in her ears and she could only stare on as his throat muscles worked the berry down.
He’d not changed out of his clothing from the day before, though he did not stink of the road, so perhaps at some point he’d bathed, or perhaps a demone had no need of showers. His hair was tousled and slipping over his left eye.
Lilith bit down onto the corner of her lip to keep from reaching forward and patting the lock back into place. What would it feel like to touch it? Smooth and silky like her own, or would it feel like moving her hand through shadow?
Fire shot through her veins, pounding relentlessly through her blood. Visions ripped through her mind’s eye.
Of her. Of him.
Of them together.
He would tame her beast. Only one male in all of Kingdom could. She’d lie down before him a woman, but with the wolf glowing through her eyes. Lilith would roll onto her back, exposing her breasts and her stomach to him. A clear signal that she’d accepted his dominance over her. She’d crook a finger and he’d know what to do. His ruby eyes would glow with heat and flames, his dark body would cover her pale one and together they would become one.
One mind.
One heart.
One beating soul.
And then you’d die, you idiot.
She growled beneath her breath. Already she felt the quickening of the bloom. The height of a shifter’s heat, it stirred through her blood. Made her skin feel tight and itchy. An unpartnered she-wolf during a full moon could never run free; she’d have to find shelter. Alone. The animal within her would grow wild and too dangerous to anyone her wolf had not accepted as its mate.
Thankfully they were only a mile away from a designated safe zone for a woman in a predicament such as herself.
He was looking at her strangely and she realized he was waiting on her answer. He’d been speaking and she’d not heard a word he’d said. Shaking her head, she gave him a weak smile. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Are you okay?” He touched her elbow, forcing her to pause. “Thirsty? Hungry? We could find water or—”
“No,” she held up a hand, and then scratched her forearm roughly, “No, I’m fine really. It was nothing. Finish what you were saying.”
“It wasn’t nothing.”
She bit her tongue as his ruby-red eyes peered so intensely at her that it felt as though he’d slipped beneath her soul and was able to see what she’d really been thinking about.
Blushing, she turned her face to the side, fidgeting with her cloak and pretending to brush dirt off the side of it.
His thumb was tender as he tipped her face up. “Let us make a deal, then.”
Lips twitching, she looked back at him. “So much like your master. What will I owe you in return?”
Giles’s gaze was still just as penetrating as he said, “Your story.”
Lilith could feel the scarlet heat trailing up her neck. It wasn’t that she’d done anything truly wicked when she’d gotten involved with Rumpel, but her reasons had been personal and, in the end, horribly crushing.
If she hadn’t wanted to know more of who he really was, she’d have told him to never mind, but she did want to know and odds were good—with him being Rumpel’s butler—that he already knew anyway.
Rubbing her neck, she gave a quick nod of agreement, regretting it instantly. She had no wish to tell him the terms of her deal with his prince, the foolish course she’d taken when still a child. The consequences of which she’d felt more keenly in the past few weeks than she had in the whole of her life.
“Fine. But you first. And I swear—” she resumed walking, stepping over a divot in the red dirt trail—“to tell you everything before our journey ends.”
“I will hold you to that, wolf.”
“I will keep my word.”
“As a sign of good faith, answer me one question first.”
Her stomach bottomed out and she wiped at her sweaty brow with stiff, jerky movements. She could only wonder what this show of faith would entail. Suddenly regretting her decision to share with him, she reluctantly nodded. “Aye, then, what is it?”
“What were you thinking of just now?” His jeweled eyes sparkled with humor.
Mortified but determined not to let it show, she plastered on a cocky grin. “The truth?” She stopped, looking him full-on in the face.
He shrugged and spread his hands wide. “Of course.”
She was such a fool to continue to be so reckless, but she was so tired of fighting what suddenly seemed so inevitable. “That my wolf is desperate to mate with you.”
There had been words Giles imagined she would say. Mating, however, hadn’t been one of them. Eyes gone wide, he studied her features, looking for any sign of duplicity. A shifter rarely lied, but they could tease mercilessly. Something he’d discovered while working one of Rumpel’s test for a supplicant years ago. Shifters were masters of the silver tongue.