Huffing out a breath, he returned back to camp only to spot an unusual woman headed his way.
Her skin wasn’t quite as dark as his, more like a creamy burnt caramel color. Her hair was short and spiraled in tight black curls around a heart-shaped face. Her eyes were wide and almond-shaped and a rich golden brown. She had full lips and a voluptuous body that instantly made his pulse quicken. Even the fact that there were two large swaths of dried blood staining her cheeks didn’t matter. The creature was alluring and he was unable to glance away.
Barefoot and wearing only a leopard-spotted sarong, she strode confidently toward him. She looked at him as though she knew him. Stopping only inches in front of him, she cocked a hip out and flicked a wrist. “So, knight, how do I look?”
Lilith’s scent of pine and rich earth washed through him, making his pulse thunder in his ears. Even her voice had dropped a seductive octave.
He blinked. “I thought the plan was to travel inconspicuously.”
Her laughter shivered across his flesh. “And a pale crone with a man as dark as ebony was inconspicuous?”
She had a point, but still.
Giles shook his head. “You stand out.”
“I always do, knight. It seems to be a flaw of mine.” She moistened her much fuller pink lips. “Don’t you like me?”
Clearing his throat, he took a step back. Even with the smears of blood staining her cheeks, she looked unbelievably gorgeous. Every inch of her.
“You’re too beautiful.” There, he said it.
Her eyes practically glowed. “Thank you.”
“That’s not a compliment.”
She rolled her eyes and gently hit his shoulder. “Look, I’m not becoming an old fart again. I’ll keep myself hidden, I promise.”
Grunting, he turned on his heel and walked back. “I assume by the blood on your face that you caught something.”
“Yes,” she said near a whisper.
Nodding, he knelt beside his pile of twigs and shifted them around. Not that he needed to, but he couldn’t keep looking at her.
It was her heat affecting him this way. It had to be. It wasn’t that he’d not noticed her beauty straight away, but he’d not felt this level of attraction before. Her nearness unnerved him.
“Need help dragging it over?” he asked with clenched fists.
“No.”
When he turned to look at her, Lilith was gone.
Lilith had brought the wild boar down with ease. She’d been so proud of her kill. Of her chance to show Giles that she was capable, that she wasn’t a child.
Why had he said what he’d said? She’d hoped her latest transformation would be the one to get him to truly see her. To recognize that she was a woman and he a male and she was choosing him. She’d had time to think it through. There were ways around her deal with Rumpel, ways that could ensure her safety and his.
It would never be a true mating, which meant Giles would be free to bind his heart to another someday down the road, and no shifter in Kingdom would recognize their mating as legitimate, but if it meant happiness, even if only for now, then wasn’t it worth it to try?
She had no bluidy clue why she couldn’t turn her feelings off for the demone. But it was more than hormones. When a wolf chose it wasn’t simply because of bodily need. But because it recognized true compatibility. Against all odds, her wolf wanted not another wolf, but Giles.
Closing her eyes, she bowed her head. Her family had made a mockery of themselves long before she’d been born. Her father had dared to fall in love with a human.
Well, a magical vessel, really, but that was just semantics. Mother was a strong and honorable woman and she loved with the strength of the wolf. Father had made a wise choice, but the clan had never seen it that way.
They sneered at her parents whenever they showed up together for no other reason than Mother was not pack. She was more than capable and twice as strong as most of the she wolves, but it didn’t matter, because to them she would always be human.
Lilith had vowed she would do everything in her power to choose an alpha when the time came. And yet the apple hadn’t fallen far from the tree, because here she was, following the same path as her father, and the more distance she put between her and her people, the less she cared what they thought.
But no matter how she felt, Giles obviously did not feel the same. Growling, she lengthened her fingers into claws and ripped through the pig’s carcass, dressing it and ripping off the large chunks of flesh to roast. The rest she’d leave for the predatory birds to pick apart.
Using the end of her sarong, she placed the meat inside of it and walked back to their camp, determined not to show Giles just how much his rejection had stung.
Tonight was going to be hell on her.
It took three hours of roasting to make sure the pig was edible. Much longer than anticipated. By the time it finished cooking, the sun was well on its way to setting.