Aodh inclined his head, shoved a hand through his hair, and exhaled loudly.A rumble filled the room.
The harsh sound did what her hand could not: silenced her.
Kai didn’t move.This is it.
He inhaled and exhaled again.The rumble was quieter but still present.Lowering his hand, he looked at her.His eyes were predominantly sapphire-stained opal again, only a thin ring of black around them.“Drahks have not eaten humans for centuries, only during wartime.Since the first treaty with the world’s leaders, we have not had to demonstrate our might with flame or bite.”He snapped his teeth.
She flinched.
“Besides, Morlie is too frail and sickly to be worth the bother.”He chuckled.Then his gaze caressed her from the top of her head to her tattered shoes.He couldn’t see much with her legs bent before her, but it didn’t stop the emerald and crimson leaching into his eyes.
Regardless of the anxiety sitting like a stone in her stomach, her skin flushed, and her blood began to warm with desire in response.
“Now you.”He leaned forward, wrapped his thick, hot hands around her ankles, and pulled.
Because she had once again locked her arms around her knees, he dragged her whole body closer to him.She swallowed as sparks raced along her nerves from his firm touch.
He placed his lips right beside her ear.“I do plan to eat you, mate.When I do, you will enjoy it.”
Kai couldn’t deny that Aodh’s sensuous, rough tone and the erotic picture he painted in her mind made her nipples taut and caused the heat that rested low in her belly to swell to a blaze at the apex of her thighs.It took everything in her not to turn her face into his and beg him to ‘prove it.’
~YH~
She shifted away from him.Kai turned her face to the right and gulped, choking down several deep breaths, and tried to get her mind and body to align.Hell, she wasn’t sure which of them was out of line since her mind was playing images of Aodh licking and nibbling all over her body, and her body was responding to it in lustful ways that yearned to have the big guy touch her.
He carved visual depictions like a prehistoric human across the deep walls of her brain.The erotic hieroglyphics of sensual bodies entwined were haunting her senses, making her feel things she’d only read about, watched in old vids she stumbled upon.These are things no girl on the cusp of womanhood with such a bleak, unsure future before her should have been fascinated with.As she got older, she envisioned finding a man to kiss her, touch her, and drag his hands over her body in a way that would cause her to writhe in levels of pleasure she honestly didn’t understand.Now, Aodh was taking those few naughty scenes, destroying them with his hot, passionate words, and rebuilding them anew.
“Aodh...please.”She panted.Needy.What was she asking him for?
He growled, and his hands tightened on her.There was a bite and sting from his nails, just barely puncturing her flesh.Her mind screamed for her not to analyze what she felt or what made such an impression on her skin.Claws?
This man was a beast—a monster.
She choked off a moan and swallowed.“I need space.”
There had never been more complicated words uttered.
Aodh inhaled but released her and moved back.He rose slowly, his body claiming and taking up the space as if he owned it.In some ways, this was his world.All was his.
“You need care.”
There was a lilt of gentleness to his words.It acted as a balm to Kai’s overwrought senses.Her legs trembled as she stood.It took more strength than she wanted to admit, forcing her knees, shaky as they were, to lock.
Pulling his gaze from her, he crossed to the fireplace.“I will send an attendant to help set the bath and bring fresh clothing.Food, too.”
“I can handle my bath,” she declared.If they healed her sister, she would already owe them enough.
He didn’t comment as he stooped low and blew a flame into the open space.The fire blazed and remained.
The quick flame she witnessed coming from his mouth still shocked her, even though she no longer wondered how he’d made the fire catch when there wasn’t kindling to hold the blaze.Even though Aodh said his kind weren’t magicians, a level of magic existed in things like an eternal flame burning in an empty grate.However, she would keep those words to herself.
As he stood, he glanced in her direction.His eyes slowly roamed along her body from face to foot before he exhaled and started toward the front door.
“Start your bath.Someone will come.I need to meet with the elders, but I will return and take you around after you rest.”Halfway to the door, he stopped and faced her again.His voice crossed the space, “Do not leave this room without me.”
Crossing her arms over her chest, she held back the response to tell him where he could shove his commands.She’d spent the last few years protecting herself and Morlie in a dark and cruel world.A world that made a woman fight to survive in ways that had nothing to do with the lilac, second sun in the sky.But she wasn’t stupid and didn’t know enough about these dragon-shifters to go tromping around.Aodh may not want to make a meal of her and Morlie, but could he speak for all those in his Thunder?
“Fine.”
