Page 8 of Stormbinder King
Twisting back, I saw a shadow chasing me, leaping agilely through the trees and past the branches that I was stumbling through.
Holy hell
Was thatJack? Why would he want to catchmeso badly?
My heart was pounding, and not from the exertion alone.
Shadows covered his face, but I remembered the intense, fixed way he had kept his eyes on me.
What was he going to do when he caught me?
He leaped over a jagged rock with an easy, almost animalistic grace, as I fled in panic, forcing me to veer sideways to avoid him.
And yet I ran, even knowing he was faster, he was stronger.
If he wanted to, he could easily catch me
And when I burst into the moonlight, my lungs heaving for breath, I realized I had been herded neatly, trapped like a rabbit in a dense circular clearing between heavy, gasping trees.
My hands groped around for a way out, but I found none, my fingers scrabbling desperately down the tree trunks, slick with dripping humidity.
I couldn’t take my eyes off Jack.
He seemed barely out of breath, like a changeling in the forest clearing.
There was a beam of moonlight that spun down between the leaves and he walked through it, the light doing strange things, making him seem otherworldly, inhuman.
He took one step toward me as I gasped, the laces cutting into my flesh.
My thighs were trembling so much that my feet wouldn’t move.
Up close, he was even more disturbingly handsome, those blue eyes mesmerizing, his cheekbones and jawline like cut glass. I felt like I was rooted to the spot.
Why wouldn’t my legs move?
“What’s your name, beautiful one?” he asked, flashing that bright gleaming smile at me as he took another step closer.
Then another.
“A-A-A-ndromeda,” I replied, feeling my cheeks flaming with shame, and hating my name.
I took one halting step sideways, my nipples rubbing against the fabric of my dress, breasts tight and panting against the agonizingly cutting bone in the bodice.
“That’s a beautiful name,” he said, his voice low and rich, some unique note in it that made my knees go weak.
“Do you know who I am?” he continued.
I took one more step sideways, hitting the tree hard and knocking the remaining breath from my lungs.
Jack seemed to gleam as he passed through the moonlight, the silver-spun color of his hair melding into the exquisite sharp planes of his face.
I was pressed so hard against the tree that the bark was digging into my back, splitting the delicate lace of my dress.
“Let me get a better look at you, sweetheart,” Jack said, his voice flowing over me like rich, decadent honey.
He put a hand on my arm and drew me over into where the moonlight lay across the clearing.
“Aren’t you afraid of what’s out here?” I gasped involuntarily as another howl split the night air.
