Page 54 of Ruthless Scoundrel
“But what if I’m not? How will you get me back? How will you find me?” she asks with genuine worry in her voice.
“I just will,” I say, continuing the runic protection wards.
“What if someone hurts me?” she whispers.
I turn to face her. She looks scared. I know she’s spent time at court learning to lie, but she’s not lying now. Her eyes don’t leave mine as I stalk closer. I stop mere inches from her and lean down, despite the worry that she might once again spit on me.
“You want to know how I’ll find you?”
She takes a wavering breath and nods.
I pull in a deep lungful of her floral scent. “Because I have smelled your fear, your anger, and your joy. I have tasted your pleasure and your terror. You’re ingrained deep in my psyche. There’s nowhere on Gaien that I couldn’t find you.”
She licks her lips, her cheeks stained scarlet. “What if they kill me?”
Magic surges through my veins and lights up my eyes. “I will hunt down everyone whose scent I smell on you, then chase Nol’Ther across the sky to reclaim you from her embrace.”
“Jasper,” she whispers my name like a prayer as she lays her hands on my chest.
I want to kiss her. Gods, I want to hold her and promise her safety. I want to liberate her from this quest and make her mine always.
Ohksana’amai.
No. She’s clouding my judgement.
Reina is my bait. She will help me save my people.
And right now, I need to get away from her in order to do that.
Still, she would be easy prey with her magic locked up if someone got past my wards and the locked door. I can’t leave her vulnerable like that, and so I won’t.
I pull the key for the manacle from my back pouch and unlock her left wrist. Her face glows with heat as I walk her back toward the bed.
“What are you doing?” she asks, her body pressing closer to mine. It’s nearly overwhelming to consider what Icoulddo in this moment, and so I refuse to let even a tendril of lust take hold in my thoughts.
I undo the button on my pistol strap, then clamp the other end of the manacle down on the top rail of the headboard.
Reina’s eyes snap down to where she’s detained, and the softness disappears from her voice as she shouts my name. She pulls on her restraint once, then glares up at me. That violent spark is back in her eyes as she raises her other hand to hit me. I grab her wrist and hold her still. She pants heavily, her gaze darting between my face and our hands as I place the butt of the pistol into her open palm.
“If anyone comes into this room that isn’t me, you shoot them,” I say, holding her hand on the deadly weapon.
“What makes you think I won’t shoot you right now?” she asks defiantly.
I get even closer just to feel the burn of her fury, then whisper, “Because the trigger lock is still engaged.”
I plant a kiss on her warm cheek and pull away all at once.
“Jasper! How do I use it?” she yells after me.
I open the door and grin back at her. “Press in the little pin above your thumb, then aim and pull the trigger.”
She turns the weapon sideways to inspect it.
“Remember, never point the gun at anything you aren’t ready to kill,” I say, then quickly close the door.
“Jasper!” she screams.
Or maybe it was “bastard.” Hard to tell from the other side of the door. I smirk and lock it, watching my opal magic surge into the key and light up the frame.
