Page 143 of Wolf Caged
I shoved off him, panting hard, springing away to a safe distance as I stared at him, at the blood trickling down his chest as he slowly lowered his surprised gaze to it.
What had I done?
He slowly canted his head and arched an eyebrow at the bleeding gashes on his chest.
And then he blinked and when his eyes opened, he was looking right at me.
“Oh,” he murmured, voice low and eerily calm. “I did not realise we were letting our beasts out.”
My ability to breathe left me as his skin paled to moon white, as inky shadows branched from his eyes and his lips darkened towards black, and the sculpted planes of his face grew more angular, feral. His lips split in a wide vicious grin that revealed jagged sharp teeth and his fingers flexed, the upper thirds of them stained black like the skin around his eyes as his nails transformed into inch long onyx claws. The pointed tips of his ears grew sharper as he inhaled, his chest straining with the hard breath he took, luring my gaze down to it.
Beautiful lines of ancient fae markings appeared on his alabaster skin, sweeping from his armpits along the line of his square pectorals to trail around their forms to his throat and over his collarbones where they faded to nothing.
But it was his eyes that bewitched me the most, had me frozen in place as I stared into them.
Crimson bled into the silver, like ink swirling in water, leaving only a jagged band of that familiar colour around his elliptical pupils.
I had never seen anything like him as shadows gathered around him.
Knew I should fear him.
Everything in me knew it, like some buried instinct that warned this male before me was dangerous, deadly, and whispered at me to run. Run fast. Run far. Before he could kill me.
Something dark glittered in his eyes, something vicious and dangerous.
I denied the instinct to run from him, shutting it down with great effort, because the only way to stop this from escalating was to do the opposite. It was to face him and apologise for what I had done.
I let the shift come over me, shaking off my wolf form.
He disappeared in a blur of night. The hairs on my nape rose, my skin prickling as awareness shot down my spine as I finished the shift.
As he slammed into me, his full body pressing against mine, startling me.
A gasp tore from my lips as he grasped my nape in a bruising grip.
And sank sharp teeth into my shoulder.
Before the pain could even register, he pulled his fangs from my flesh and swiped his tongue over the puncture wounds, the slowness of that caress sending pleasure rippling through me. I trembled with it as he eased back, staring at the marks he had placed on me, a crinkle forming between the dark slashes of his eyebrows. His hand lowered to my neck, his fingers teasing the over-sensitive skin around his bite mark, his expression unreadable.
His strange eyes lifted to meet mine, something flaring in them as they widened.
And then he was gone.
And I was alone.
I looked down at myself.
And very naked.
My ruined clothes lay a few feet from me, utterly unusable now. I could shift and trot back to the castle, but I didn’t want to let my wolf out when others might see it. I still couldn’t believe I had shown it to Kaeleron so easily, sharing that part of myself with him.
All because I had lost my temper.
I huffed and stilled as his scent teased me, my gaze drifting to the source of it.
His clothes.
I shrugged and padded across the grass to them, picked up his tunic and slipped it on. It smelled strongly of him, all wild winter storm and masculine strength, and I drew down a deep breath as I bought the material to my nose, savouring his scent. I hooked his boots over my forearm and buttoned the tunic that reached my knees, covering me nicely. I strolled back to my own boots and weapon belt, adding them to the bundle in my arms, and headed for the trees.
