Page 146 of Wolf Caged
I feathered my fingers down to her throat, to the bite mark she was hiding beneath her dark robe. “I am not.”
“Gods, you’re annoying,” she muttered, planted her hands against my chest and shoved me backwards, over the threshold of her room. “Go away.”
She did not mean it. I knew it the moment she lingered, her palms searing my chest through my shirt, her heart thundering in my ears as she stared at her hands. And swallowed.
Her fingers flexed the tiniest amount, but I noticed.
Just as I had noticed how she had stood her ground when faced with my other side, my true nature, rather than fleeing. The strength she denied having had shone so brightly in that moment that I could not comprehend how she still did not see it. I had seen it the moment I set eyes on her in that cage, and I had been convinced that strength would be crushed under the weight of her new situation once she had awakened in my world, sold into service.
But instead, she had risen to every challenge.
She was bold.
Brave.
Even when faced with people far stronger, and infinitely more dangerous, than she was.
I lingered with her, a war brewing within me as I breathed in her scent and gazed at her, drinking in her beauty. I should not be here. I knew it. This obsession with her was dangerous, and this path I was treading was deadly. I had a plan, and I had to stick to it, no matter the cost.
Vengeance was everything.
Something I doubted such a beautiful, tender soul could understand.
I went to step back but her fingers tightened in my shirt, clutching the material and holding me in place. I could have teleported if I had wanted, leaving her empty handed, but Ifound myself lingering again, filled with a profound need to remain here with her.
Doubts clouded her blue eyes, the soft lines of her face hardening as she struggled with something, making me realise I was not the only one who waged an internal battle this night.
When she grew increasingly tense, her war becoming more intense under the oppressing silence, I could not hold my tongue. I broke the silence for her, shattering its hold on her.
“When you shifted, you caught me off guard. Something no one has managed in a long time.” I kept my voice even, steady even as nerves rose within me, stripping me of my strength. A foolish response. I had no reason to be nervous. I had only confessed the truth. Yet I felt oddly vulnerable as I stood before her, enduring her scrutiny as she studied me. I saw her wolf before me, her pure white fur as bright as the full moon, her eyes as blue as the ones peering into my soul now. “Your wolf is beautiful.”
Those soft words left my lips unbidden.
A confession that stripped me bare.
And the blush that darkened her cheeks was the most bewitching one yet.
I wanted to touch it and feel the heat of it as she struggled to hold my gaze, as a need to look at anything but me filled her, as if she could avoid what I had said by simply looking away. Or maybe she did not know how to react, maybe no one had ever told her she was beautiful.
Or if they had, they had not really meant it.
So I held her gaze, framed her face with my palms to keep it locked on me, and stared deep into her soul to ensure she heard me.
“You are beautiful, Saphira, and I find your beauty is not only on the surface. Your inner beauty outshines the external. I amnot sure how it is possible, but it is true. You are a rare, and wonderful thing to behold, and to know.”
“Shut up,” she muttered and lowered her gaze.
“Tell me you believe me and I will shut up,” I husked.
She sighed and her features shifted, that war erupting again, born of my request and my words this time.
And then she mumbled, “I believe you.”
“Good…” I released her, took hold of the hand I had gifted with a band of moonlight, and pressed a kiss to the back of it, making her jump, “…night.”
She gripped my hand when I went to leave and I glanced at her, waiting to see if she had finally found her voice.
“Do all unseelie have it?” she whispered.
