Page 165 of Wolf Caged
She stepped back, holding the door open, and I frowned at her actions, the silent invite, and she huffed at me for it. “I’ll bathe them and tend to them. Consider it repayment for the kindness you showed me… but I also want a nice hefty sum taken off my debt.”
It was said teasingly, as if she no longer thought there was a debt between us.
I was not sure that there was.
I nodded and stepped into the cottage, and did not fail to notice that she had made the space more to her liking. The double bed had been moved against the wall facing the fireplace, and she had shifted the fur rug to the space between the foot of it and the fire, and had set the two armchairs facing each other on either side of it. The room felt cosier this way, despite the fact the head of the bed was now near the door.
She picked at the edge of the door as she caught me taking in the room. “I like my feet warm in bed. My bed back at my pack was positioned like this, and during the colder months, I always loved how the fire kept the chill off my feet.”
I noticed how she had said back at her pack.
Not back home.
Was she beginning to consider my court her home now?
I was not sure how that made me feel. I was not sure how Ishouldfeel. My eyebrows pitched low as she hurried past me and filled a large washbowl with water. Pleased. I felt pleased that she thought of my court as her home, that she had plans to remain here, close to me.
“I trained as a healer, like my mother. She’s taught me everything she knows and I’ve worked for years taking care of minor wounds for members of my pack.” She went to the fire and set the bowl down on the stone hearth, placing a cloth into the water, and then looked at me. “I’d love to study how to help fae with ailments and wounds. I’m sure it’s a little different to treating a wolf.”
Some deeply rooted part of me warmed, more than pleased as Saphira shared this side of herself so easily with me, allowing me to learn more about her, and strengthening that feeling that she did not want to leave the Shadow Court.
She did not wish to return to her pack.
She wanted to remain here.
With me.
And gods, there was a part of me that wanted that.
I obeyed her silent order when she pointed to the space before her, closing the door behind me and crossing the room to her as she pushed the armchair back slightly to make room for me to stand on the stone floor. She stood and faced me, her hands coming up, her fine eyebrows pinching as she studied my ruined clothes. Her fingers made light work of undoing my tunic and her expression only darkened as she pushed it off my shoulders, leaning close to me as she worked it down my arms, her breath bathing my skin.
Maddening.
While she bent and rung the cloth out, I tugged off my boots and set them aside. The first touch of the cold cloth against my chest pulled a hiss from me, and her look was chiding, teasing.
“Baby,” she whispered.
“Shall we find out how you would take it if I placed a cold wet cloth against your skin, little wolf?” I lowered my gaze to her black robe. The neck of it had gaped open slightly from her bending over, revealing creamy skin that I wanted to lick and taste.
A pleasant distraction as she bathed my wounds, carefully cleaning them one by one. Each time she bent to clean the cloth and wring it out, her robe parted a little more. Great Mother. My pulse picked up as I gazed at the hint of cleavage she had unwittingly exposed, my cock growing hard as I imagined lowering my head to stroke my tongue up the valley between her pert breasts.
She huffed as she tracked the path of my gaze and fixed her robe, stealing the beauty of her body from me.
And slapped the wet cloth against my chest.
I shuddered as the water rolled down my stomach and soaked into the waist of my pants.
“You’re healing fast,” she murmured as she inspected the worst of the cuts, a gash that started at my right shoulder and darted across it. “A fae thing? Or a king thing?”
“My innate magic takes care of most wounds for me.” I prodded the area around the gash, pleased at the progress it had made in such a short amount of time. What had been gushing blood when Malachi had given me the wound just a few short hours ago was now little more than a pink streak of irritated skin. “The proximity to Beltane is partly responsible. I have not expended much magic in the short time between then and now.”
Her cheeks slowly pinkened as she stared at my chest, her lips parting slightly as her gaze grew hooded.
Thinking about what we had done that night?
She stroked her fingertips across my chest, her blue eyes distant as they tracked her fingers, tracing the shape of my left pectoral.
“What do the fae markings you have mean?” Her fingers followed the line of where they would have been had my true nature been at the fore, and I suppressed a shiver as she stroked them over my pebbled nipple.
