Page 77 of Wolf Caged
Heat curled through my veins, pooling low, a wicked sort of feeling that tempted me to give in to it and shed my inhibitions, to let go of everything I clung to so fiercely and embrace the parts of me that wanted to be wild and free.
“Mead. Laced with sweet woodruff. It is traditional for Beltane.” He stood in a far-too-sexy fluid motion and went to the table, peered into several of the pitchers and returned with one, pouring it into my glass. “Water, to make it easier on your delicate palate.”
“My palate is not delicate.” I sipped the drink to prove I could handle it, but didn’t feel I was proving much now that he had watered it down. The taste was pleasant, if a little earthy, and it was sweet, leaving a faint lingering taste of honey, vanilla and cinnamon on my tongue.
He chuckled again, almost goading me into tossing my mead in his face. Maybe I would have if we had been alone and not the subject of scrutiny. Too many people were watching us. Watching me. A stranger among them, seated beside their king as if I was his queen.
Or his pet.
He swirled a finger down my bare arm, from my shoulder to my elbow, the laziness of that touch reeking of entitlement. I rolled my shoulder, trying to dislodge him, even when some secret part of me craved more of that leisurely brush of his fingers across my skin.
“I’m sure this is drugged.” I peered into my goblet, the scent of it matching that unusual tang in the air. “Or I can’t hold my liquor.”
I went to stand to set it on the table, but Kaeleron’s hand clamped around my wrist, forcing me to remain sitting beside him.
“Drink. It is good for you.” He gestured to the glass.
“Apparently, it’s good for fae and bad for wolf shifters. This is going to my head too quickly.” I tried to stand again.
Kaeleron yanked me back down, his voice a black snarl. “Sit.”
“I’m not a dog. You can’t order me to sit and expect me to beg for a treat.” I ripped my arm free of his grip. “If I had known you’d be like this tonight, I might not have found Beltane so intriguing.”
He looked at his own goblet, at the dark liquid that sloshed towards him as he tilted it, and muttered, “Perhaps the brew is stronger this year.”
His silver gaze slid to me.
“Or perhaps it is something else intoxicating me.”
A shiver tumbled down my spine and through my limbs, heat chasing it, and I blamed the mead rather than that husked admission.
“Plenty of females here.” I swept my arm across the entire glade. “You’d probably have your pick if you announced you were in need of a little entertainment.”
“I have my entertainment right here, little lamb, and there is no female in this crowd that is a match for you.”
“It’s the dress or the booze. I can’t decide which has transformed you into this… this… whatever this is. Is calling you an asshole grounds for punishment?” I wanted to take back those words as soon as they flew from my lips.
His handsome face darkened but then his lips curved into another toe-curling smile that flashed straight white teeth. “Perhaps. Call me it and see how imaginative I get with my punishment. It may or may not involve that altar.”
“Is there someone else I could sit with?” I shot to my feet, blood heating to a dangerous degree, unable to deny now that it was Kaeleron who flustered me and not the mead. “Your sister perhaps?”
His gaze lowered to the seat, a silent order to resume my position beside him. “My sister is absent.”
I frowned at that. This was apparently an important celebration. What was more important that Jenavyr was missing it to attend to that business instead? Or maybe his sister had witnessed her brother tipsy on mead too many times in the past and didn’t want to suffer the embarrassment anymore.
Kaeleron reached up and pushed his black hair back.
Revealing his pointed ears.
They were bare.
No silver tipped their points, shielding them from view.
I tried not to stare, but my eyes refused to move from their delicately pointed tips as a desire rose within me, one that felt more compelling than any that had come before it.
I itched to reach out and feather my fingers along them.
I sipped my drink instead and took my seat again, this time picking a spot right at the end of the black chaise, as far from this tempting fae king as I could get.
