Page 56 of A Scar in the Bone
Nothing.
His lips grazed my throat, sharp teeth lightly scoring my skin, his tongue licking, and then his mouth closing on me, sucking deep on my pulse point. The sensation was too erotic, too distracting. I moaned, arching into him, rubbing my breasts into the thick slab of his chest, and he growled against my skin, “Little Flame, could you burn any hotter?”
I froze beneath him.
He continued to love on my throat, unaware of my sudden withdrawal.
Clearing my throat, I whispered his name, letting it land tentatively on the air between us and our steaming breaths like a wish, a hope … a plea. “Fell?”
He stiffened. Turned to a block of stone over me, confirming my fear, my mistake.
My terrible,terriblemistake.
This was not Fell.
I shoved at the great breadth of shoulders and pushed him away, off me, breaking the contact of hard flesh against mine.
Not Fell. Of course not.
With a panicked whimper, I pulled back my arm and sent my fist crashing into his face.
He grunted.
I scrambled back on the bed and snatched up a pillow, slapping it over my body and hugging it close, using it as a shield to cover my nakedness, since my shift was now a ball somewhere on the floor.
I stared at him, my eyes wide and aching in my face, cutting through the darkness directly to him, looking him up and down and noting all the little things I had missed in my muddled state, the residue of a nightmare still clinging, betraying me, unkindly blinding me to what were now glaring differences.
The hair, yes, but also the set of his shoulders, somehow more predatory. The scent of him was not like Fell either. Loam and crisp snow swirled in my nose. How had I missed that?
“I am not Fell,” he growled in a voice that was different, too. It was still deep, but somehow more rolling, more lyrical … more aroused. He lightly fingered his chin where I’d landed the blow.
“Clearly,” I panted, my entire body quivering, suddenly drained, depleted as though I’d just run through sucking sand.
“Evidently not so clearly,” he countered, his voice possessing all the precision of a whip landing on its target. I winced at the toosoon comparison.
“Why are you in my den?” He should not be here like this, at night when I was asleep and at my most vulnerable. I had thought this my sanctuary—that I was free of him.
“You screamed.” There was faint accusation in the words, in a voice hard and slightly panting … as though he was still affected by our—bywhatwe had done. “You screamed, so I came.” A simple explanation and yet none of this felt simple. He gave me an exasperated look. “We’ve slept in the same space for weeks, Tamsyn … Did you not think I wouldn’t be alert to you? That I would not be on edge … making sure you are all right?”
I inhaled with a wince. Of course. He’d been nothing but attentive and solicitous toward me since our rekon. It would nothave been a switch he could simply flip off when I returned to my own den.
I flexed my fingers anew, and there—
There it was.
Fell. Not just in my dream.
I felt the swelling in my palm, the stinging lines of that deeply carved X buzzing with sudden life, a wild and desperate thing … like an animal trapped, ready to gnaw its own leg off to break free from its trap.
“I had a nightmare,” I explained vaguely, hoping that would be enough. “It happens.”
“So you screamed? Must have been quite the nightmare.”
I gave a single, hard nod. “I’ve been dreaming more lately.” I wet my lips. “Since I emerged from my svefn.” And during my svefn. My svefn had been one endless dream.
He gazed at me for a long moment before expelling a breath. “You’re safe here, Tamsyn. You know that. The Terror will not find you here.”
DidI know that? Was there safety anywhere?
