Page 12 of The Manticore's Human Queen
I feel him lean in as well, his breath warm against my hair, then my temple. For a single, heart-stopping moment, the world narrows to the small, charged space between our mouths.
The cries of the other caged beasts, the damp chill of the stone floor, the very bars that separate us—it all vanishes. There is only the intense space between us, the promise of a kiss that feels like it could either save me or shatter me completely.
The urge to close that distance, to taste him, to lose myself in him, is the most powerful sensation I have ever felt.
The moment stretches, a taut, shimmering thread of an impossible possibility. His lips are so close, his scent—a wild, masculine, utterly honest scent of musk and of strength—fills my senses.
My entire being yearns to bridge the final, infinitesimal gap between us. But the fear, the lifetime of conditioning, the sheer, overwhelming terror of what that kiss would mean, is a more powerful force.
To kiss him would be to admit the truth of what I feel, a truth so dangerous it could get us both killed. It is one thing to be a secret sympathizer, a healer in the shadows. It is another thing entirely to be the lover of a caged beast, a traitor to my own captors.
The reality of our situation—the bars, the danger, the insurmountable odds—crashes down on me with the force of a physical blow.
With a small, choked sob, I pull away, the spell shattered. My heart is hammering, my entire body a taut, screaming wire of a want and a fear so profound they are indistinguishable.
I stumble back from the cage, my hand flying to my mouth, my eyes wide with the horror of my own audacity.
I have never been more terrified, or more alive, in my life. Without a word, without a backward glance, I turn and flee, not from him, but from the beautiful, and utterly impossible truth I have just seen in his eyes, and in my own heart.
15
TAREK
Restlessness is a poison in my blood. My body is healing, the fire in my leg receding to a dull, manageable ache. I can stand now, can pace the ten-foot length of my cage, but it is not enough. I am a manticore of Osiris. This confinement is a slow, grinding torment to my soul.
I push myself, ignoring the protests of my muscles, forcing myself to walk, to put weight on the injured leg. Each step is a small victory, a reclamation of the strength that was stolen from me. The pain is a clarifying force, a welcome agony that burns away the last vestiges of the helpless beast I have been and reforges the warrior. I am a weapon with no war to fight, a protector with nothing to protect.
I have a mission to complete, brothers to find, and now, I have a promise to keep to the brave, impossible woman who is risking everything for me. My strength is no longer just my own. It is hers. And I will not fail her.
She appears in the twilight, a silent ghost moving through the sleeping menagerie, but tonight she is not a bearer of solace. She is a storm. Her face is a pale mask of a barely contained fury, her green eyes blazing with a righteous fire that makes my ownblood heat in response. She does not speak of her fears tonight. She speaks of her anger.
“He wants to display me,” she says, her voice a low, trembling wire of pure rage. She paces before my cage, her movements agitated, a caged storm of her own, trapped within the confines of her incandescent fury. “Like one of his hunting trophies. He finds my silent defiance amusing. A game. He told me he intends to win once we are married. He will not just own me. He will break me. He will shatter every shard of my will until I am nothing but a docile, compliant reflection of his desires,” I confess.
“I will kill him,” Tarek growls, his voice a low, dangerous rumble.
“He will relish in my forced submission, a grotesque parody of love, a twisted monument to his cruel ambition. But he is wrong. He will not break me. He may bend me, he may scar me, but he will never, ever shatter my spirit,” I continue.
“He will never,” Tarek growls, his voice a low, dangerous rumble.
My hands clench into fists, my claws sliding free with a soft, menacing click. Every word she speaks is another drop of fuel on the fire that is building in my soul. I see the pathetic, sneering face of the elven lord in my mind, and I want to tear the bars of this cage apart, to hunt down the pathetic worm who dares to call her his pet, and to show him what a true beast looks like.
Her anger, her spirit, her beautiful, unbreakable defiance—it all culminates in an overwhelming surge of possessive need in my soul. My desire for freedom, which has been a strategic objective, a necessity for my mission, now merges completely with my desire for her. The two have become inseparable, a single, all-consuming, primal need. To be free is to free her. To free her is to claim her.
I watch her as she paces, a storm in a silken gown, and my control, the iron-willed discipline that has been the bedrock of my entire existence, is stretched to its absolute limit. My mission is no longer just about reaching Rach and finding my brothers. It is about her.
I have to be worthy of the trust she has placed in me. I can no longer be the silent, wounded beast she seeks for comfort. I have to become the male she deserves—the warrior who can not only offer her solace, but can tear down the walls of her prison. The time has come for me to be a king.
I cannot hold it in any longer. The truth of my intention, the vow that has been forged in the fire of my rage and my desire, demands to be spoken. I move to the bars of the cage, my presence a sudden, intense force that stops her frantic pacing. She freezes, her wide, forest-green eyes flying to mine.
I can see her pulse, a frantic, wild bird, beating in the delicate hollow of her throat.
“One day, you will be mine,” I say, the words a low, guttural promise. I watch the conflict in her eyes—the terror warring with a nascent, exquisite hope. “But not like this,” I continue, my gaze fierce and possessive, a brand I am searing onto her very soul. “Not as a prisoner to be taken. Not as a prize won in a burning cage.”
My vision is no longer of the filthy straw and the cold iron bars of the menagerie. It is of a future I will forge for us, a future I will hew from the very flesh of our enemies if I have to. “It will be in the open,” I vow, “beneath a boundless sky. As my mate.”
My words, my promise of an honorable, beautiful, impossible future, hang in the air between us. I see the fear in her eyes, but I also see the brilliant, undeniable light of a hope she can no longer deny. And I know, with an absolute and unshakable certainty, that I will burn down this entire, rotten world to make that promise a reality.
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