Page 47 of Emma & Edmund

"Delicious," the Cheshire grin cutting through her face forced Emma to take a frightful step back, colliding with Edmund's hard body, still cradling his hand as if the woman had burned him. "No kin of man can taste so eternal."

"It's time for you to leave." It wasn't even her the woman was speaking of, but the audacity offended Emma just the same. The woman had been allowed to come for answers, and now that she had given them, however true they may be, the need for her had ceased. Edmund's continued shocked silence only bolstered Emma's resolve.

"But I-"

"Now. I'll escort you out."

Chapter 13

When the door clicked closed, Emma peered through the window, watching to ensure the woman truly did leave.

Fury rolled off her, indignant on Edmund's behalf. How dare she say the things she did? Of course, Edmund was a man, what else could he be?

It didn't matter if his skin wasn't pink or ruby blood didn't flow through his veins, he was Lord Edmund Lockhart, a studied and distinguished earl, and he deserved to be treated as such.

Turning back to the rest of the cabin, she expected Edmund to be as angry as her. After all, it had been him offended beyond belief.

Instead, she found him sitting in nearly the same spot Molada had been, hands clasped together and elbows propped on his spread knees. His head hung low, casting shadows over his face. Emma didn't need to see it to feel the sadness that filled the room.

"Pay her no mind!" Emma threw herself on her knees before him, trying to catch a glimpse of his kind eyes or playful smile. "She knows nothing. Do not believe a word she says."

"She knows, Emma," Edmund murmured without lifting his head, his voice tight. "She knew about me, my family, my plight. And I just know she knows even more than she said."

"She only said you weren't a child of man. How vague! You speak, walk, and act like a man. What else could you possibly be?"

"A yellow-blooded monster."

He said it without a beat, without pause after Emma's question, and her fury returned with renewed interest.

"Look at me," she demanded, slipping two fingers under his chin. He could have easily resisted her but relented just enough that grey met black.

"I couldn't care less what you are," Emma all but yelled, boring her eyes into his as if it would make him believe her. "I knowwhoyou are. Since the moment I met you, you have been nothing less than the kindest, most generous, and most upstanding gentleman I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. I do not care what she said, I have yet to meet a better example of a true man."

Edmund sighed deeply, pulling his face from Emma's clutches. Standing, he was halfway across the room in two steps, before stopping suddenly.

In the same instant, he turned on his heel.

Emma, who had already leaped up to chase after him, collided with his chest and would have toppled right back to the ground if her previous target didn't shoot out an arm impossibly fast, catching her across the back.

"I am not a man." His voice dropped to an octave that Emma had never heard before, making her tongue go dry and tumbling her stomach. It didn't help he hadn't released her, the warmth of him radiating through his sleeve and searing into her back.

One of his thighs rested between her legs, splayed from the rear fall, and when she felt his fingertips run across her spine, her mind betrayed her.

She suddenly remembered a remarkably similar scenario, spare for her silken skirts tossed to the ground. How would he react if Edmund somehow knew of the now-familiar desperate pulsing of her inner core?

Although she realized when she finally gathered the courage to look him in the eye, intent on asking him to let her go, she saw a familiar spark in Edmund's black eyes. A spark she might have never seen before in this world, but one awfully familiar in dreamland.

A hunger. Deep, predatorial hunger. A gleam that had Dream-Emma throwing herself at him, melting to his every touch. And, Emma realized, it was wholly unfair how the allure didn't lesson in reality. How despicable it was that it was only heightened.

And since when had he pulled her up ever so gently? So softly they were nearly chest-to-chest without her noticing?

He leaned in close, his hot breath washing over her cheeks, repeating, "I am not a man."

"I don't care."

The whispered words hardly left her lips before he engulfed her, wrapping her in his iron embrace and crashing his lips to hers.

A mewl ripped from her throat, melting into his touch as she had practiced in slumber. This time, though, was so remarkablyreal. While her mind had imagined how his tusks would press into her cheeks, it couldn't mimic the remarkable stiffness.

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