15.
Thalia was pissed off.
Mostly because Raff had a point. The hail had turned into sleet, slush when it hit the ground, and the ice was sticking, enough that the ground was half-covered in white, as far as she could see. The cabin was rustic, at best. Primitive would be a better word. There were no indoor hygiene facilities; a shack out back had a hole excavated for such a purpose.
Inside, everything was built of unfinished wood, a few shelves with random tins, a rag braid rug on the floor—even the furniture looked handmade, from the bed stand to the rough-edged mattress and table and chairs. The lack of trophies made her think this was no normal hunter’s retreat. As she thought that, Raff built a fire efficiently from the wood that was stacked against the wall near the hearth. Even the stones that had been placed were asymmetrical, found rather than quarried.
“This is an Animari hideaway,” he said then.
She asked, “How do you know?” before she thought better of it and then wished she could swallow the question.
“Scent markers. The last person who used this cabin was a cat, no one I recognize from Ash Valley, but there are traces of bear and wolf, too, along with something strange, like nothing I’ve ever encountered before.”
That was interesting. “Could it be someone from the Aerie?”
The bird shifters were notoriously reclusive and lived in a stronghold in the northwest that was said to be unreachable except by air. They’d stayed out of all Numina affairs for the last several hundred years, so if they’d emerged from hiding, it could portend an important power shift. Regardless, Thalia didn’t like the implications of an Animari hideout so deep in Eldritch territory.
Raff shrugged. “It’s possible. These other olfactory trails are old, though, barely discernable even for me. Only the cat is recent, but we already knew that from the smoking fireplace.”
“Do you think they’ll be back?”
“In this weather? Not likely. I think they knew the storm was coming and got out ahead of it.”
“Wish we’d done the same,” she muttered.
He glanced up from the small blaze he’d coaxed to life, narrowing his dark eyes. “Hey, it’s impossible to monitor the weather in a tunnel.”
“I’m not blaming you. It’s just that I’m worried about the situation at Daruvar.”
“Worry is a waste of energy. Focus on what you can change.” Saying that, Raff straightened from the hearth with effort.
Belatedly Thalia remembered his bad leg. Since he’d come here in wolf form, it hadn’t been as evident. As a human, he was limping.
“Does it hurt a lot?”
“Some,” he grunted.
“What can I do to help?”
“If you’re asking sincerely, fill that bucket with ice from outside and hang it on the hook on the fireplace. We can’t take a bath, but we can wash up a bit.”
“On it.” Normally, there would be five servants fighting to take over such mundane chores. It was novel to do it herself. “What else?”
Raff settled onto the nearest chair with a strangled groan. “Fuck me, that’s enough moving for a bit. Ah, see what’s in the tins, I suppose.”
“Two are potted meat. Two are mixed vegetables. One is fruit compote.”
“You have the veggies, then. I’ll take the meat. We can share the fruit.”
“Sounds good.”
There were no cooking facilities, so she opened the tins and heated them by setting them at the edge of the hearth. Carefully, Thalia pulled them free with the fire tongs and she was hungry enough that nothing else mattered; she raked the contents out with her fingertips and barely chewed the corn, beans, peas, and carrots. Raff was equally efficient with the meat, and she let him have most of the fruit.
“You sure?” he asked, offering the tin.
“You burned more energy shifting and you need the calories to mend that leg.”
“True enough.” He tipped his head back, his hair a dark tangle down his back as he swallowed.
For some reason, Thalia was riveted. She couldn’t look away from the movement of his throat, from the curls of his beard, and the way it framed his mouth, now slightly smeared with peach juice. It was impossible not to notice that he had gorgeous cheekbones and that the scar that peeked out from his beard looked as if it needed a soft touch, a vertical stroke, and then her fingers would be on his beard, on his lips—
She tore her gaze away with effort, conscious that her heart was pattering in her chest. I thought it was sheer arrogance when he said I’d want him eventually, but…now? Like this? There was nothing elegant or gentle about this man or their surroundings. She was used to candlelight and carefully orchestrated seduction, measured pleasures, and orgasms that left her lightly satiated.
This…would be something else entirely.
If she let it happen.
Briskly, Thalia rose to check on the ice bucket and found that it had not only melted, it was also warm enough to wash. “I’d give you some privacy, but there’s nowhere for me to go, except out into the cold.”
“I wouldn’t do that to my good wife,” Raff said.
His dark eyes twinkled as if he knew how little she considered herself to fill that role. In name only had never seemed so sad yet apropos. As he shucked his shirt and pants to sponge off the blood, that seemed wrong suddenly. No matter what, he’d shattered his leg coming to her aid, and it felt rather despicable to let him struggle when she was perfectly capable of helping.
“Let me.”
He glanced up in surprise when she plucked the rag from his hands. Thalia didn’t speak, conscious of rising heat in her cheeks. She washed away the red, rinsed the cloth, working on automatic, until he was clean. Though she tried to feign a certain clinical detachment, her hands trembled when she moved upward to clean the blood from his chest. The scrapes had already healed, but he still bore the signs of old injury on his skin. Without her volition, her hands lingered on the scar at his shoulder.
Suddenly, warm fingers wrapped around hers. “Are you bathing or seducing me? I’m not opposed, mind, but I need to know your intentions.”
“I wish I could answer that.” Flustered, she tried to pull back, but the wolf lord didn’t let go.
Instead, he raised her hand to his mouth and kissed each knuckle, one by one. The whisper-light rasp on his beard against her skin sent a shiver through her, a promise of illicit pleasures. Thalia imagined it chafing her thighs, his mouth moving lower, lower, and suddenly, she was all liquid heat, quivering and breathless. Longing never hit her like this, ferocious and relentless, but now she was squirming, legs pressed together.
“Lady Silver, you’re on your knees, caressing a naked man’s chest. How can you not know your own intentions?”
When he put it that way, everything clarified in her head. She raised her chin. “Then…I suppose I’m seducing you. Any objections?”
For a moment, Raff didn’t think he’d heard correctly. Teasing this woman almost never turned out the way he expected. Take now for instance.
Instead of scuttling away like a nervous crab, she was magnificent on her knees before him, eyes like a night sky full of stars. Hesitantly, he reached for her hair and realized she was serious when she let him take it down. The strands spilled like quicksilver into his hands, light and silken. He brushed it back from her face and breathed her in.
She’s serious.
Her scent was subtly different, spiced with pheromones, and he reacted instantly. There was no faking this, no chemical substitute for real desire, and he had spoken honestly when he told her nothing got him hotter than being wanted. His cock perked at the promise of enthusiastic sex, and she watched it happen. That only turned him on more.
“Your interest is powerful,” he said softly. “Shall we go to bed, my good wife?”
He offered her a hand up, which she accepted gracefully. She surprised him again when she pulled off her shirt and skimmed out of her trousers in careful, precise motions, then she folded her clothes and set them on the chair he’d vacated. The air in the cabin was still chilly, not enough to make him shiver, but her skin was delicate.
Raff pulled her to him, warming her with his body as they moved toward the bed together. She also tried to lend him her strength, though his leg was just a residual ache now. A night’s rest would put him to rights, but if she wanted to coddle him—well, he wouldn’t say no.
Does that make me the wolf that cried wolf?
“Are you all right?”
“Well enough to make you feel wonderful, I’ll wager. I wish this wasn’t happening in a stranger’s bed, but here we are.”
Climbing in beside him, Thalia seemed relatively unconcerned about that. “You’re excited this time,” she observed.
“Is that surprising?”
“Well, we’ve been together before, and you didn’t—you weren’t—”
“The difference is you, Lady Silver. You didn’t want me then. Now your body is soft and sweet and silky-hot. It seems you like a little misguided heroism.”
“Don’t tease me.”
He felt her flush, felt the heat shimmer up from her shoulders past her neck into her cheeks. With gentle fingertips he traced her fey features: sharp cheekbones, elegant little nose, pointed chin. Before he got to her soft mouth, she bit him.
“Is it all right if I kiss you?” he asked.
“You have my permission for…everything.”
That was heady, carte blanche to touch her, but it left him oddly tentative. He already knew her stomach was sensitive and that the idea of being caught turned her on…ah, I can work with this. Raff swept aside her hair and set his mouth on her throat, just below her left ear.
“Hope the cat who used this cabin last doesn’t circle back because of the storm. Might be shocked by the deliciously dirty things I’ll be doing to you.”
A small sound escaped her, and he’d barely touched her yet. She’s so responsive. This will be fun. He didn’t tease her further, taking her mouth in a kiss that was softer and sweeter than he planned, first just a series of pecks that deepened when her lips parted and clung, when she let out a breath that he drank in.
When she raised a hand to touch his beard, he pulled back a little. “Does it bother you?”
Eldritch males were hairless bastards from what he’d seen, so it startled him when she shook her head swiftly. “I like how it feels.”
The cabin was dark apart from the orange crackle of the fire, but it seemed to give her courage. Thalia trailed her fingers lower, brushing his shoulders and settling on his chest, flexing her nails like a cat. He drew in a breath and let it out as a groan as she tested his pectoral muscles. His nipples responded to each tease and scrape. Before, he wouldn’t have said he was especially sensitive, there, but her light, experimental touches made his abs tighten and his toes curl.
Passive acceptance wasn’t his style, so when she paused to nuzzle her cheek against his chest, he tangled his hands in her hair and kissed her. From the little gasp he swallowed, she liked the tug that brought her mouth to his. This time, he went slow and deep, tasting her while he ran his hands over her back, long, luxurious strokes that made her squirm. Her scent bloomed all around him, a deepening arousal that went to his head like strong liquor.
“You really want it,” he whispered, right against her mouth. “You’re so hot and hungry. If your loyal soldiers could see you now…”
That little nudge at her secret predilections sent a shiver through her. Thalia’s eyes closed, and Raff thought she’d never been more beautiful than with her breath coming fast, lashes fluttering against smooth cheeks. He kissed a path downward, skimming over her breasts toward her stomach, such a sweet, strange erogenous zone.
“Oh, you wish they could. See you. You want them to watch you take my cock? I bet you do. It would be the sexiest thing they’ve ever seen.”
“Stop,” she whimpered.
“Stop what?”
“Saying such—”
“Don’t pretend. You’re trembling, that’s how much you like it.” Raff bit down on her shoulder, gently. “I don’t mind if you fantasize about people watching us. I’m not shy, I’ll make that dream come true someday, if you want.”
“Oh fuck.”
“That’s the idea, princess. But I’ll make you come a few times first.”
She startled at what he guessed sounded like a bold claim and then her entire body arched when he pressed his mouth to the silky skin at her hip. Raff kissed a path across her belly, gauging her response by the way she twisted and shivered and finally sank her hands into his hair, not trying to tug him away, but silently pleading for more. He used his mouth and his teeth, slowly working lower, until she was writhing under him, hands urgent on his back.
“You’re too slow!”
“Calm down, we have all night.”
“Unless that cat interrupts us…or the Eldritch who are hunting us see the smoke. We need to…do it, so I can think straight again.”
“I’m flattered,” Raff said. “I think. And your complaint is noted.”
He buried his face between her legs then, and she shrieked, a breathy, shocked sound that turned him on so fiercely that his dick throbbed. A little trickle of precome slicked the head and he shifted it carefully. No squeezing, no friction, not yet. Her thighs parted around him as he kissed each labia with tender precision.
Thumbing her sex open in a soft motion, he went in lightly with his tongue, learning her tastes by the way she squirmed and sighed and moved his head. Soon, she was rolling her hips upward, whimpering sexy little incoherent sounds. Thalia wrapped her legs around his head, gasping, moaning, and it was like nobody had ever eaten her before, like each lick, each caress felt brand new.
Her soft sounds got louder, taken on a frustrated edge. “You’re driving me crazy, but…I can’t go like this,” she finally panted out.
He lifted his head and planted a kiss on her quivering belly. “What do you need?”