Such. An. Infuriating. Male.

Maeve stomped down the forest path toward her cabin, surrounded by woods way too cheery and lighthearted to suit her own mood.

She should have known Arawn was going to be a jerk about this. That annoying smile of his…she wanted to wipe it off his face with a shovel. Fire licked along her veins, wanting out. Deep inside, that presence she first felt when she walked into the Grove and saw him shifted and hissed—though it seemed far from enraged.

Maeve frowned. In fact, that rattling, flame-encased darkness appeared to be…amused? As if readying for play. A very primal, feral sort of play.

Blinking, she shook her head. She was losing it. Barely two days in his dominion, and her sanity was unraveling like a loose ball of yarn. She was in dire need of some downtime, a few peaceful hours spent in the cabin with a good book and nothing but silence all around her.

To her surprise, her new lodging came equipped with a shelf full of books, all from her favorite genre. Since Arawn didn’t seem like the romance-reading type, it was likely courtesy of his acute observations of her tastes, the books a thoughtful amenity. She’d already finished a historical this morning, would start on the paranormals next.

Maybe that would banish the image of—

Her foot caught on a root, she stumbled, crashed, tumbled down the deep slope on the side of the path, branches snapping at her, roots and stones scratching at her clothes, her skin…until her fall stopped abruptly. Steel bands of muscle held her, a stranger’s heat brushing over her body.

A flash of light red, blue eyes in a face of gold-kissed white, the features elegantly masculine. “I’ve got you.”

Shifting time and space amid an inexorable wave of horror.

“I’ve got you.” His arms wrapped around her from behind, hauled her back from the window in the main room of the warehouse. “You can’t escape me, pretty little Maeve.”

She sobbed, rammed her elbow back trying to hit his stomach, but he held her fast, and she didn’t have enough room. Her bare feet dragged across the rough concrete floor as he hauled her back into the adjacent room. Back into her windowless hell.

“It seems,” he said, his breath acrid on her skin, “that you’re not good enough to be left unchained. This is on you. You leave me no choice but to use the shackles.”

The mattress springs shrieked as he threw her on the bed, the sound firing off a thousand warning bells in her bruised and battered mind, connecting it to—

She heaved, though nothing came up, her stomach empty.

He yanked her arms up while she was still shaky from the dry heaves, and locked the manacles around her wrists. She tried to kick him. His hand closed around her ankle, twisting until it cracked.

Her scream shredded her throat.

“Pretty little Maeve,” he mused, his blue eyes glinting with a cold fire. “Maybe I need to do something about that beauty of yours. Mark you so you know who you belong to.”

The light glinted off the blade as he brought it to her face.

Fire. Flames rolling out from her core with a roar of primal wrath, her conscious mind frozen in terror.

The next second, the blaze died down, as if a burner had been turned off. She sat backed up against a tree, breathing so fast she saw lights swirling in front of her, and an unknown male crouching several feet away, his hand outstretched. He made a soothing gesture, as if petting down a wild thing, and the last of the embers in her blood extinguished.

“I’m sorry,” the male said gently, a tremor underneath his words. “I shouldn’t have touched you. You were falling and I… I’m sorry.”

Cold sweat slicked her skin, and she shook, shook so hard the bark scratched her back. Her stomach turned, and she whirled around to the side and vomited in the nearest bush.

Leaves rustling beside her. She didn’t look up, couldn’t, her body caught in the vise grip of her nausea.

Dark warmth whispering over her nape, fingers gathering her hair up and away from her face.

“Kelior,” Arawn said, his voice quiet as he held Maeve’s hair without ever touching her skin. “Leave.”

“Yes, sire.” A murmur of regret, and then the soft sound of the other male’s retreat.

She heaved, again and again, until nothing came anymore, her gut cramped and hurting. And all the while Arawn’s presence was a hum of patient darkness beside her.

Trembling, she hung her head, sniffling, her fingers digging into the earth and moss. Brittle. She felt so brittle, as frangible as the cracked vase everyone assumed she was. And wasn’t it true? Wasn’t she broken beyond repair?

A sharp tug on her scalp.

Her spine locked. Slowly, she raised her head, turned it, swept her eyes up the muscled length of Arawn’s legs, over his groin—she swallowed—to his torso, to that face of harsh angles and brutal beauty. Which currently sported a sensual smirk.

“I do like seeing you in this position, Wildfire.”

Another, longer tug on her hair, making her heart race and wholly inappropriate tingles shoot down her spine…and right between her legs.

She scrambled to her feet so fast she staggered. He let go of her hair, let her back up, but that smirk remained on his face, along with the spark of hunger in his eyes.

Heat washed over her, and she ground her teeth and curled her hands to fists, anger a sizzle in her blood. “You’re shameless.”

“Hm.” He surveyed her, his perusal far too interested. “You only singed your clothes a little this time. Pity.”

She refused to glance down at herself. Re-fused. Instead, she muttered an insult under her breath and stormed off, lest she make a rude gesture at the Demon Lord. Even if it served him right.

By the time she reached the cabin, she realized her limbs no longer trembled, and the feeling of shattering at the slightest touch was gone, chased away by steely fire and flexing talons in her core…in response to a certain Demon Lord’s teasing.

That fire lasted her throughout the rest of the day, through dinner with Lucía and the chill kiss of the evening, her mind settling back into timid quiet only when she was about to crawl into bed. Specters of her past crept up her spine like icy shadows, made her shiver despite the warmth in the cabin.

A thump on her door. Her pulse spiked, those icy fingers of dread closing around her heart. She inched toward the door, peeked out through the open window pane. A small dark…thing lay in front of the door.

Opening it, she bent down, inspected what turned out to be an animal. The bat shook its tiny head, flapped its wings, and flew off again. Leaving a note.

Wary, she picked it up, read it—and crumpled it to a ball.

“Jerk!” she shouted into the night, and slammed the door shut.

Snarling, she stalked to the bed, slipped in. When she fell asleep later, it was to glowing embers of her simmering anger, spiced with sparks of amusement she would never admit to.

No matter how much a tiny part of her laughed at his nerve of wishing her, “Sweet dreams.”