Her head fell to his shoulder, lolling against his chest, and she was vaguely aware that she was being held up more than she was standing on her own.

  ‘Come, Keira,’ August said, his voice warped. ‘Let’s get you home.’ Even if she had wanted to protest, her muscles would not move, and she could do nothing else but let him lead her out into the night.

  13

  PREY

  The room swirled and spun in on itself.

  Her gaze flickered around, catching small details that she tried to hang onto. The bookcases. The mantelpiece. The djinn’s lamp upon it.

  Her cottage. At least they were in her cottage.

  A flare of a flame and the fireplace was being lit. The young man shifted away from the hearth, his silhouette basking in silvered light from the windows. His pale hair vivid in the darkness.

  ‘August,’ she whispered as he came to pick her up from the chair he had put her in. ‘I don’t feel so good.’

  ‘You’ll be alright, Keira,’ he murmured, lifted her, and shifted a little before he knelt on something soft and white.

  Elijah’s mattress. The mattress of the one who’d left her.

  But August had come.

  She clung onto him, her hands pulling at his shirt as much for balance as the need to keep close to him, her face nuzzling against his, her lips grazing his skin. She needed something. Him. Reassurances. Stability. She wasn’t sure. For a split second, she imagined kissing him – contemplated the idea of them testing what she had learned in his absence, wondering if that would make him stay – but even the thought had her insides reeling and she tumbled out of his grasp and onto the djinn’s mattress. The room spinning with her rising nausea.

  ‘You said you’d marry me,’ she whimpered, squirming onto her back. After all that had happened, he was finally here with her again. In front of the fireplace. And yet it did not feel right.

  He shushed her and pressed something against her lips. His fingers. They moved to his chest, and it took her a moment before she registered that he was undoing his sleeve buttons, undressing himself. A sound, something akin to a protest or need – she wasn’t sure – escaped her as he pulled off his shirt, revealing fine, naked skin, gleaming in the firelight.

  ‘August…’

  His body leaned over hers, his fingers prying the front laces of her stays loose. Shaking her head, she pressed a hand against his chest, weak fingers clawing against solid muscle, but he only brushed it away.

  ‘No…’ There were so many things that they needed to discuss; things she needed to know. Had he come back to her? Was he still with Gianna? Why wouldn’t the room stand still?

  ‘It’ll be alright, Keira,’ he repeated, and her head spun as her lungs were freed and extra air flowed into her body.

  August dropped the stays beside him, and for a moment she merely lay there gulping down air, letting her lungs expand and her skin cool. Then she felt him pulling at her skirt.

  No. Not now. Not… Ever? Certainly not tonight, with her body heavy as lead. Where was Elijah? She tried to angle her head, but it only made the room spin more.

  Her chemise slipped off her next.

  ‘No,’ she muttered, more decidedly. Trying to shove him away again. Her lips fumbled for words. Any words. ‘I’m not…ready.’

  Once again, as if she had not spoken at all, he merely towered over her and put his arms around her, pulling her up into a seated position. She tensed and made herself heavier, until she felt the warmth of a large shirt being pulled around her shoulders. Her arms pulled into the sleeves.

  He was dressing her, she realised. In his shirt.

  She could have cried with relief.

  Soft lips brushed a kiss on her temple before he lowered her back down again and pulled the blanket around her.

  Something eased in her chest, but she could not connect what, could not decide whether it was safe to feel relief. Her fingers reached for August, trying to locate where he was, but everything was darkening – her world was spinning off its axis. It caught for a moment on an object being set on the floor in front of her, and then he was there again.

  His lips moved next, but she could not catch the words he spoke nor protest as he slid underneath the blanket with her, pulling her close as she trembled throughout the night.

  14

  DEVOURED

  Night chased her unconscious mind. Boisterous laughter followed her wherever she ran. But she did not wake but for a few times.

  Some of them were mere moments of fear, fear that August had taken what he wanted. She woke and lashed out, beating against the walls keeping her trapped. Yet the strong arms only tightened around her, and then she was pulled under again.

  Other times she woke and sat bolt upright, her stomach and chest heaving before she could prevent them. The contents of the former splashed into the bucket made ready.

  Someone sat up behind her, gathering her hair in a bundle. Then she fell back again once done, sweat beading along her skin, eyes upon the fireplace and the flames, each one blazing like the pain coursing through her.

  When she finally woke at dawn, Keira stirred against solid arms once more, her body aching and her eyelids fluttering open. Next to her, his head sharing her pillow – or perhaps it was her sharing his pillow – lay a perfectly familiar stranger.

  She had never seen him before, and yet she thought she might have. The lines of his face were much like those on the first day he’d appeared before her. His tousled hair much like the hair he’d had when he plopped down on her bed and agreed to a favour for a favour, only now it was a lighter shade of brown, like the creamiest of caramels. His pale, sun-kissed chest rose with even breaths against her shoulder, and although she felt like they might soon open, his eyes remained closed, his long, dark lashes brushing the tops of his cheeks.

  She bit her bottom lip, resting her eyes on his, thinking back to the feel of them against her temple from the night before.

  He was not August, like she had thought, and more surprisingly, there was no disappointment following the realisation. Quite the contrary, a small voice pointed out, she possibly felt more at ease than if it had been. She contemplated the panic and resistance she had felt at seeing “August” undress, and the way her body had relaxed once she realised that he was only trying to help. Except it wasn’t August who had come to her rescue. It was the djinn.

  As if he could feel her gaze upon him, Elijah shifted and woke, the colour of his hair darkening, his jawline changing. Another face, another him. But she could not help but wonder if she had just seen the real him. The version of himself that he kept hidden away from others.

  ‘Hey…’ he murmured. ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘A bit bruised and battered,’ she admitted and winced as she tried to move. She glanced between them, at their close proximity. She was wearing his shirt, the only cover between her body and his. Their legs were entwined, and she could feel his skin, warm and rough, against her own where her stockings did not cover them.

  ‘Did we…’ She hesitated, acknowledging the intense throbbing in her pelvic area.

  His countenance darkened. ‘No. I would never. But someone sure hoped to. I brought you home before they had a chance.’ He sat up and pulled his trousers towards him, so abruptly that his absence beside her felt like being tossed into the lake all over again. ‘Do you remember who it was? Do you know who would hurt you like that?’ he asked, pulling on his trousers, jaw set for war. His eyes gleamed with the intention of murder.

  She thought she did. She remembered Miles coming up to her before everything went unclear, and his friend standing behind her. He could easily have slipped some herbs or something into her drink while Miles distracted her. It wasn’t unheard of. But it often ended badly enough to shatter someone’s life. If there was any truth to her suspicions, she’d been lucky.

  Her shudder seemed the only answer Elijah required. ‘When I get my hands on them…’ he growled and made to stand with the promise of violence in his every movement.

  ‘No—’ She grasped his forearm. It was warm and muscular under her touch. Both glanced at her grip. ‘No, please,’ she said more softly and fell back upon the mattress, exhaustion already making her head swim. ‘Stay.’

  He hunched down and stroked a lock of hair away from her face.

  ‘Are you certain? They don’t deserve to get away with this.’

  ‘They don’t…’ she whispered, her body shaking with the effort. ‘But I don’t want to be alone. Please.’

  His features softened. ‘Fine. But at least let me find you something to eat. Get your strength up.’ She nodded in acceptance and this time let him rise, listening as he disappeared into the kitchen.

  For the remainder of the day, he hustled and bustled around the house to take care of her. Bringing her food and water, opening the windows for a fresh breath of air, and closing them again before she could catch a chill. Whenever she needed an extra pillow, he was there, and sometimes she even fell asleep to the feel of his fingers stroking through her hair.

  She did not empty her stomach again, and by the time night had fallen and the first fire of the evening was lit, her nausea had lifted too. It almost felt like nothing had happened, except for the sense of violation and the fear of what could have happened still churning through her body.

  ‘I thought you’d left me,’ she whispered after a while as they sat in silence watching the flames crackle in the fireplace, backs leaning against the sofa behind them. He kept his arm around her, his fingers stroking her shoulder, as if he was afraid that she would collapse without his support. They stilled now, as she spoke, and she nearly regretted it. ‘I thought I had done it wrong and that you’d never come back.’

  ‘You couldn’t have done it wrong, even if you’d tried.’

  She sipped her tea, mixing the warmth rushing through her with the warmth of the liquid. A log collapsed in the fire, sending sparks into the chimney.

  ‘Ordering you to stay doesn’t really do anything, does it?’

  He shook his head. ‘No.’

  ‘Where did you go?’

  ‘I was keeping an eye on you.’ His gaze flitted to a table where a vase with a single flower sat. The one given to her by the woman at the flower stall. Keira realised now that the woman had not spoken, only gestured, so as not to reveal herself – or himself. ‘Then I had to take care of something for myself.’

  She did not pry. After everything he had done for her since the night before, she supposed she owed him some privacy. Yet, there was another thought she wanted answers to, something that had poked at the back of her mind when she watched him sleep.

  ‘You were the one who helped me up from the lake, weren’t you?’

  He nodded. As she knew he would. She’d recalled it over the course of the day. The familiarity of those light brown locks. The line of his chin this morning. She had caught them in her peripheral vision as he helped her up from the lake, but had thought nothing more of it. Until now.

  ‘Then I’m glad of it. That the order did not work. And that you came back.’

  ‘Believe me, it would have been against my own desires not to.’ He inclined his head, and his lips parted as if to say something else, yet he did not. Instead, his gaze swept over her mouth, and he fell quiet while the shadows of the flames chased across his face. The air grew warm, but not from the fire. A burn began in her chest and spread across her shoulders, down her stomach, and pooled between her thighs. Her throat went dry, and she would have asked for water except she did not think she could bear the thought of him moving an inch away from her. It was funny, really. If anyone could have seen them sitting like this, it would have been considered an outrage.

  The thought brought back an onslaught of memories from the night before. The leering, the whispered words. The judgemental glances and the…

  Shame washed over her once again, and she clamped her legs tighter together. What had happened to her…had it happened because of the things she had done? Had it happened because she had given in to her body’s desires and acted…promiscuously?

  Beside her, Elijah growled. ‘If you let those short-sighted, narrow-minded village halfwits hold you down, I’ll snap my fingers and erase the whole lot of them.’

  Her mouth dropped open. ‘You can do that?’

  He didn’t answer, his jaw clenched and his gaze firm upon the fireplace, leaving it hard to tell whether it was the flames or his ire that burned so fiercely in those eyes of his. Like they’d burned two nights before, when he gave her the first lesson. Like they’d burned when he’d stepped into the tavern to save her. That’s what she had seen. Concern for her and a protective promise of retribution warring with one another in a way she’d never seen in August.

  She swallowed and watched the flames, feeling heat return to her body, rising up her skin. A boldness, an urge, tickled her spine, and she needed something to be done with it. She glanced to the window and realised the shutters were closed. Had he gone and done so during the night? It did not really matter, she realised. What did, was that no one could see…

  ‘Elijah?’

  ‘Mmhmm?’

  ‘Your next lesson…what would that happen to be?’

  ‘Well,’ he started, his next words fading on his breath as he appeared to catch something in her expression. To read her desires like he always seemed to read her. He cleared his throat. ‘Well, once you’ve learned to please yourself, the next lesson would be to…let someone else…pleasure you.’ He spoke the words tentatively, like someone testing the ice lest they’d plunge through. She needed him to plunge.

  ‘How would I go about doing that?’

  ‘You order them to.’ There was a rasp to his voice, as if his mouth had gone dry too. Someone would need to wet it.

  ‘Then,’ she coaxed, voice barely but a quiver. ‘Pleasure me.’

  He sat unmovable, searching her face. Perhaps for any sign of uncertainty. Perhaps to halt time so that she could change her mind. She would not.

  Instead, she twisted her torso and leaned back against the seat of the chair next to the sofa, her chest heaving above her drumming heart, her pulse thundering in her ears.

  ‘You did say not to let them keep me down, did you not?’

  ‘I did.’ He nodded.

  ‘Then, I do not think orders should need to be made twice. Do you?’

  She could practically see his shudder and sucked in her lip at the unfamiliar surge of triumph it gave her.

  ‘No, I should think not,’ Elijah said breathlessly, before shifting ever so slightly so that he was leaning forwards on his knees rather than sitting. With his eyes locked on hers, he pulled her closest leg towards him and ran his fingers along the edge of her knee-length stockings while his other hand slid underneath her thigh. ‘Allow me, then, to start by removing these.’

  Bit by bit, his fingers rolled down the soft cotton, her breath quickening with every inch of skin he touched. Once her leg was liberated, he moved on to the other. This time he broke his gaze with her, but only to nuzzle the sensitive skin of her inner thigh with his nose and breath as he pulled down the last stocking. Her own breath hitched in her throat and escaped between her parted lips in shivers.

  Then his hand slid underneath the hem of her shirt and hitched at the lines of her undergarments. His eyes locked with hers again, waiting for her order to stop; to remove his fingers from her skin, burning underneath his touch. She would not give it, and he pulled her undergarments down her legs and chucked them aside with her other discarded clothes.

  The moment they were gone, Elijah set her legs apart and moved between them, his head levelled with her thighs. Only the gentleman’s shirt remained between them, shielding her nakedness from his view.

  At once, uncertainty flared through her, and her forehead creased.

  He did not miss it.

  ‘A man worthy of you would seek to give you every pleasure he possibly could, but only if you allow him. Do you allow me?’

  ‘But…do you want to?’ she stuttered, eyes dipping to her pelvic area, unable to keep embarrassment from creeping into her voice.

  His forehead smoothed with amazement. ‘More than anything else.’

  She sucked in a shivering breath and inclined her head, letting the exhale out in an even worse state.

  Once again, his hands went down her back and cupped her buttocks, pulling her hips out and forward past the shirt, leaving her entirely exposed to him. And his expression...

  His expression set her whole soul aflame.

  He licked his lips, eyes gleaming with ravenous need. She swallowed, devouring every inch of his face, every flicker of lust dancing across it, revelling in the feel of his fingertips digging into the crevices of her hips. Relished in his hands kneading her skin, her pelvis top, and the slanted surface of her abdomen, her breathing increasing with every stroke. Finally, as his fingertips reached her nipple, he dipped his head and repeated his act with the ice cream during their promenade by dragging his warm, wet tongue over the outer lips of her opening.

  She cried out. Her hands fisted into the mattress. And his tongue kept on moving, kept tasting every inch of her, dampening his mouth with her wetness. Once she felt the edge of his teeth, she bucked, unable to keep the moan from ascending out of her lungs as he proceeded to suckle her softly.

  He groaned with and tightened his hold on her.

  She was fire. Writhing and coiling against him.

  His fingers dug into her flesh while his tongue kept devouring.

  She whimpered.

  His tongue flicked again and again against her sensitive spot, curving like a finger, coaxing her to come. Coaxing the building pressure to burst through her body.

  Just when she thought it would, he pulled away and slid his fingers into her instead. Keira gasped and tensed her body against the violent bolt of pleasure that slammed into her, and her head tipped, exposing her throat. At once his face was beside hers, fisting her hair and pulling her head further back, his lips tasting the slim column of her neck.