Hunted [Wild Hunt Series: 1]

26: If it were up to me

There was a moment as I caught my breath where my brain seemed to shut down and the only thing I seemed able to do was observe and feel. The blaze heated half my face, tinted warm shadows against Chiro's chest. Fine granules of sand and minerals glittered against his tanned skin. The raw taste of dirt and blood filled my mouth; I wasn't sure whose it was: his or mine. He'd already healed from a cut lip; I was, well, maybe not bleeding much, but bruised and sore along my arms and shoulders. His knees pressed against either side of my hips, and those intense, storm-stricken eyes were fixed unwavering on mine. In those fleeting seconds I was caught between the juncture of fantasy and reality. There he was, the courageous hero with the proper wealth of looks and muscle. There I was, pinned beneath him on a feral, rainy night.

And here we were, two players not entirely unopposed to helping one another in a winner-take-all style game. Dakota wanted me to kill him, but I still believed he was of better use alive. As my gaze lingered lower than it belonged...maybe there was another, slightly more somatic, reason behind my halfhearted attempt to take him out.

"I'm listening," I finally managed to squeak, getting my elbows beneath me to prop myself up. I tried to slide out from under him. As he leaned over me his hand dropped to my wrist, a relaxed warning to stay still.

"Come dawn you need to head back to the palace," he stated, letting just enough of his weight press against me to tamp down any ideas about scrambling away. "You've—"

"No," I said. Thunder rumbled as if to emphasis the strength of my resolve.

His eyebrows rose. The grip on my wrist tightened. "No?"

Chiro was close enough where, if I had a more wicked sort of mind, I could've grabbed the back of his head and pulled his lips to mine. Instead I found myself trying to glance away, but there wasn't a single thing in this cave more dangerous than the demon on top of me. I had no choice but to pay attention to him, because, just like how I didn't understand my abrupt explosion of feeling, I didn't know what he was planning to do with me. Or to me.

"I'm still hunting," I explained.

With a tired sigh he straightened. His hand moved off my wrist to run through his damp hair. "What remains is out of your league, Tay Wilson."

"Says one of our biggest competitors." All the while I thought to myself, if I wasn't so attracted to him before, what was it about tonight that got me going? Was it the dreary atmosphere, the crackling fire, or as Dakota might phrase it, some kind of 'absence makes the heart grow fonder' bull crap?

 A hint of irritation crept into his low voice. "I am giving you this opportunity to go back on your own; if you and your harem are not gone by the time the sun warms the road then you will be mine." He paused, fingers tapping against his thigh contemplatively. "As you already are."

Again I tried to move, but he held me in place beside the firelight. All I could do was adjust my elbows and scowl up at those impressive features. "Look, I appreciate your protection or warning or whatever this is, but we're not backing down. We're getting it, Chiro. We're putting up a fight. We don't want to be wedded and bedded and tortured. And there's more of us out there that need saving."

His shoulders lifted in a careless shrug. "You can be mine, you can be theirs, or you will be dead. I do not much care about your fate one way or the other. If you're too bullheaded to listen, perhaps you belong with a certain stag, who might get a rise from your insolence."

Lightning flashed, seeming to catch the rain in brief, grey-green photographic stills. The rain fell like a dark curtain over the entrance, shimmering in great gusts of wind. A faint mist had began to form along the ground, billowing inside the cave mouth.  With space between us now, I peered around Chiro as if expecting to see the stag himself. "I was hoping Akta might be dead," I said softly. "I know a monster like him always survives until the end, but I'd hoped."