Chapter 28 - Cammon
Cammon
XXVIII
My hair was still dripping from my dip in the hot spring when Cliff led me to a small nook off the main cavern. I’d thrown my old, filthy clothes back on to avoid walking naked through the crowd, suspecting my hosts were hoping to keep me off balance and not wanting to give them the pleasure.
“This is your room,” Cliff said.
The space was separated from the rest of the fury by a slight curve in the stone and a beige curtain across the entrance. Cut off enough to give a sense of privacy and drier than anywhere else I’d find tonight.
“Thanks.”
Cliff nodded to a pile of leathers on the edge of the bed—or what passed for a bed, little more than a mattress and a heap of blankets laid across some rough-hewn pine logs. “We brought some clothes for you. Might be a bit snug but should fit well enough. Give a shout if you’re missing anything.”
He turned and left, giving me no chance to ask where Glory would be staying.
As accommodating as these vampires had been, I wanted to stay close to her in case the tides turned.
The risk was low, but we couldn’t drop our guard.
Not now that we were halfway through this quest of ours.
Only a few more signposts to go, then we could head home.
Where I would need to consider what came next.
After what I’d promised Thorn, I no longer knew if my obligations to Glory ended when the mission did.
I’d promised to guard her secret and hadn’t stipulated a time limit.
Without thinking, I’d tied my future to Glory’s if anyone found out what she was.
It made no sense. I hated tying myself to anything.
I didn’t even stay in my own house long enough to make it feel like my home.
Syrus stayed there more than I did. Every plan I made, every decision, was with a mind to return to Karhasan as soon as possible.
Yet now I’d sworn to a fury leader that I would stay aware of this random mage advisor I hadn’t even known existed before two weeks ago.
I searched my thoughts for any part of myself fighting against my situation, a hint of the bond tugging at me, but there was nothing.
Only a deep, primal rage that spawned at the idea of any harm befalling Glory if someone found out what she was or if the mutts caught up to us.
She faced danger from every direction—possibly in part because of me—and I wouldn’t let anything hurt her.
So yes, until I was certain she was safe, I would remain at her side.
I would protect her. And after I returned to Karhasan, I would ensure she wasn’t left undefended.
Not only because of my agreement with Evaniel, not only because of my promise to Thorn, and not only because of the bond, but because of my own need.
As long as I was around, nothing would happen to Gloria Dolan.
I turned my attention to the clothes on the bed and rolled my eyes at how vampire they were.
Soft black leather breeches that squeezed my thighs and hung loose on my hips, the laces drawing attention to everything the breeches strove to cover.
The leather vest was loose and worn open, and they hadn’t given me any kind of shirt to wear beneath it.
Cliff had to be messing with me, trying to make me uncomfortable.
If these vampires thought they could toy with a demon’s head by making him wear fewer clothes, they were in for a surprise.
I could so easily turn this around on them until every one of Thorn’s people pleaded with me to bed them.
But all thought of charming the fury drained away when a low gasp sounded from the doorway and I turned to find Glory standing there gaping at me.
I stared back.
She was dressed in clothes similar to mine, though her vest laced at the front, binding her breasts together while the rest of the leather fanned out like an upside-down vee, revealing her smooth stomach.
She’d braided her damp hair over her shoulder, but the mist from the hot spring had turned the loose tendrils framing her face into delicate wisps.
Everything about her looked ethereal. And heart-achingly beautiful.
Kalla stood behind her, and after a moment’s heavy silence, she cleared her throat and appeared to bite back on a smile.
“Right, well. Sorry about this, but you guys are going to have to share a room. We’re, um, short on space.
” She averted her gaze and took a step backwards. “I’ll leave you to it, shall I?”
I swore I heard her snicker before she sprinted into the cavern.
Glory looked around the room, her gaze settling everywhere but on me. “At least there’s more space here. Too bad I don’t have my bedroll.”
“I’ll take the floor,” I offered, and it came out husky.
I didn’t want to take the floor. I wanted to take her. Hells help me, I wanted her.
She caught her bottom lip in that way that made my legs weak and scanned the room again.
“I’m really upset about that bedroll. Not to mention the rest of our stuff.
What are we going to do, Cammon? Regardless of whether Thorn helps us out, we need to keep going, but now we don’t have anything.
The last clue. Our last map. All our food. Our blankets.”
Her breaths were coming faster, and I knew she was watching her dreams crumble.
I rested my hands on her shoulders and caught her eye.
“We’ll make do, Buttons. I’ve been in tighter spots before.
At least for tonight, we have a safe place to put together a plan.
And I doubt Thorn will make us walk out of here without a chance to restock. This isn’t over.”
Her breathing slowed as she fell into my confidence, but when her gaze flicked up to mine, it sped up again.
This time I didn’t have the strength not to get caught in her rising emotions.
Her eyes darkened, and my palms grew warm against her bare shoulders.
Her chest heaved with every breath, the leather stretching and moulding to the round curves of her breasts, and hells, I had never been so jealous of leather before.
I thought of our almost kiss as we’d lain at the bottom of the escarpment, the way her body had responded to being on top of mine, the grind of her hips, the soft sounds she’d released. I wanted her back there.
Before I was aware I was moving, my front brushed against hers, pushing her backwards.
Her spine hit the stone wall, and her gaze dipped to my chest, to the defined vee disappearing into my breeches, before shooting back to my lips, then my eyes.
Desire spun around her, as wild and wispy as her steam-kissed hair, and I was helpless against its current.
I was hard for her, aching, desperate, and it took all my effort to hold myself back from urging her to give in to what she so clearly wanted.
Because she wasn’t sure if she wanted it. I tasted the flicker of uncertainty hidden beneath the waves of lust, and as long as it remained, I would keep my distance. I would suffer that torture. I was a demon, a creature of vice and forbidden desires, but I wasn’t a monster.
“Do we blame the bond for whatever this is?” I asked, hoping to put her at ease. Give her an out if she needed it.
“The bond is gone,” she said, the words blurting out of her.
I stilled. “What do you mean?”
“Kalla told me it only lasts a single day.”
Her meaning settled, and a weight dropped in my stomach.
A single day. Which meant that whole exchange in her tent. At the bottom of the hill. This. They weren’t the cause of some synthetic connection. They were real. All that squeezing, overwhelming want was mine.
And hers.
A small voice in the back of my mind rebelled against the knowledge, and I knew that once my head cleared, I would need to deal with the significance of this revelation.
That the decisions I’d made instinctively, believing I was acting against my will, had been my own doing.
But for now, the voice remained a soft whisper, drowning under lust that burned all the hotter for knowing it was mine.
Glory’s shaky breath tickled my chest, and her pulse flurried in her throat. I tasted her nervousness, read her worry that the news would anger me. Maybe that it would snap me out of whatever this was. But she had no idea what she’d done to me.
I brushed my fingers over her cheek to reassure her that we were fine, then dropped my hand to let her know I wouldn’t push her into anything she didn’t want. The effort to pull back and not drop my head to taste her skin made me close my eyes.
The air caught in my lungs and my body stiffened when her feathered touch landed on my stomach.
There was no way she couldn’t feel my heart hammering against my ribs.
Good. I wanted her to know she wasn’t alone in this tempest of longing.
That whatever emotions I evoked in her, it wasn’t some demonic trick to dominate her.
If anything, I was the one who yearned to submit.
I wanted to drop to my knees and worship her.
Discover if the taste of her physical arousal was as sweet and rich as the flavour of her emotions.
Follow her commands to give her small, quiet, solitary life the pleasure she so richly deserved.
A low moan left me when her fingertips trailed upwards.
Still so soft, so hesitating. As though she didn’t want me to notice what she was doing.
So I did my best to pretend I didn’t. I let her explore the lines of muscle that cut along my abdominals and pectorals.
I bit down on a hiss as they slipped under the vest and brushed against my nipples.
The way she pulled back let me know the contact had been accidental, outside her comfort zone, and I was glad my eyes were closed so my reaction didn’t embarrass her.
And so she couldn’t see the need that brief contact had inspired in me.