Chapter 9 #2
The scent of her hair fills my senses—something floral and enticing that makes heat coil low in my stomach.
I can feel every curve of her body pressed against mine, the way her breasts rise and fall with each breath, the soft exhale that whispers across my throat.
My body responds immediately, desire pooling heavy and insistent in my veins.
This is dangerous territory. She is completely unaware of what she’s doing to me, unquestioning and innocent in sleep. But the way she feels, so warm and pliant, makes my wolf pace restlessly with want.
Then she stirs, and I feel the exact moment when she realizes where she is. Her entire body goes rigid.
She scrambles backward so quickly, she nearly trips over her own knapsack, putting several feet of distance between us. Her hair is sticking up at odd angles, and her cheeks are flushed.
“Why was I—” She gestures helplessly between us, her voice slightly breathless. “How did I end up over there? With you?”
I sit up slowly, watching her flustered movements with growing amusement. There’s something deeply satisfying about seeing her so undone, so off balance. The way her face turns that delicate shade of pink, the way she can’t quite meet my eyes…I realize I enjoy having this effect on her.
“You kept crawling over to me during the night.”
“I did not!” The denial bursts out of her instantaneously, indignant and mortified, and I find myself wanting to push her further just to see that flush deepen.
“You did. Multiple times.” I can’t keep the satisfaction out of my voice, and I don’t try to. “Every time I moved you back to your side of the fire, you’d wait about an hour and then migrate over again.”
“That’s—That’s not—” She runs her hands through her tangled hair, making it worse, and the gesture is so flustered and feminine that heat flares through my chest. “I don’t do that. I sleep in one spot. I don’t move.”
“Apparently, you do.” I lean back against the tree, deliberately relaxed, watching her with sadistic pleasure as she squirms.
“Luna!” She turns to her cat as if expecting backup. “Tell him I don’t wander around in my sleep!”
Luna stretches leisurely and gives Astra the most unimpressed look I’ve ever seen from a feline.
“Even your cat knows you’re lying,” I observe, and the way her mortification grows satisfies a primitive part of me.
“She’s not my cat; she’s a traitor,” Astra mutters, glaring at Luna. Then she looks back at me with narrowed eyes. “And you could have woken me up. Told me to stay on my side.”
“I tried. You mumbled something about being cold and burrowed closer.” I let my voice drop slightly, noting how her breath catches at the change in tone.
Her face turns an even deeper shade of red. “I did not ‘burrow.’”
“You definitely burrowed.” I’m enjoying this far too much—the way she gets so worked up, so utterly distraught. It makes me want to find other ways to make her lose her composure.
“Stop saying that!” She covers her face with her hands.
I struggle to fight a smile at her obvious embarrassment. Most women would either deny it happened or try to turn it into some kind of seduction. But Astra is genuinely rattled, completely without artifice, and her innocent reaction makes my pulse quicken.
“Why? It’s the truth.” I can’t stop myself. I want to watch the blush spread across her skin. I enjoy seeing her like this.
“I practically molested you in your sleep,” she moans.
I study her curiously. Shifters aren’t known for practicing celibacy. It’s not in our animals’ nature. That’s not to say our kind is promiscuous, but by the age Astra is, she must have had at least one or two partners. It’s obvious from her reaction, though, that she hasn’t.
My wolf rumbles in pleasure.
Pure. Innocent. Ripe.
For the first time, I find myself in agreement with my animal.
She shakes her head, still not looking at me. “I’m not going to sleep tonight. You should’ve woken me up.”
Under the embarrassment, there’s something else: a hint of shame, wariness.
“I didn’t mind. It was a cold night,” I find myself saying. “It was fine.”
When she only buries her face even deeper in her hands, I take pity on her and change the subject.
“Your leg. How does it feel?”
She flexes it experimentally, and when she drops her hands to her sides, I see the surprise cross her features.
“It’s much better. Like, significantly better.
” She takes a few tentative steps. “The stiffness has almost completely disappeared.” She checks the wound, and her eyes widen.
“How is this possible?” Her head whips up, delight and shock in her pretty eyes.
“Look, Lucian! It’s gone. It’s practically gone! ”
Her enthusiasm over something so small makes me have to fight the urge to smile in response. Her joy is infectious.
The improvement is remarkable—exactly what I hoped for with the palace healer’s tonics.
“That’s good,” I say, keeping my voice neutral. “I guess you won’t have to worry about dying anytime soon.”
She grins at me. “I guess not.” She’s assessing her full range of motion now, bending and stretching. “Do you think I’m finally getting my shifter’s healing ability?”
The look in her eyes and the tone of her voice are so desperately hopeful that something uncomfortable tightens within my chest. Before I can say anything, she picks up a branch.
“Let’s test it!”
She’s about to stab herself in the arm when I grab the branch and toss it into the woods, growling, “Let’s not!”
Astra blinks. “But—”
“You’ve barely healed from one injury, and now you want to inflict another one on yourself?”
She looks up at me, and her lips part, a soft “oh” slipping past them. That’s when I notice our proximity. I’m leaning over her, our faces inches apart.
“I—”
The scent of her brief arousal is sharp and tangy, stirring the animal within me and making my cock uncomfortable inside my pants.
“S–Sorry,” she stammers, her face red. “I just thought—” She takes a step back from me. “I have to go.”
When she tries to move away, a strange panic overtakes me, and my hand takes hold of her wrist. “Where are you going?”
She stares at me. “To, uh, you know…do my business?”
“Your business?” I narrow my eyes. “What kind of business are you—”
She wrenches her wrist from me, her face a bright red. “Pee, Lucian! I have to go pee!”
I watch her hurry away from me, still favoring her left leg, and my ears feel hot. “She should’ve just said so,” I mutter to myself.
I’ve already begun heating up the last of our meat by the time Astra returns. She doesn’t meet my gaze, and I see her put something in her knapsack. “What’s that?”
“Nothing.”
Her answer is a little too quick, and as I move to seize whatever it is, she lets out a startled cry. “Luna, no!”
The cat has grabbed the meat and is now chewing on it happily.
I glower at it. It’s bad enough that I’ve reduced myself to such a domestic task as cooking. Now, some lowly creature on the food chain is stealing from me?
My wolf snarls in warning, determined to put the little feline in her place, when Astra swoops the cat up, hugging it against her chest and glaring at me. “What’s the matter with you?!”
A wave of inexplicable anger flows through me at the protective gesture. “She stole our breakfast!”
“She didn’t mean it!” Astra argues back. “And she has to eat, too!”
The cat gives me a smug look, all the while making helpless mewling sounds in her owner’s arms.
I snarl at Luna, and her ears go flat as she hisses in response.
“Stop it!”
It’s only when I smell Astra’s scent tainted with distress that I force myself to step back. “I’ll go hunt something else.”
Without waiting for a response, I stalk into the trees, angry with myself over my reaction. Since when do I let a woman’s feelings affect my decisions? Why do I behave so irrationally around her?
After killing two rabbits a bit more aggressively than I normally would, I bring them back to the campsite, where Astra is on her feet, waiting for me. She’s holding something large and pink in her hands.
“What is that?” I demand.
“It’s a fruit native to this forest.” She gives me a bright smile as if she wasn’t upset half an hour ago.
“Where did you get it?”
“From the trees.”
“You left the campsite?” I narrow my eyes at her.
Now she looks apologetic. “I felt bad that you had to hunt for food again. I was going to give Luna some of my breakfast. I didn’t realize how hungry she was. I shouldn’t have sniped at you. You’ve been taking care of both of us.”
I stare at her, her words piercing me. Taking care of them? Is that what I’ve been doing?
As Astra looks at me uncertainly, I feel a strange warmth move within me.
She doesn’t know who I really am, which means every interaction between us is sincere from her end.
Her smiles, the way she argues with me, the way she tries to get me to forgive her—these are all genuine gestures toward the mercenary she believes me to be.
But would she look at me the same way if Prince Lucian were standing before her? Would she press her palm against mine with the same wonder in her eyes? Would she bicker with me the same way?
It bothers me that I don’t know.
I’ve never once shied away from my title or my responsibilities.
And I have had plenty of them. They’re all I’ve ever known.
I’ve always been the crown prince, never just Lucian, not even to my father.
Even my friends, the people who have stood by my side through all these years, hold themselves back because of my title.
This is the first time I’ve ever met someone and not been weighed down by who I am. To Astra, I’m just Lucian. The Lucian who hunts for her. The Lucian who protects her.
“L–Lucian?” Astra’s voice forces me out of my own thoughts. She looks wary. “If you don’t want any—”
“No, I do want it,” I say quickly, and as I watch the hurt in her eyes transform to happiness and relief, I feel an odd fluttering in my chest.