Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Anna
Keric takes another step toward me.
Molten eyes fix on my face with an intensity that makes my breath catch. He’s said only one word since setting me down: Mine. And the way he’s looking at me says he means it.
Jeez. This can’t be good. Or…
My back is already against the cave wall.
Cold stone seeps through the torn flannel shirt I’m wearing, his flannel, the one I threw on this morning over my jeans and sweater because it smelled like him.
Now it’s ripped at the shoulder where he grabbed me, and I’m pressed against rough rock with nowhere to go.
He takes a heavy step towards me. Then another.
Daylight streams from the opening in the cave’s ceiling and illuminates his muscular body. I get my first real look at what the scent bomb did to him.
His clothes hang in tatters, shredded by the expansion of his muscles.
Usually he’s bare chested but today he chose to actually wear a shirt.
The flannel he wore this morning is now nothing but strips of fabric clinging to shoulders that have grown impossibly broad.
His jeans have split along the seams, barely decent, revealing green skin stretched over a body that’s gained at least fifty pounds of pure power.
Every muscle is defined and bulging in a way that shouldn’t be possible.
His tusks jut from his lower lip like ivory daggers, longer than I’ve ever seen them. The tusks I kissed around last night are now weapons, curved and sharp and terrifying. His black horns have grown into wicked points that catch the light filtering down from far above us.
Steam rises off his green skin despite the cold cave air. Heat radiates off him, and I can feel it from three feet away, like I’m standing near a furnace.
And between his legs, visible through what’s left of his pants...
I swallow hard.
An enormous erection strains against the torn fabric.
The sheer size of it makes my mouth go dry.
I’ve felt him pressed against me during our kiss, knew he was big, but this is something else entirely.
This is a beast from ancient times standing over me in a dark cave, and every instinct screams that I should be terrified.
But those black eyes... somewhere in there is Keric. The male who leaves me notes in neat handwriting. Who sneaks meat to Dinah when he thinks I’m not looking. Who pressed his forehead to mine this morning and murmured I’ll be back soon like it was a promise.
The events at the cabin crash over me in waves. Alarms alerted me that danger was imminent. The wailing siren meant everything was about to go wrong.
I’d been at the kitchen table with my laptop, working on lesson plans, when the sound ripped through the quiet morning. My training kicked in before my brain caught up. I was moving before I consciously decided to move.
I scooped Dinah off the couch where she’d been napping and ran for the bedroom. The carrier was in the closet, exactly where we’d set it up. Four seconds—that’s how long I’d practiced. Dinah yowled in protest as I shoved her inside and latched the door.
“I’m sorry, baby,” I whispered. “Stay quiet. Someone will come for you.”
Then the panic button. My hand found it automatically, just like I’d practiced with my eyes closed. I pressed it hard.
Then the barricade. I shoved the heavy dresser in front of the bedroom door, my arms burning with the effort.
And then I waited.
The sounds from outside were horrible. Keric’s thunderous roar…I’d never heard anything like it, primal and savage and furious. Gunshots. Screams that cut off abruptly. The crack of what might have been bones breaking.
I had the Glock in my hands, safety off, just like he taught me. My palms were sweating but my grip was steady.
The front door being torn off its hinges. More fighting inside. And then—
A sound at the bedroom window. Not the door. The window. I spun just as a man in tactical gear crashed through the glass. He was raising his weapon, his eyes finding me, and I didn’t think. I just acted.
Center mass. Keep shooting until the threat stops.
The kick of the gun jolted up my arms. The sound was deafening in the small room. The man dropped, clutching his chest, blood pooling beneath him.
I killed a man.
The reality of it hits me now, standing in this cold cave with a feral orc looming over me.
My hands want to shake and my stomach wants to revolt.
I shot a human being and watched him fall.
And I’d do it again. That’s the part that should scare me.
I’d do it again in a heartbeat because he was there to murder me.
It was him or me and in that instance I desperately wanted to survive so I did what had to be done.
Dinah. Oh god. My baby kitty is still in that carrier in the closet. But Drew promised to look for her. One crisis at a time. Right now, the crisis is the male in front of me.
He’s still breathing hard…and staring at me. I don’t know what to say or do.
I remember what Ellie told me later, when she was remembering that day Garlen went feral and ended up in the school parking lot.
He’d charged across the pavement like something out of a nightmare.
Everyone else, including me, ran screaming.
But Ellie had stood her ground. “I suddenly knew that the right move wasn’t to run from Garlen, but to go toward him,” she’d said. ”I could see that he needed me.”
And later, Aldar explained what would’ve happened if she’d fled: “If you’d ran, that would’ve made things worse. It would’ve ignited his worst instincts. Garlen would’ve chased you, kidnapped you, and we would’ve been searching for you in his lair in the remotest part of the mountain range.”
I purse my lips and look around. Well, Keric has already carried me to his lair in the remotest part of the mountain range.
That part’s done. I assume because that bomb was thrown directly at his face and he couldn’t help but inhale all that mist that I’m sure turned him instantly feral.
And maybe if Ellie had been standing in front of Garlen right after he’d been hit by a scent bomb, he would’ve kidnapped her right away too.
But maybe, now that Keric has ran for so long and has me somewhere safe, maybe I can still reach him and calm him down, the way Ellie did with Garlen.
I push off the wall and stand. My legs are shaky, I’m wearing my boots, thank god, the sturdy ones with good treads that kept me from breaking an ankle during Keric’s sprint through the forest. My jeans are dirty but intact.
His flannel is torn, and underneath my sweater is damp with sweat despite the cave’s chill.
Instead of shrinking back, I step toward him.
His nostrils flare. A growl rumbles from his chest, low and continuous, vibrating through the stone beneath my feet.
“Keric.” I say his name firmly and without fear. I’m not afraid. Okay, a little afraid, but doing my best not to show it.
I reach out and touch his chest. Keric’s skin is burning hot through the tattered remains of his shirt. The muscles beneath my palm are rigid, like he’s holding himself back by sheer force of will. He shudders at the contact, and a sound escapes from his lips, not quite a growl, not quite a groan.
And then his scent hits me.
It’s always affected me. I’ve been breathing it in for two weeks, letting it comfort me. But now it’s concentrated. Amplified by whatever the scent bomb did to his body chemistry. It fills my lungs, goes straight to my head and makes me dizzy.
Heat blooms between my thighs. An involuntary response I can’t control.
His nostrils flare again. “Mine,” he growls, but softer this time. Less threat, more... need.
Am I feeling the same need? My nipples are two hard points and my clit throbs. Is it getting to me too, because I was right there when the bomb hit?
I slide my hand up to his face, cup his jaw the way he’s done to me so many times. His skin is rough with stubble I’ve never noticed before, and his tusks press against my wrist, smooth and hard. “I’m here,” I murmur. “I’m safe. You got me out. You protected me.”
His black eyes bore into mine. Searching. Hungry.
“Come back to me, Keric.”
It’s slow, so slow, like watching a tide go out, but I swear I can see the feral intensity start to fade. His breathing changes first, still ragged and harsh, but less frantic. The growl in his chest softens to a rumble.
Then he leans down and presses his forehead to mine.
It’s the same gentle gesture from this morning, an orc gesture of devotion. He’d done it before he left for the security meeting, back when the world was still normal and the worst thing I had to worry about was wanting to kiss him again.
“Anna.”
My name sounds rough and broken on his lips but still him. “There you are,” I whisper. Relief floods through me, so intense my knees almost buckle. “There you are.”
He’s still not fully back. Physically, he’s still huge, transformed and radiating an impossible amount of heat. The cave should be cold—I can see my breath misting in the dim light—but I’m warm everywhere he’s touching me. Which is everywhere.
And he’s still very aroused.
His erection prods against my stomach, hard and insistent.
Even through his torn pants, even through my jeans, I feel the heat and size.
I can’t help but wonder how that’s going to fit.
But heat blooms between my thighs again, liquid and urgent.
I had no idea that large cocks were a thing I found sexy, but it turns I definitely like Keric’s size.
“I could have hurt you,” he rasps. His voice sounds like gravel, like he’s been screaming for hours. Maybe he has. “I grabbed you. I wasn’t thinking. I couldn’t—”
“But you didn’t hurt me.” I keep my hand on his face, my thumb stroking along his cheekbone. “Even when you weren’t yourself, you kept me safe. You tried to make me comfortable during the run. I felt you adjusting me so I wouldn’t hit branches.”