Chapter 30 #2
“Ana…” His voice came out low and gruff, resonating with a purr that vibrated through me.
I curled my hands into fists to stop myself from giving in to the impulse to touch him again.
But this time, he touched me, caressing my cheek with his calloused fingertips, his gaze like molten lava as it tracked over my face, down my neck, to my heaving chest.
I wanted him to touch me there. To lick me there. I wanted to feel him with every inch of my body. Tears pricked the back of my eyes with the desperation of a need I didn’t understand.
He met my gaze with a longing that echoed mine. “Fuck.” He pushed himself off me and walked away, leaving me with a rock on my chest and a hollow pit in my belly.
I stared at the winking stars through the canopy above while my tumultuous emotions recalibrated before finally sitting up.
Drayven had pulled on his pants but stood a few feet away with his back to me.
I wanted to go to him. Wrap my arms around his waist and rest my cheek on his back, but I’d be crossing a boundary, just like I’d done by touching him. “I’m sorry. The run and the adrenaline…I shouldn’t have touched you, and—”
“I want to mark you again,” he blurted.
My stomach flipped. “Oh…”
“You should go. We’ll train again tomorrow night.”
I stood and took a step toward him. “Why?”
He turned his head, offering me his profile. “Why? Because you need the training, and—”
“No. Not that. Why do you want to mark me?”
His shoulders rose and fell. “I told you. It’s a primal thing.”
“Yes, but what does that mean exactly?”
“It means that you’re attractive to my beast. It finds you compatible in some way.”
Primal attraction related to procreation and the production of the strongest possible Therianthrope offspring.
If a female Thrope took a male lover who wasn’t a Thrope, their children would be Thropes, but if a Thrope male took a female lover who wasn’t a Thrope, then there was no guarantee of that.
So, his primal side wanting me made no sense.
It wouldn’t take that risk. But the primal was just as influenced by a Thrope’s human instincts as the human was by the beast within.
Drayven’s desires could affect his beast just as strongly as his beast’s desires affected him.
Which meant…it wasn’t the beast that wanted me, it was Drayven.
He was attracted to me. “Drayven…”
He must have seen the comprehension on my face. His chest vibrated with a rumble, and he looked away. “By the blood, you’re too damn smart.”
“Have you felt this way before?”
A look of pain ghosted across his beautiful face. “Once. A long time ago.”
My chest tightened. “Who was she?”
“Her name was Brenna, but she’s gone now. She was killed.” He cleared his throat. “I… Uh… I’ll walk you back to Bramble.”
He obviously didn’t want to talk about it. “It’s fine. I can go myself.”
“Are you sure?”
The fact he didn’t insist told me that he needed some space. “It’s just across campus.” I smiled, but he had his head bowed again and didn’t see it. “I’ll see you tomorrow night.”
I left him to his thoughts because I had plenty of my own to occupy me now.
* * *
I was so deep in my own head about Drayven, about his mate and his unwanted attraction to me, that I failed to sense I was being followed until I was trapped in a cold iron grip and shoved into the arch beneath the barracks.
Sterling blocked my path, his body coiled with tension, like a cat preparing to strike.
Fear twisted in my belly before I reminded myself that he had no real power to hurt me. “What the Fel do you want?”
“I want you to die,” he said.
My pulse fluttered hard in my throat. “Yeah, sorry, not happening.” I made to push past him, but he slammed a fist into my chest, driving me into the wall.
My head whipped back then forward, and my teeth caught my tongue.
The tang of iron filled my mouth, breath rushing out of my lungs, as heat bloomed across my breastbone.
His nostrils flared. “You’re bleeding.”
I blinked back the black spots clouding my vision. “And you’re an asshole.”
He moved in closer, and I shrank back on instinct before I could stop myself.
“Good,” he hissed. “You should be scared.”
I dragged in a breath, forcing my pulse to steady. “I’m not scared of you.”
He chuckled, mirthless and cold. “Yes, you are. And you should be.” He braced a hand on the brick above my head, caging me in and clouding the air with his linen-fresh scent.
“I’ve been restrained. Patient. Waiting for the grading to have you put in your place once and for all—because you’re nothing but a stain on humanity, a murderer just like your ancestor.
It should have been your head under my blade that night. Your blood on my hands.”
My eyes burned with rage. “Yeah? But instead, you killed my father! You broke the law. There should have been a trial and—”
His hand was around my throat before I could react, squeezing tight enough to cut off my words.
“You think a few lessons with Thorn will help you?” He pressed me against the wall, my bones grinding against brick, his grip on my throat tightening enough to choke. Panic burst in my chest. I clawed at his hand, lungs desperate for breath.
Oh, Trinity, he was going to do it. He was going to break his oath and finish what he’d started on the training field. He was going to kill me.
His eye twitched, and he released me with a rough laugh that made the hairs on my nape quiver.
I sucked in air, chest heaving in blissful breaths, relief pumping so hard through my oxygen-starved veins that I almost didn’t hear his next words.
“Fail the grading,” he said.
“Fuck you.”
“If you don’t, there will be nothing but pain for you here. I promise you that.”
I lifted my chin and sneered. “Haven’t you heard? I don’t feel pain.”
Moonlight caught his pale eyes, pupils dilating to drink me in. “Oh, but you will, Anamaya. You will…”
A prickle of unease penetrated the haze of my ire. “What?”
He backed away, and I followed, pulse racing. “What do you mean?” Wait… “You think you can use Tamina against me? I beat her once. I can do it again and—”
“Tamina has nothing to do with this.”
I wasn’t going to bite. I wasn’t… Fuck it. “Then what? Tell me!”
He smirked, already turning away. “Tell you and ruin the surprise? Not likely.” He walked off whistling a light, happy tune that left me buried beneath a fresh wave of doubt.
But maybe that’s what he wanted. To psyche me out.
My blood boiled. Who the fuck did he think he was?
No one and nothing, that’s who. Just like everyone else here.
Discarded by his royal father. Dark skies, why hadn’t I thrown that in his face?
Ugh. Next time. I had no doubt he’d attack me again, but I wasn’t going to sit around and wait for him to act.
I was going to take a jab at him first. I wasn’t sure how yet, but I’d come up with something.
For now, my focus had to remain on the grading. Retaliation on Sterling would have to wait.