Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
ARENA
Heat permeated my back and cheek.
Shivering, I nuzzled the smooth, firm arm under my head. A hand traced down my side, creating a heat trail down to my hip. The warmth nudged me toward my previous sleep state even as I tried to remember the last time someone had spooned me.
It’d been too long. It felt like heaven.
I wiggled back, wanting more contact. An arm circled my waist and pulled my bare backside flush with a well-endowed, hard wall of muscle.
Another shiver ran through me, but for a different reason.
I was sleeping with a man.
How? Why?
The previous events flooded my mind.
Infected chasing us. The water closing over me. Gwen swimming above as a strong arm wrapped around my waist.
Someone had rescued me.
Swallowing hard, I opened my eyes and saw the arm I was using as a pillow.
Dark grey skin?
That couldn’t be right. I blinked, and it took a few extra seconds to register that I wasn’t seeing things. That my eyes were fine.
I bolted upright, dislodging the hand on my hip and the blankets covering me, and twisted around to look at the man behind me.
It…
He…wasn’t a man.
At least, not a human one.
Dark grey skin. Long, pointed ears. Golden inhuman eyes with vertical slits for pupils.
His gaze locked with mine. Watching me. Studying me.
My heart stuttered in my chest with shock and fear.
Demon.
My next attempt to inhale was a pathetic wheeze.
Without conscious thought, I flew out of bed and raced for the door. The demon moved faster, reaching it before I could.
He blocked me.
Eyes wide, I stared at the hand planted against the wooden surface, preventing me from escaping.
It was huge. His palm could easily cover my face.
And the finger span? I struggled to swallow past the fear clawing at my airway as I remembered the traders’ stories about the headless infected and the head that had rolled out of the pharmacy.
With hands that big, plucking off heads had to be easy.
Then I saw the dark grey nails that tipped each finger. Dull shadows that looked like imitations of fingernails.
Not human.
Breathing hard, I lifted my gaze, having to tip my head back to see his face. He was so tall, at least two feet over my five feet and four inches. The top of his head wouldn’t clear the door without ducking.
His slitted pupils slowly widened as he watched me.
The sound of my own heartbeat thundered in my ears as his gaze left my face and swept down to my heaving chest.
The fact that he wasn’t wearing a shirt registered a second before I realized he wasn’t wearing anything at all.
I bolted for the bathroom, slamming and locking the door before he could stop me.
What in the hell was happening? What was he? And why was he naked? What did he want?
Shaking, I backed away from the door as my thoughts whirled.
My bare butt hit the cold counter, and my elbow knocked into the lantern illuminating the small space. Spinning around, I stared at myself in the mirror.
I was completely naked.
What the fuck had happened after I passed out? Had he…slept with me?
A quick check made it seem unlikely. Nothing hurt except my throat, and it didn’t look like it’d been that long since he’d pulled me from the water. My brown hair still hung in wet clumps, and the skin around my lips was tinged blue. The tips of my toes and fingers looked a little purple, too.
“You’re safe,” he said through the door. “The infected can’t hurt you.”
A distant moan finally registered.
“You can come out,” he added.
Out? Where he was waiting for me? Naked? Why? What did he want?
I glanced around the windowless bathroom, knowing I was trapped and quickly losing what little heat I’d gained while in bed with him.
“You’re still too cold from the lake,” he said, as if hearing my thoughts. “Hypothermia is dangerous for humans.”
Human. Something he obviously wasn’t. So how did he know? What was he? Where had he come from?
“Will you come out?” he asked. “Please?”
“Why are you helping me?” I asked, my voice shaking.
“I want you to live.”
“Why?” I asked, even though what I’d felt prodding my backside when I woke made it pretty clear what he wanted.
“I do not want to be alone.”
And there it was.
“So you want to have sex with me?”
“Yes.” The intensity behind that immediate reply scared me.
Looking around the room again, I wondered what other options I had.
“And if I don’t want to have sex?” I asked, my voice faint.
It took a few moments for him to answer.
“I won’t force you.”
The same intensity was in that answer, too. Why? Because it was a lie he was trying to sell.
“Once you’re warm, we can find your friend,” he said when I remained silent. “She swam fast and reached the boat, but was in the water longer than you.”
Did that mean Gwen knew what took me? Wait…was he threatening to go after them if I didn’t cooperate?
“Forced sex is never as good as willing sex,” I said.
“I know.”
He said it with so much certainty that I wondered how many times he’d tried it to be sure. A shiver ran through me.
“What are you?” The question was out of my mouth before the thought registered.
“I am a fey.”
The word brought to mind a man—light, lithe, and beautiful. The one outside the door didn’t look like that. He was dark and thick and…scary? It was the eyes and the nails. I honestly couldn’t remember his face.
“You’re too cold,” he said.
I realized my teeth were quietly chattering.
“You need to come out now.”
With a crack, wood splintered as he pulled the door open. I stared, stunned. The lock hadn’t done a thing to stop him. He had let me stay in the bathroom.
“My name is Nav,” he said from behind the slightly mangled door. “What’s your name?”
My brain was struggling to move past how fucked I was. He was too strong to overpower and too fast to run from. The only choice I had left was whether I was going to be a cooperative captive.
“The infected did not scare you out of bed, did they? I did.” The heaviness in his tone actually made me feel guilty, as if I were the one being unreasonable.
He wouldn’t let me leave and broke the door to get to me. Pretty sure the reason for my fear was sound.
“My name is Arena,” I said instead of acknowledging that he was right.
“Arena,” he repeated in an odd tone.
Reverence? Or anticipation?
I was no longer sure how much of my shaking was due to the cold.
“Come out, Arena.”
“Could you pass me my clothes first?”
“They’re wet and won’t warm you. I will. Come out.”
Knowing I had no other choice, I shuffled forward on numb feet.
He stayed behind the door until I cleared it. When he stepped out, seeing him again was just as startling as the first time. Especially with the way he watched me. Tense. Hungry.
For sex or my head?
Suddenly, sex didn’t sound so bad.
His gaze went to my mouth. Was he looking at my blue lips or thinking of ways to stop my teeth from clacking together? The little braids woven into his long black hair by the temples swayed as he stepped closer to me.
He plucked me off my feet like I was a toddler asking for uppies.
Startled, I braced my hands on his chest. The heat stung my fingers, and I didn’t push away as I’d intended. It felt too good.
A hot arm wrapped around my waist, anchoring me to him. He pressed his other hand between my shoulder blades. I couldn’t fight the forward pressure. Slowly, the space between us vanished until my front was flush against his.
The warmth felt so good.
I went limp, lightheaded from the contact, and rested my head on his shoulder. When he stroked my back, I sighed, melting a little more.
“Yes. Take my heat.”
Wait. What?
I started to lift my head, but he stopped stroking my back to guide it to his shoulder again.
“Not yet. Wait until the color of your fingers is the same color as your pretty…face.”
He’d hesitated. What had he wanted to say instead?
He turned toward the bed, and I started to struggle.
“Shh. You’re safe. We’ll find your friends after you are warm.”
The fight left me. If he found them, I wouldn’t have any chance of returning home.
With me still pinned to his front, he got into bed and pulled the blankets over us. If I’d thought spooning invasive, lying on top of him like I was his personal blanket was more so.
The part of him that liked our new position twitched against the crease of my thighs. I inched up his chest to create more distance, and Nav didn’t stop me…until I tried to move off of him completely.
He captured my hips, lifted me, and plucked me right back down where I’d been.
I froze when I felt how much bigger it was.
Heart racing, I kept as still as possible. The combination of fear, panic, and his body heat was definitely warming me.
His hand returned to my back, stroking it under the blankets. Minutes passed without anything else happening. My teeth stopped chattering, and the shivers eased.
I stared vacantly across the plane of his chest at the room’s only window as the feeling returned to my feet.
If I planned to run eventually, I needed clothes. But after I had some, then what? And how did I think I was going to get away from him when he could move faster than me? When he was stronger than me?
A surprise cough rattled through me, and I felt a burn in my lungs. Yep, I’d inhaled water. How close had I been to dying? The possibility that he’d had to resuscitate me sent conflicting emotions through me. I was grateful, obviously. But worried too.
A grey demon who beheaded infected had rescued me from Superior.
Why?
For sex.
But it hadn’t sounded like he was that hard up for it if he knew willing was better than forced.
So why me?
He switched the hand he was using to stroke my back, and the heat radiating from the new palm derailed my thinking. How was he so much warmer? He pressed his hand into me a little harder, a combination tissue and blood flow massage that helped spread the heat even deeper.
My lips parted.