Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
VALERIAN
How did I find myself in such a fucked-up situation?
It’s troublesome. Exhausting. Annoying. I should be back with my people, not babysitting a traumatized woman whose family has set out to assassinate her.
Wolf politics are brutal, but at least, what family I have left never schemed to bump me off.
In fact, they’re probably combing through the plain and woods to find me as we speak.
I should make contact with them, let them know I’m fine…
but I also need to deliver this girl to her destination in one piece.
This girl… lying bonelessly between my legs, her back to my chest, her head right under my chin, warm and soft. Much softer than when she’s awake, her prickly, jagged armor made of old pain and fear, her snappy replies like blades jutting out of her wounded core.
A wound my people put there.
I shouldn’t feel responsible. And though I do, this isn’t what it’s about.
I didn’t save her out of a sense of guilt or responsibility.
Not even because of that damn agreement I made with her—a sham from the beginning.
I knew her companions would try to off me on the way, if not her.
The way she fought me in that hall… she has steel in her soul.
But no, that isn’t why I’m here.
I can’t even fucking explain it to myself. I should have escaped the moment I was caught—off guard, and stupidly—and returned home. I had almost given up on my search for my mother’s killer when the hunters arrived and got me in their nets.
I should have left the moment they muzzled and tied me up, bringing back too many fucking bad memories.
Or the moment I realized Rosamund wasn’t meant to survive her family.
Except, that was the turning point, the moment I decided I was going to save her and take her far away from there. Even though what she wants is to tie herself to another man. Will he treat her right? Teach her to be free and happy?
None of my business, right?
Fuck.
My cousin Tristan always said I’m way too soft when it comes to pretty, difficult girls—though she isn’t difficult. She’s set in her ways. Isolated. Shielding herself from anything that might go bump in the night… From creatures like me.
The things she has let slip about her past, the things others mentioned… the picture they paint isn’t pretty. To think she went through such a hell, it hurts my fucking heart.
It’s my weakness, taking in strays. Kittens and puppies, Tristan would say, baby wildcats and birds falling from their nests. Even baby darakins. I love the small dragons.
I have scars from most of those encounters and my attempts to save the animals, though I didn’t always succeed. So why do I keep doing it?
How am I going to trek without shifting, with her slowing me down, exposing me to danger? How am I going to keep her from dying in a million different ways?
Why did I bring her along?
Lust, a dark part of my mind whispers. She’s hot in her defiance, in her bloodied struggle, in her ruined finery and crushed dreams of the future. She burns so brightly.
And having her practically on top of me isn’t helping any with the permanent hard-on I’ve sported from the moment I saw her. My dick is a steel rod in my pants. It has the hardness you’d find in the core of mountains, in the gems that encrust the great dragons’ hides.
I’m fucking gone for her. I’d give anything to spread her legs and touch her where she’s soft and wet, opening for me. I long to taste her cream, to lap it up and bite, leave marks on her thighs, on her hips. Leave the imprint of my teeth on her neck, her breasts. Mark her as mine.
I shift uncomfortably on the branch. So damn hard. So damn horny. Dammit, I’ve never had it so bad before. What is it about her that grabbed me by the balls and won’t let go?
Down, dick. Gritting my teeth, I slide my hands along her sides to keep her from falling off me. Not to feel the contours of her body, her curves, the dip of her waist, the swell of her breasts. Down.
She murmurs something unintelligible, sighs, and tries to turn on her side, as if I’m a cushy, comfortable bed and not a muscular dark fae werewolf, all bones and angles and hard, oh so hard…
Doesn’t she feel me poking into her back, trying to get into her ass even as I suffer, struggling to control myself?
“Settle down, Princess,” I grind out. “Or we’ll both fall out of this tree.”
The light is fading. The woods are awakening, the rustling from the grass and the undergrowth becoming sharper in my ears. Small animals emerge from their burrows to hunt for food. Larger animals prowl, hunting the smaller ones.
The circle of life. Violent, bloody, and yet constant and reassuring.
I sit with my arms around her, my legs wrapped around the thick branch bearing our weight. I’m a wolf. I prefer level ground and don’t care much for the swaying and the sense of imminent-falling-to-our-death this tree has to offer. She shifts, restless, and I tighten my embrace around her.
Incredibly, I manage to doze on and off, her warm body lulling me into a sense of peace. Dreams flash behind my eyes, naked bodies moving against mine, lips sweeping over my skin, pleasurable and erotic.
A breeze soughs through the foliage. Dawn breaks, light seeping through my lashes.
Then she shifts again, and I grunt as she rubs against my trapped erection. It’s painful, and pleasurable, and maddening.
Then she moans, and I swear on all the Sleeping Gods’ names, I’m going to lose my mind.
“Who are you dreaming of, Princess?” I whisper. “Tell me. Are you dreaming of your future husband? What are you doing with him? Is he going down on you? Is he fucking you?”
“Valen,” she whispers, her eyes tracking behind her lids. “Please, Valen…”
I freeze. Then a slow grin spreads over my face. “Fuck me… You’re dreaming of me? Why, I never, baby girl. You can have me any way you want me. I—”
Loud barking interrupts me mid-sentence.
Dogs. Many of them, from the sound of it, barking up a storm, and then I hear voices. Doing my best to tune out her sweet, delicious scent of arousal, I sniff the air and smell humans.
Ah fuck, they followed us. “Princess.” I shake her gently. “We need to move.”
Dammit, I should have known this would happen.