Page 137 of Hunted

Duty returns like a blade against the throat.

I lift my mouth from Eira’s, and she looks at me through heavy lashes, dazedness clearing by degrees into that maddeningly perceptive focus.

‘The world knocking again?’ she asks, voice husky, lips kiss-swollen and impossibly compelling.

A thread of dry amusement cuts through my frustration. ‘You are developing irritating instincts.’

She smiles, lazy and smug in a way that does not suit her nearly as well as it should. ‘You’re welcome.’

I brush a thumb over her mouth once, then force myself to sit up, bringing her with me before I set her gently aside. The bed is a war zone of dark linen, tangled limbs and poor decisions.

I do not permit myself to admire it.

‘Malachi?’ she guesses, gathering the sheet around herself with all the modesty of a woman who has thoroughly lost a battle and enjoyed every second.

‘Yes.’

‘The murder squad getting twitchy?’

‘They are not a murder squad.’

She raises a brow. ‘That is exactly what a murder squad manager would say.’

Despite myself, a breath that is almost a laugh leaves me. ‘Dress, Eira.’

‘Bossy after orgasm. Noted.’

‘Incorrigible after orgasm. Also noted.’

We dress in a silence that is not truly silence, threaded with glances, half-formed thoughts and the charged awareness of what still hangs in the room.

As I button my shirt, I catch her looking towards the Heartshard Glass, then to my chest, to the place beneath the fabric where the mark lies.

The mark pulses.

A distinct, answering throb, as if it remembers her touch, her mouth, the way her fingers traced it into a flare. The way she marked it with her slick essence.

Essence I do not plan on washing off for a while yet.

I shake the sensation off with effort and, in the same breath, promise myself I will have her touch it again.

Soon.

When we step out of the bedroom proper, I catch her by the wrist and draw her in for one last kiss. Brief. Hard. Enough to make her exhale sharply against my mouth.

‘Do not leave the Tower,’ I growl.

Her eyes flash at once. ‘You really know how to end a lovely afternoon, don’t you?’

‘Eira.’ The warning throbs with something I haven’t felt in a very long time.

Concern.

‘Correct me if I’m wrong, but I have an apartment here. Not a cell.’

I catch her by the throat – itching to tear off the infernal collar – before the next line leaves her, hard enough to remind her what I am and who is giving the order. Her pulse jumps under my hand, and my own blood answers.

My voice drops. ‘I despise repeating myself, little hunter. But I will, just this once. Do not leave the Tower.’