Page 88 of Hunted

And something I cannot allow her to know.

‘I asked you a question,’ her husky voice pushes, and the sound of it does something deeply inconvenient to me.

‘One I will not be answering,’ I reply, and my tone is steadier than I deserve. ‘Unless that is the one at the top of your mountain-high list?’

It is a risky bluff.

At this rate, I am turning as reckless as my bounty hunter, tossing challenges back at her as if we are equals in a game rather than predator and prey, sovereign and intruder.

But the centuries-old instincts that have served me well, telling me when to redirect, to offer a choice that is not truly a choice, move through me now, sharpening my calm even as my body screams for contact.

Her eyes narrow and, for a moment, I think she might take it, might burn her single question on something petty and demand to know the nature of my mark simply because she can, because she refuses to leave curiosity unindulged.

Then she shakes her head slowly, and something like respect stirs unpleasantly in me.

No. It seems she will not waste her question on things she does not know will rock the very foundations of her existence should she poke that particular wound.

She licks her lips again, and I stifle a roar, forcing my control to hold. Ruthlessly ignoring the pre-cum leaking from my shaft as I force myself not to finish what I started. Keep going until she’s a mindless puddle of spent lust in my arms.

She looks me straight in the eye, and there’s a clarity to her that lands like a strike.

‘Why are you so desperate to find Lyra Hannigan?’

19

VALENTIN

Sweet fucking fires of Netheris.

I do not answer immediately, because answering is not merely speaking. It is choosing to turn private conviction into fact with dire consequences. Ancient courts. Bloody battles. Sacred oaths binding my brothers and the Five Blood Thrones.

The curse we earned when we doomed Morrighan, our creator.

I release her gaze and step away with deliberate calm, letting the room regain its shape after what we’ve done to it.

Irony is not lost on me. That I am the one caged by obligation.

Honour dictates I answer. Not the performative chivalry mortals romanticise, but an older, stricter thing built into the bones of my kind. We are creatures of appetite and power. Without constraints, we become nothing more than hunger with a title.

If I say I cannot lie, my words must mean something.

So if I bargain, I must pay. If I permit a question, I must accept the cost of it.

Even if the cost is handing a weapon to the very woman who has been sharpening herself against me since we met.

Eira watches me, chin lifting as if she expects evasion.

Her body has not fully recovered from the kiss. I see it in her breath, in the way her fingers flex then still, in the betraying brightness of her eyes. She keeps flicking glances to my mouth, craving it and resenting that craving in equal measure.

I know the feeling.

I cross the room without haste, then turn back, keeping my hands behind my back so I do not reach for her.

If I touch her again before I speak, I will not speak at all.

‘You’re desperate,’ she repeats, testing the word with a bite. ‘Why? Does she owe you money? Or like… an organ?’

Her snark is armour, fear wrapped in irreverence and called control. I recognise the tactic. Make danger ridiculous, and perhaps it feels smaller.