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“The cave. When I woke up the next morning, you’d disappeared.”
“I got eliminated. I assumed you knew.”
“I know that. Tell me what happened.”
I hesitate. “There was one place left at the checkpoint. The scanner showed eleven, but the Adjudicator said it was full.”
His expression shifts, but for once he stays quiet, waiting for me to finish.
“I told him it wasn’t. He ended my Hunt anyway. Then someone else took the final spot.”
Asher’s mouth curves. “I’ll find out what happened. And I’ll deal with them.”
A chill runs through me. “What are you going to do?”
“Correct a filing error.”
He says nothing for so long that I start waiting for whatever comes next. Then, just as abruptly as he’d asked about the Hunt, he changes the subject. “We’re having dinner. Tonight. Eight.”
I stare at him. “...What?”
“Tonight. Eight. That wasn’t a question.”
I let out a snort. “Then here’s an answer. No.”
“No?” Stepping around the desk, he comes for me, one corner of his mouth tipped up. “Oh yes, prey. You’ll have dinner with me. I didn’t come all the way to Calder to eat alone.”
My heel catches the skirting board, and my shoulders hit the doorframe before I realize I’ve backed up at all.
He stops a breath short of me, close enough that his heat reaches my skin. I have to tip my head back to meet his eyes. “Nothing to say?” His gaze drops to my mouth. “Or are you waiting again?”
“Waiting? For what?”
“For me to move first.” His gaze lingers. “You did that in the cave, too. Right before you opened so sweetly for me, swallowing my spit and kissing me like you’d never been kissed.”
“You—” I can’t finish the phrase. He’s my boss, after all. But my face burns, and I curl my fingers against the frame behind me just to keep from doing something stupid.
The embarrassment from that night still feels too raw.
“I, what? Sir? Boss?” His thumb strokes over my pulse. “If you’d like, you can call me Master.”
“Go to hell.” I shove him, but he catches my wrists, squeezing them together. With his free hand, he traces a finger from the hinge of my jaw down the line of my throat. “You can fight all you like, but your body talks over you, stormbird. Loudly. However, this part is already mine.”
Dragging his thumb along my jaw, he tips my face up as goosebumps rise across my skin. I watch him lean in. “No—”
“Yes.”
“No! I mean, you can’t just come here and take whatever you want.”
“Watch me.” His fingers follow my Adam’s apple as I swallow, his dark eyes turning black as the pupils blow. “Fuck, prey,” he murmurs, “I’d have been disappointed if you’d stopped fighting.”
“I’m not your prey.” I glare up at him, breathing harder than I should. Why does he have to be this handsome?
“No.” His eyes hold mine. “And yet here you are.”
“Here I am telling you to go to hell.” I get a hand up between us and swing. He takes it on the forearm. I swing again, and he catches that wrist, walking me back until the glass wall meets my shoulders, pinning my hand beside my head.
“Go on, stormbird, keep going. I’ve got all day.”
