Chapter 44.
690 Words
The question hung in the freezing mountain air like a bomb with a burning fuse. For a heartbeat, even the wind seemed to hold its breath, leaving only the sound of Rhiannon’s shallow, jagged exhales and the heavy, thrumming pulse of the man beneath her hands.
"Where?" Fenris asked, his voice dropping an octave, becoming a low vibration that she felt more in her palms than heard with her ears.
"The brothel," she said, the word tasting like ash.
Fenris went rigid. The hand that had been anchoring her wrist tightened just a fraction before he caught himself and loosened his grip. He stood frozen, his golden eyes searching hers, the predatory intensity of Malphas warring with the guarded silence of the Alpha. The amber light of the setting sun caught the fresh, pink scar she had just carved and closed.
"I wasn't there for the brothel in particular," he said slowly, choosing his words with the caution of a man walking on thin ice. "I was there to see if any of the missing she-wolves of the allied packs were being held in the city’s underbelly. I was looking for my kind." He paused, a muscle jumping in his jaw. "Then I saw you."
It was a half-truth, a jagged shard of a much larger story, but it was all he was willing to give to the cold air.
Rhiannon looked away, her gaze falling to the blood-stained snow.
"Then you saw me," she murmured, the syllables heavy with the memory of that dark, suffocating room. She lifted her gaze back to his, her green eyes flashing with a sudden, sharp clarity. "Why did you buy me? Why take a fairy with broken magic when you were looking for high-born wolves?"
"Rhia, we’ve already been over this," Fenris sighed. It was the sound of a man who had rehearsed this defense a thousand times. He shifted his weight, the movement making the silk of his shirt rasp against her still-planted palms. "I told you, I couldn't leave you there."
"I don't believe that it’s just because you have a good heart," she countered, her voice growing stronger, fueled by a desperate need for the truth. "I’m sure your heart is plenty good, Fenris. But you’re hiding something from me. I can tell. Even Sora said she hadn't seen your wolf so active in your eyes in years! Not until I arrived."
The silence returned, but this time it was suffocatingly hot. They were standing so close that the steam from their breath mingled into a single cloud. Rhiannon didn't move. Her hands remained pressed against his side, the heat of his body seeping into her skin, anchoring her even as her mind began to spiral.
Fenris didn't pull away. Instead, he leaned in, his shadow swallowing her completely. "Before I answer that," he whispered, his golden eyes narrowing, "do you feel it?"
Rhiannon’s breath caught. Her hands remained on the now-healed skin, the friction of the linen shirt and the hard muscle beneath it sending a fresh wave of electricity through her. "Feel it?" she repeated, her voice tripping over the words. "The... the goosebumps? That... that weird pull?"
Fenris’s lips twitched slightly, the ghost of a smile trying to break through his grim mask, though his eyes remained dark with an intensity that made her knees feel weak. "I'm going to take that as a yes."
The static in her head was gone, replaced by a magnetic force that seemed to be trying to fuse her soul to his. The proximity was no longer a threat; it was a demand. Terrified by the sheer power of the sensation and the answer she saw dancing in his golden gaze, she finally yanked her hands away from his side.
She scrambled back a step, her fingers curling into fists as if to trap the heat he had left behind, but the pull remained, a phantom cord stretching between them in the dark.
"What’s wrong with me?" she asked, her voice a fractured plea.
- Writer
