Hood's Obsession (22 page)

Though he was a trained fighter, it was the art of healing that Giles had always found most fascinating. It took five minutes of constant chewing before the leaves were at the correct consistency.

Snatching up a flat rock, he looked at her. “You might want to turn away for this part. It’s a little disgusting.”

She made a sound that sounded an awful lot like a laugh. It didn’t last long, but it was the first spark of life she’d shown in a while and it warmed his heart to hear it.

Lilith turned her head to side and he withdrew the pasty substance, placing it onto the flat part of the stone. “Give me your foot.”

She slowly slid her foot out toward him. Lifting it gently onto his lap, he swiped some of the paste onto his finger and began to work it across the sole of her foot.

“You don’t seem as repulsed as you should,” he said with a soft chuckle.

She shrugged. “I’m part wolf. When you see your brothers sniff each other’s asses, what is and isn’t gross takes on a whole new meaning.”

He laughed. Already he could see the redness of the wounds begin to slowly dissipate.

A shiver rippled through her and he heard her exhale with relief. The pain must have been excruciating, but she’d not let him close enough to her for him to even notice.

“I’m sorry.”

She looked at him. “It’s not your fault. I should have done something about them sooner, I just didn’t wish to slow us down any—”

“No.” He massaged between her toes, amazed anew at the curative powers of the weeds on Kingdom. Already the weeping blisters were closing up, shrinking in size. The inflammation would be the last to go, but soon even that would be gone. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Oh.” She plucked at her cloak. “Giles, I—”

“I’m not going to stop talking about this, Lilith. I’ve had a week of silence, a week to think this over. I was cruel and you deserve so much more than just this weak apology.”

She still wouldn’t look at him. He waited, giving her a chance to speak. The way her throat was working and how her tongue was moving in her mouth, he knew she wished to say something.

Finally his patience was rewarded.

“I was hurt.”

The words seemed to be ripped from her soul. Her cheeks flamed a rosy color as the breeze picked up and caused the ends of her hair to dance.

Lilith’s sweet scent saturated his lungs.

“I’m terrified,” he ruefully admitted, then, tapping her foot, he silently demanded she hand him the other one.

Sighing with relief, she slid her other foot onto his lap. The second one wasn’t nearly as ruined as the first had been, but he repeated the process anyway. Applying a bit more pressure to help relieve her aches.

She moaned under his touch and it tugged a smile to his lips.

“I like to hear that.”

“What?”

With his heart in his throat he looked at her silently, long enough that she was finally forced to look back at him.

“You liking my touch.”

She covered her mouth with the back of her hand. The act was coquettish and bashful and so breathtakingly beautiful it was all he could do to remain where he was and not seduce her into a wild fit of writhing, excited madness.

“Liking your touch was never my problem. It was feeling that I was the only one who truly did. What we did the other night, I’ve never…” She glanced back down at her feet.

Unable to resist touching her as he wished to for another second, Giles grabbed her hands and tugged her gently, until she was sitting on his lap.

The weight of her, the feel of her lush curves against his—it felt so right.

“Why are you scared, knight?” she asked as she played with the edge of his shirt.

“Because the sacrifice would be huge.”

She went immediately rigid, and he was quick to pet her back, hoping to soothe her. “I won’t lie to you ever. It is not in my nature to do so. It’s not that I can’t, simply that I won’t. Lilith, I want you. You intrigue me. What we did the other night, I can’t stop dreaming about it.”

“Then what is the problem?” She shook her head, clearly befuddled by his words.

“Because the sacrifice wouldn’t just be my own. Wolves need packs. I could not live away from the castle. My duty is there, to serve my prince. I fear any mate I should ever take would feel ignored and locked away. That is why I chose long ago to wait.”

As he talked he stroked her velvety cheek. She whimpered into his touch, doing the little mewling noises in the back of her throat he found so endearing.

“How long have you waited, Giles? A century? Two? Three? More?”

Framing her face, he smiled against his will. “You are far wiser than you should be for one so young.”

“Gods.” She rolled her eyes. “Now you’re going to use age against me?” Her words were said in jest. “Years mean nothing in Kingdom. I’m a woman, you are a man. And you’ve yet to give me any sort of valid reason for why we could not work. Age is nothing but a number. In a world where we cannot die of it, what does it matter?”

“Do you want children, little wolf?”

“Someday. Maybe. I don’t know, I hadn’t thought that far ahead.” Her grin was sly and her vivid blue eyes were sparkling, it was good to see her acting more like her old self again.

“If we were mated, I could never give them to you.”

“What?” She frowned, mouth parting just slightly. “Never?”

“No.” He shook his head slowly. “The rules of magic concerning our kind are very different to your own, or any other species born on Kingdom. Unless I am with another demone woman, I cannot impregnate anyone.”

Her tiny fingers clutched at the back of his shirt, but she didn’t say anything.

Feeling as though he’d crushed her dreams all over again, he gave her a bitter twist of his lips. “I worry that not only could I not please my bride by having the time to devote to her as I should, but she”—he pulled her chin toward his—“would never even get to know the joy of holding her own child in her arms. So answer me this, little wolf, does that sound like much of a fairytale to you?”

If she said yes, he’d make her his now. He’d mate her in the way of a wolf; however, she needed it to be to ensure that no male could ever have her again. He’d offer his hand, his heart, and his protection. It wouldn’t be nearly as much as she deserved he knew, but it would be all he had to give.

And if she said it was enough then he would stop second-guessing himself and just take the leap of faith.

Lilith claimed his lips and her kiss was so slow and gentle and tender. And his heart leapt for joy because he knew she’d accepted him as he was. And somehow this would have to work. Somehow he’d figure out a way to make both his prince and his bride happy.

“I wish to bathe,” she whispered upon his mouth before pulling back and giving him a timid smile.

Was she asking him to join her? Were they to formerly become a mated pair already?

Moving to get up, she pressed her palm to his shoulder.

“Alone, Giles. I need to be alone for a while.”

When she got up he did not protest. She moved with ease again and though he couldn’t understand the strange feeling suddenly rippling through his heart, he watched her walk away from him.

She moved down the slope and a part of him wished to give her privacy but another part understood that they weren’t in a completely safe area. Getting up, he walked after her, telling himself it was just to keep watch and see that she was safe.

But when she began to strip down to nothing, he didn’t turn away. And seeing her naked this time, it was like he’d never seen her before.

Her movements were graceful and smooth. Her body long and lean. The inky spill of hair ended just above the line of her apple-shaped bottom. Lilith moved toward the water, and with each step he caught a glimpse between her thighs. His mouth watered. He’d seen her nude so many times, but it had never bothered him before.

Now he could not take his eyes of the rosy tips of her nipples, the fullness of her breasts, her slim waist and plump hips. A vision of her writhing upon him, her hands all over him, came suddenly upon him and he was hard and ready, painfully so.

She’d said no.

Why was it bothering him?

He’d told her hoping to spare her being bound to someone like him. It shouldn’t bother him. She’d made the wise choice.

Gripping a low-hanging branch in his fist, he found himself wishing he were a free man. For the first time in all his life, Giles hated the man he was.

He’d only ever broken faith once before and it had cost him everything. He’d vowed never again. A demone was defined by the vows he made. Giles was loyal, always had been.

He told himself it did not matter. That the only reason he felt anything at all was because of their forced time spent together. But as she dipped her head beneath the water and kicked up her foot, floating with a lazy smile on her face, his heart twisted painfully in his chest and he knew it for the lie it was.

She did matter.

Lilith mattered to him.

But if she wished to walk away, he would let her. He would have to; he would honor her decision no matter what. Closing his eyes, he took a step back, intending to give her a bit more privacy.

And just as he was about to head back to camp, the snapping of a twig caused him to turn back around.

He had just enough time to see a group of five or six dwarves surrounding Lilith. She was screaming as their hands grabbed at her.

Lilith called her light, shifting to a wolf. But it was no use. With one powerful blow she was knocked unconscious.

It all happened so fast—within a fraction of a second—that Giles could only stand there in stunned silence. When he blinked himself back to reality, it was to note that he, too, had been ambushed. There was a circle of ten around him and one of them was holding a black candle that flickered with deepest, black flame.

“Ain’t no shiftin’ allowed, demon ilk,” the thunderous voice of the one holding the candle cried, and then something hard and powerful knocked into his skull from behind, causing him to black out instantly.

Lilith had no idea where she was. She could barely even remember what she’d been about to do. Moaning, she gingerly lifted a hand to her hair.

“Little wolf,” Giles’s soft rumble caused her to gaze up at him.

“Knight? What?” She shook her head.

“Shh.” He placed a finger over his lips and then pointed straight ahead.

Shaking the marbles loose, she blinked through her blurred vision and noted that they seemed to be locked inside of a hollowed-out corner of mountain. The moment she noticed that she also noticed she was sitting in water and not only were her ankles chained together, but she was bound around her middle with a fibrous section of rope.

“What?” She jerked with a sudden jolt of adrenaline brought on by a sharp burst of fear.

Wolves did not like to be tied up.

Breath coming in rapid-fire punches, she twirled on her butt as the enormity of their situation became obvious to her. She was sitting inside a large, black cast-iron pot. Beside her, Giles sat in his own pot.

“Great wolf!” she cried. “We need to get out, we can’t—”

“Shh.” He hissed again louder, and this time his brows dropped and his head swiveled toward the door where a long slice of shadow inched beneath it. “They’ve posted guards,” he began in a whisper. “I heard them say they would not begin supper until the
meat
had awoken.”

“Meat?” she squeaked, swallowing down the bile that had risen at the mere mention of them being meat. “Shift, Giles, get us out of here.”

He glowered. “I cannot.” His chin jerked toward a fat black beeswax candle cushioned between sections of chiseled rock. Its black flame flickered macabrely across the shiny surface of the silver veined stone walls.

“The candle is blocking you?” Lilith tried so hard to keep the tone of her voice down. Now that Giles had warned her she could indeed hear the murmurings of dwarves just outside the door.

Their voices held a gruff, rumbly tone to them, which clearly came from mining in the dark bowels of the earth and constantly inhaling dusty fumes.

Lilith gripped the edge of her pot, fingers curling around the lip of it as she tried in vain to not think about the fact that all they needed to do was light a fire and she’d be wolf stew.

“My necklace,” she gasped, realizing there could be no better time to use fairy magic than right now. But when she patted her neck it was gone, in its place a little brown sachet tied with a string of leather.

He shook his head, “I already looked. They stripped our possessions while we’d been out.”

Gripping the sachet, she attempted to open it to see what was inside. It was squishy and full of something, but she had no clue what. There were no visible openings, so she lifted it to her nose and sniffed.

There was a pleasant but slightly earthy smell inside. She’d never smelled the scent before. A hideous thought came to her then. “Is this a pouch of cooking herbs?”

His eyes were hollow. The red in them almost a dull, lackluster yellow. She did not like that look, she would not accept that look.

“Stop it,” she snapped at him and dropped the sachet. “You will not get sad about this.”