Watching Naasir sleep while she sat guard, on watch for any other signs of life, Andromeda couldn’t help herself. She bit her lower lip and reached out very, very, very carefully to touch his hair. It was cool silk and far softer than she’d imagined it might be. She wanted to—
He snapped up a hand to capture her wrist, his eyes still closed. “Andi, what are you doing?”
19
Andi?
It wasn’t an angelic name, not at all . . . but she liked it. “Touching your hair,” she admitted, since she’d been caught red-handed.
Yawning, he released her hand. “You can.” Then he seemed to fall right back to sleep.
Not quite believing it, she reached out and wove her fingers through the lusciously soft strands. He didn’t wake, didn’t even stir, though she had the awareness that he was like a great big cat who slept with one eye figuratively open. He was even striped like a tiger.
What?
Blinking, she looked again at his arms and face. The illusion held. She glanced up, wondering if it was a particular combination of tree branches that was causing it, but saw nothing that could explain the shadowy pattern beneath the gold-stroked deep brown of his skin. “What are you?” she whispered, but he didn’t wake this time—or if he heard her, he chose to keep his secrets.
She stroked his hair for a long time, her pleasure in the act bone-deep. It felt exactly like petting a wild animal who had decided to permit her close. He wasn’t tame and anyone who made that mistake would regret it, but for now, he’d decided he liked her. She knew that would change the second she took up her enforced position in an enemy court, and that, too, was inevitable.
Her heart felt as if it was being crushed in a giant metal fist.
Naasir had to feed that night. Leaving Andromeda to wait in the thick stand of trees next to a small village, he walked in, found his prey, fed, and walked back out. The entire exercise took him six minutes at most, but even that felt too long. He knew Andromeda could defend herself, also knew that if he didn’t feed, he’d no longer be able to protect her, but it still felt wrong to feed from another when she was in his life.
Andromeda wasn’t where he’d left her when he returned. Not that it took him long to track her to a small stream nearby. Her body was stiff, pretty wings patterned like a bird’s held off the ground. “Done?” she asked without turning around.
“Yes.”
She fell in beside him to continue their journey, but he could feel the wrongness in the air. As he’d demonstrated to her, he could put on a civilized skin when necessary. Most of the women he’d taken to his bed had never once seen him in anything close to his real skin. They had seen only the cool, cultured avatar who made them shiver with a primal fear that heightened their sexual pleasure.
It was a game that wasn’t a game but a kind of a lie, and it didn’t come instinctively to him. He’d learned how to pull it off only after realizing women wouldn’t otherwise allow him near their soft bodies and delicate skin.
Don’t act with me.
Andromeda might jump when he playfully scared her, but she hadn’t flinched once when it counted. She’d been happy he’d brought her meat, had let him touch her with his claws, hadn’t looked at him with terrified abhorrence just because he wasn’t like other men. No, she looked at him as if she wanted to pet him and bite him and play with him.
Except tonight. Tonight, she wouldn’t look at him at all.
“I chose a man.”
She stumbled over something in her path, righted herself. “Oh.” A long pause before she said, “I didn’t think you liked men that way.” Her voice was tight, as if she wasn’t breathing properly.
“Food is food.” As long as it wasn’t diseased like the blood that ran in the veins of Lijuan’s reborn, it would keep him alive.
Andromeda shot him a knife-edged glance that made him happy his mate had claws—and angry she was using them on him when he hadn’t done anything wrong. “I’ve heard the women in the Refuge talk about how sensual it is when you feed from them.”
Naasir shrugged. “Cooperative food is better than noncooperative food.” When he needed to hunt, he went after meat prey. For blood, he took no one who wasn’t consenting. “But the Refuge food is too cooperative,” he grumbled. “How much blood do they think I can drink?”
Mouth falling open, Andromeda shook her head. She’d braided her hair again so it was as restrained as possible, but her eyes sparkled with wildness. Then she began to laugh, clapping her hand over her mouth to stifle the sound. Fascinated, he just watched those bright, sparkling eyes. Every time she tried to speak, she started to laugh again, so he just let her until she’d tired herself out. And he enjoyed her pleasure.
“What’s so funny?” he asked when she finally spluttered into giggles.
“All those women,” she whispered, eyes crinkling up again. “They boast about how you feed from them, the implication being that you find each one deeply attractive—and you think of them as food!” She doubled over again, shoulders shaking as she tried futilely to stifle the sounds.
Not that it mattered; there was no one to hear but him.
Grinning at the wicked glee he’d glimpsed in her, he stroked his hand down the center of her wings in a petting gesture. “They have different-tasting blood,” he told her. “I think it has to do with their diet. I like the variety. Like going to different restaurants.”
She fell to the ground, she was laughing so hard by now. Tears leaked out of her eyes. “Stop it,” she managed to say between her giggles before setting her sword on the grassy earth and clamping both hands over her mouth as she lay on her back.
Straddling his fierce, sparkling, delicious-smelling mate with his knees on either side of her thighs, he braced his body on his palms above her. “Shall I tell you a secret?”
Laughter still holding her captive, she shook her head, but he could tell she wanted to know.
He levered himself down until he was bare inches from the lush-lipped mouth over which she still had her hands. “If Dmitri hadn’t taught me to be civilized,” he whispered, “I’d probably have eaten some of the women by now.”
When Andromeda’s eyes went huge, he realized he’d made a mistake, shown her too much of his nature. About to push off her before she screamed or acted terrified because he wasn’t sure he could handle the hurt, he was held in place by her grip on his T-shirt.
Hauling him down, she whispered, “Are you making fun?”
He knew he should lie, but he didn’t want to be with anyone who expected him to hide himself. Janvier and Ashwini didn’t hide themselves from each other. Honor knew all of Dmitri’s secrets. “No,” he said. “I’m fully capable of eating a person, but I’d have to hate them and be really hungry.” He thought about telling her what he’d done to the angel who’d created him, decided to see how she took this first truth.
Tiny lines formed between her eyebrows. “Do you think of me as food?” It was a snarl.
“No.” Muscles easing, he rubbed his nose over hers. “If I bite you, it’ll be in play. And if I eat you up, it’ll be because I have my tongue in your—”
She slammed her hand over his mouth.
Pulse racing, Andromeda looked into the eyes of the feral, beautiful creature who was shattering every barrier she’d created in an effort to live a life of honor and discipline where she didn’t only use, but created and gave. He was so pure, with a core of primal honesty that drew her like a moth to a flame. She knew that she’d never again meet anyone like Naasir, not even should she live to be ten thousand years old.