His vow only bolstered her resistance. She shook her head, firm. “Fear won’t keep me from action. There’s no guarantee my glamara will ever fully recharge. I need a plan B.”
Laughably easy, Kaysar? “You no longer belong in your old world,” he cajoled. “Stay here. You’ll experience every comfort in my castle.”
Her shoulders squared, and her spine straightened. She elevated her chin as those forest-sunset eyes frosted over. “I don’t want to go to your castle—wait. Like, it’s a legit castle, with towers and dungeons and stuff? What defenses are—No. Don’t answer that. It doesn’t matter. I’m going home. My best friend and cat are worried sick about me. Pearl Jean does not need another illness, and Sugars has... peculiarities. I will return to them. Nothing will stop me.”
“You’ll never find another doormaker.” He would make sure of it.
“Are you a seer?” she asked, a little too sweetly for his liking.
Because he knew where she was headed with her line of inquiry. “No,” he grated, resentful over the answer. Over her insight.
“Then you can’t know whether I will or won’t find a doormaker.”
He worked his jaw. She truly meant to leave him. “You won’t succeed without my aid,” he warned.
“Maybe, but I’m still going to try. Will you at least draw a map in the dirt before we separate, and point me to a safe town?”
A map. Yes. Automatically, he scraped his claws deeper, using the blood to craft a swift crimson outline of the surrounding miles. When he finished, he extended his arm to her without thinking.
She peered at his wounds, pensive. Horrified?
His cheeks heated as silence stretched between them. Even the pixies had gone quiet, no longer whispering in the trees. With a growl, he dropped his arm to his side.
“Wait. I wasn’t done memorizing.” She clasped his wrist and maneuvered his arm into a brighter beam of light. The cuts had already woven together, but the blood lines remained. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but this is the pond. This is the carnage we abandoned. Which means we’re here.” Her brow furrowed as she tapped a spot near his wrist. “This path seems to lead to a town, yes?”
She could read his blood-map? How was this possible? No one could read his blood-maps.
“Kaysar?” she prompted, peering up at him. A warm breeze twirled between them, swirling leaves and lifting a lock of pink hair.
She was too beautiful. Too soft. Too warm. Too singular. Kaysar bit his tongue until he tasted the metallic tinge of blood. “Even with a map, you won’t find a doormaker on your own. If you survive the forest itself, you might die at the hands of its inhabitants. You think the centaurs are bad? Wait until you meet ogres and trolls.”
“I have. They left me alone.”
Yes. Well. Of course they had. They’d sensed her connection to the Frostlines, and they’d heeded his rules. Not even a scratch on the royals. “Have you come across a goblin yet?”
She shuddered, as if she knew what horrors to expect from the ghostly fiends. “No, but I’m not calling off my hunt for a doormaker.”
Stubborn female. “Very well. I will accompany you.” He pieced together a new plan. Forget seduction at the castle. He would lead Chantel through the forest and into the Dusklands.
The journey would prove exhausting for her—because he would make it so, forcing her to rely on his knowledge and depend on his strength. Nights spent under the stars guaranteed she sought his body for warmth.
As soon as he got her in his arms, she would forget all thoughts of her former home. I will have my vengeance. All will be well.
“You’ll help me? Really?” she asked, suspicious. “For what price?”
Oh, they would discuss his price soon enough. “I’m sure I’ll think of something.” He looked her over with their coming travels in mind. “For now, you require shoes. And supplies.”
“And weapons of my own.”
This little dollop of strawberries and cream wished to wield weapons? When she quirked a brow in challenge, he merely replied, “Naturally. I will gather everything you need.”
“And the price for all of that?”
How much was she willing to pay?
He decided to push in the direction he wished to end and gauge her reaction. “Tell me, Chantel. Do you fear I’ll demand sex from you? Or do you hope I will?”
CHAPTER NINE
KAYSAR’S QUESTION HUNG in the air, a sultry caress against Cookie’s overheated skin. His whiskey eyes gleamed with some concentrated emotion. The need to kill her? To kiss her? Excitement or resentment? More anger than any person should be able to contain? Longing? Hope?
Insanity?
During their brief interaction, he’d displayed all of those things and more, weaving between the contradictory mess seamlessly. Sometimes, especially when he stroked those metal claws over his arms, he reminded her of a lost little boy...with dreams of burning the entire world to ash.