“I can make thirty miles a day.” He watches my face, all-seeing eyes rimmed in rich, chocolatey lashes. “Four more days, I would say,” he adds casually, unwinding the curl now.
“Wait—what?” The air goes out of me. I’m sure he’s joking…except Kiro doesn’t joke. “Four days? You mean two days in and two days out?”
“No, I mean four days in.”
“A hundred twenty miles into the wilderness? That’s where we’re going? We’ll be in Canada.”
He shrugs.
“And then you’re going to bring me back? All that way?”
He observes me curiously, as though he’s waiting for something.
I get this sense that the shifting sands I’ve been feeling reallyareshifting sands. That things are no longer solid. That I’ve sunk into a different world.
“It’s a long way just to…bring me to your place…”
The birds sing around me. Water laps at nearby rocks.
“It’s a long way just to turn around,” I add.
The way he watches me now, I have this crazy flash of insight—that he’s the predator and I’m prey.
“A long way…”
He drops his voice. “You’re not going back.”
“Seriously, Kiro. Come on.”
“You’re coming home with me.”
“And then I’m going back. I have to go back. You know I do.”
“You won’t go back.”
Something flips upside down in my belly.You won’t go back. He’s serious. Dead serious.
Even so I smile, because it’s so preposterous. “No, Kiro. That’s not going to happen.”
He studies my eyes. We’re awash inside a moment of truth, a strange pivot point between two universes. It’s not a question for him. Maybe it never was. “You’ll be my mate.”
My mouth goes dry. “You can’t just make me come with you and be your mate.”
He observes me with those fathomless golden eyes, waiting to see what I’ll do, thinking maybe I’ll try to get away. Knowing he can stop me.
Because he’s the king out here.
My heart pounds. Is it possible he imagines us growing old together in some cave or something? I hang out the wash on a tree branch? Woodland animals frolicking in the background?
Why not? Kiro’s in control here.
How stupid I was! So blinded by this man’s heartbreaking beauty, so consumed with affection for him, with getting his story, that I let him lead me miles into his world. So deep that I have no way of finding my way back.
Yes, he melts my panties. Who am I kidding? He inspires confusing, aching feelings in me that run way deeper than lust. But I’ve also seen him kill men with his bare hands as easy another man might open a jar of pickles.
“It’s not happening,” I say.
“It already happened.”