Hood's Obsession (7 page)

Faces contorted into demonic masks of fury, Sonora thundered, “Deal.”

Eyes swiveling immediately toward Giles direction, Lilith beckoned him to her. “Come here, knight. Quickly.”

Tucking his dirk away, Giles morphed back into shadow. He was angry, relieved, and so bloody confused by the time he got to her it was all he could do not to yank her into his arms and kiss the top of her head while growling at her that she’d been foolish to do what she’d done.

“Grab my hand,” Lilith rushed out, “and get us out of here now!”

Giles grabbed Lilith’s hand and willed not only his body but also hers to become no more dense than the air they breathed. Once shifted, he hurtled them above the canyon to the safety of the land above.

Gulping and gasping when she shifted back to her human form, Lilith called out, “As promised, dragon.”

Sonora lifted her hand and snatched the water stone from the air. “You ever return, and we
will
kill you!”

Giles stood on the edge of the bluff watching as the dragon sank back into the water, which receded the instant they’d interned themselves. The land below shifted, becoming nothing more than a dry bed of red sand again.

Collapsing back onto the dirt, Lilith covered her eyes with her forearm. “You tell me again how much Rumpel values your service.”

They were spent by the time they stumbled into the glen. The shelter waiting for them was a hole dug into a massive redwood tree trunk. Lilith opened the door and headed inside, never looking back at him.

They’d not talked much after the battle with the dragon—mainly because Giles was upset. True, her method had gotten them out of a bind, but there was no guarantee that it would work the next time. It’d been reckless folly, but even though he was angry, he was also puzzled. Because the sense of relief he’d felt when he’d latched on to her hand—the way just the feel of her soft palm sliding into his had broken his body out in a wash of goosebumps, how his first thought hadn’t been anger, but the knowledge that Lilith was safe—had overwhelmed him.

And he was still baffled by his emotions, so he said nothing until he was sure he wouldn’t be tempted to admit to either need.

The interior of the tree trunk was sparsely furnished. There were two dwarf-sized beds hewn from the wooden walls. Sitting on a small shelf were a basket of apples and several loaves of freshly baked bread.

Lilith picked one up and took it with her to her bed. She didn’t look at him as she lay back on the bed.

Realizing he couldn’t continue to ignore her indefinitely, he sought neutral ground.

“What is this place? Does it belong to someone?” he asked, realizing she might not give him more than a one-word answer, but unsure whether they should make themselves at home, as she was currently doing.

“Tree elves.” She bit into her bread. “They’ve designed this place for weary travelers. They only ask that you make sure it’s tidy in the morning.”

“Huh.” He’d never heard of such a thing, but she’d rolled over onto her side and was now facing the wall.

It was a clear signal to him that she wished to be left alone.

Sighing, he grabbed an apple and took a bite out of it. Outside the night sky gleamed with thousands of twinkling stars. It was a nice place to rest his head, he supposed.

Giving her one final look, he also turned onto his side and soon they both fell asleep.

They left everything tidy in the morning, and for the next several days their routine was the same. Travel with little talk between them and stop at one of the elven dwellings when night fell.

For a few days he’d tried to extend an olive branch, attempting to help her cross creek beds, or handing her a bunch of wild roses he’d plucked from a bush. He wasn’t sure why he continued to try so hard, but each time he did she would give him a withering look and ignore his proffered hand. He’d thought he’d made some headway with the flowers—she’d stared at them for a long while—but eventually she’d turned her face to the side and jogged away. After that he’d stopped trying to get her to talk to him.

But after two weeks of near silence, Giles slammed his hands down on his thighs. “Are you cross with me, Lilith?”

There was a question in her eyes. “Why?”

“Because you hardly talk anymore.”

She opened her mouth and then quickly clamped it shut. “I was going to tell you nothing, but that wouldn’t be true. I have a question for you, knight. What have I done wrong?”

Giles was no longer angry about the stone—that’d happened days ago and he was mostly over it—but the truth of it was he missed the woman he’d met days ago. The one who made him laugh, even when she wasn’t trying to. The one with a sharp tongue and ready wit, it was nonsense…mostly because they didn’t know one another well, but he’d had fun with her, and up until the dragon he’d thought she’d had fun with him, too. Not that this trip should be about fun, but it didn’t have to be this strained, either.

“Nothing.” He shook his head, knowing he couldn’t tell her how he really felt because it even sounded foolish in his head.

Her lips thinned. “Sure.” Snorting, she pounded a fist into her pillow.

He wanted to ask her what he’d done wrong this time, but he wasn’t even sure where to start. Her silence shouldn’t bother him the way it was, and yet he could not deny that it did.

Frowning, he made to lie down, ready to put yet another day of travel behind him when her voice broke him from his thoughts.

“Enjoy this. Tonight is the final night we’ll have these ready-made shelters. Tomorrow we break free of elven territory and head into the more wild portion of Kingdom.”

She didn’t give him a chance to respond back. Instead she snatched up another loaf of bread and rolled onto her side. Giving him a prime view of her backside.

The lass had definitely put on some curves in the two weeks they’d been together. A steady diet of nothing but fruit and bread had filled her out nicely. It bothered him that he noticed, but the blood pooling between his thighs attested to the fact that he’d long been without a woman. And though the two of them were like oil and water, she
was
a beautiful woman.

With a muttered oath beneath his breath, he rolled over onto his side and tried to get some sleep. At some point he must have brushed against the wood while he’d been sleeping, he woke up with a hiss and stared at his now-throbbing hand.

“What?” Lilith’s whisper drew his gaze to her shadowy form.

There was no light within the tree house save the glow of moonlight. Touching a finger to his palm, he grimaced as a sharp burst of pain ran like fire down his wrist. “I don’t know, I think I may have gotten a splinter.”

“Can you shift and make it fall out?”

“No.” He shook his head, turning his palm into the brightest swath of moon glow, which wasn’t much, as he tried to pinpoint where the splinter lay. “It’ll be there until I take it out.”

He didn’t hear her move, but suddenly she was beside his bed. Her soft gaze was staring down at him. “I can pull it out if you trust me.”

It wasn’t a life-threatening injury, but it throbbed and would make him unable to sleep peacefully until he had it extracted. “Yes. I trust you.” He held out his hand.

Suddenly she was glowing amber and then a second later she’d become her wolf. Her pretty blue wolfy eyes stared at him for just a second and then she shoved her nose under his palm so that he turned it upward.

Then, very gently, her tongue came out and traced the length of his palm. It was a soft, gentle touch, and he wasn’t sure what she was doing. He almost asked her, when her tongue scraped over the splinter.

Clenching his teeth, his body tensed up.

She gave a soft, snuffling noise, as if to say,
Okay, there it is
, and then she opened her mouth, and, using her teeth, she delicately latched on to the tip of it and pulled it free.

He breathed a sigh of relief when it came out, rubbing at the now-itchy spot. Calling her light, she shifted once more and held up the splinter to him. “That’s a big boy.”

Taking it from her hand, he stared at the four-inch sliver of wood and shuddered. He could have eventually gotten it out, but her way had been much swifter and less painful. Humbled because of the uncharitable thoughts he’d had of her earlier in the day, he muttered a swift, “Thank you, wolf.”

But she was already back on her bed and laying on her side, and regardless of the momentary flash of kindness she’d shown him, he knew that many unspoken words still remained between them.

Ahead windows glowed with firelight and the air smelled heavily of smoke and roasted meats.

They really hadn’t spoken for days, and at this point Lilith was too tired to care. No, she did care. She shouldn’t. But she did.

And it wasn’t even so much his silence, which annoyed her greatly, so much as being disgusted with herself for caring. She’d tried hard to lock her emotions away when she was around him, reminding herself constantly that she had no right to even entertain the possibility of enjoying his company.

Because admitting to liking having him around would be opening the floodgates to other emotions that could lead her down a winding, slippery path straight to her death. Which wasn’t an exaggeration at all.

Just the thought of it made her sigh with disgust and disappointment. No matter how hard she tried to ignore him, it seemed it only made her more aware of him.

Maybe she was just tired. And it certainly didn’t help that she was in heat she was sure. What she needed now was food and a bed. In that order.

But first…

Now that they were safely beyond the boundaries of the shifters land, it was time to call upon her magic.

“While we walk through the bandits’ forests,” she said, turning to Giles who was staring at her with a hard, penetrating look she could not decipher, “I will pretend to be little more than a weak human. Any element of surprise we can have on our side is worth salvaging, and things will get worse from here on out.”

“Worse.” He scrubbed a hand over his jaw. There was a darkness in his eyes that hadn’t been there before. She wondered if perhaps he might be worried about the dragon, but that’d been days ago.

The man was a warrior, or so she’d thought; they’d come out of that situation fairly unscathed. A win in her book, but for days he’d been giving her the silent treatment, which led her to believe that he did not share her sentiment.

Or maybe he was just responding to her subtle cues and his disgust at her had nothing at all to do with the dragon, after all… Gods, she hated playing devil’s advocate.

A squeaking chirp caught Lilith’s ear. Narrowing her eyes, she turned toward the slight shuffling of a holly berry bush to the side of them.

“What?” he growled, sounding irritated.

She rolled her eyes; she would not let him get to her. Rumpel had demanded she make this journey, but should Giles change his mind, she was more than happy to return home. In fact, it would be a relief from the constant and confusing emotions she felt in the demone’s presence.

Scenting the air, she caught the unmistakable odor of field mice.

“It is nothing, just a rodent. Are you okay to enter the pub, Giles? There is an unsavory element inside. Keep your head down, though, and they should leave us be.”

“I can handle myself just fine.”

Tossing up her hands, she shrugged, realizing she may have inadvertently insulted him. A wolf could never show any sign of weakness. To be weak was to be seen as powerless, and unless intentionally done for the purposes of foiling your enemy—as she now would be by appearing so frail and mortal—it was seen as cowardice.

“I apologize. I was just trying to be helpful.”

His jaw clicked.

She sensed he wished to say more, but whatever it was he never said.

Sighing, she beckoned to her tiny wellspring of magic. Compared to her mother, the Heartsong, Lilith’s magic was more of a parlor trick. Shifters could not shift with any article of clothing on them—it was why they so often walked around nude; constantly ripping clothes was no fun.

Lilith could not only shift with clothing and return to human form wearing the same, but she could also alter her “appearance.”