The flush returned to her cheeks, tantalizing him. My human is sensitive to touch.
No. Not my human.
“Not because I did to them what you supposedly did to the Harpy,” she muttered.
The bravery was welcome. The attitude, not so much. He ran his tongue over his teeth. Someone told her of his sexual preferences.
That someone would die.
Who was he kidding? Everyone had probably talked.
The fact that she knows doesn’t matter. You weren’t going to seduce her. Her disgust is meaningless.
True. But still it bothered him. “No one is allowed to question my choice of partners—or my actions.”
She met his gaze, unflinching. Her lids narrowed, her lashes almost fusing. “Gotcha. Won’t happen again, sir.” She gave him a jaunty salute.
Was she...mocking him? “Besides, what do you know of such things, hmm?”
“I know quite a bit about getting it on, thank you,” she said, her tone prim. “But you’re right. Who you do isn’t any of my business.”
Who, she’d said. Not what. She didn’t know the particulars. His relief was palpable.
Living here, however, she would find out. And soon. Any ease she had with him would cease.
But what did she mean, she knew quite a bit about “getting it on”?
“Why did the Fae tip so well?” he repeated.
Clearly uneasy, she shifted from one foot to the other. “Well...you see...it’s like this. I told them that you...well, that you had a few extra stakes and the stingiest people at the bar were going to be extended an invitation to join the Phoenix on the lawn.”
He suddenly wanted to...grin? “You lied?”
“Never!” She crossed her arms, now defiant. “After everything I’ve witnessed, there’s a good chance I’m right.”
And now she won’t back down. Fascinating.
“The girls made more money than ever,” Adrian called. He hadn’t yet moved from his perch. “But I’m not sure we’ll have customers tomorrow.”
Had Adrian taken Elin under his protection? Was he hoping to shield her? Even from Thane? Or did the male desire her, the way a normal man desired a woman?
The thought settled Thane, even as it angered him. Another defender would ensure she remained safe. But another admirer would try to tempt her into bed...and that, Thane would not allow. She needed to be focused on her job.
Yes. That was why.
He would deal with Adrian in a minute.
“Besides the Fae, has anyone given you any trouble?” Thane asked her.
Silence reigned as she again nibbled on her plump bottom lip.
Want to do that for myself. Want to nibble on other parts of her, too. No! He squared his shoulders, the feathers in his wings ruffling. “Elin?”
She...was staring at his wings, he realized. Curious about them? Wondering how soft they were? Everyone did. He curbed the urge to proudly flare them, to show her just how long and strong they were. To preen and impress her. Instead, he drew one forward, closer to her.
“Uh, you asked a question, I think,” she said, watching the motion with wide eyes. “Yes. Yes, you did. And it was... Oh, yeah. For the most part, everyone has been really nice.” As she spoke, she reached toward a patch of golden down. Just before contact, she swung both arms behind her back and kept them there.
He frowned, not liking such a reaction from her. It was as if she’d suddenly found the thought of touching him repugnant. “Feel the wing.”
She vehemently shook her head. “No way.”
“This isn’t a debate.” He never debated. He ordered. And expected. Using the muscles in his back, he caused the end of a wing to shake ever closer to her. “Feel.” A command.
A command she did not heed. “Is this a trick?”
Why would— Ah. Realization dawned. She’d seen him break the dragon warrior’s hand, and could only assume he would do the same to her.
“No trick. You have my permission; the shifter did not. But you are not ever to touch another Sent One this way. Or any way. Not even Bjorn and Xerxes. Understand?”
“Yep. Copy that.” Still she didn’t touch him.
“I won’t harm you, female. Feel,” he demanded. “Now.”
“Why?” she insisted.
Continuing to defy him. What a strange mix of bravery and fear she was.
“Well,” she prompted.
Because he would discover his reaction to her was the same as his reaction to the Harpy in his bed—not that he’d allowed the Harpy to come into contact with his wings. As her skin had rubbed against his, he had remained distanced. Bored.
“Do it,” he replied, ignoring Elin’s question.
At long last, she obeyed.
Not the same, he realized immediately.
Trembling fingers stroked over his feathers in a single, innocent moment of communion, flooding him with sensations he’d never before experienced. Sultry heat arced through his wings, spread through his body. His blood crackled and fizzed with something akin to contentment. An impossible contentment. His shaft was filling, threatening to burst.
This was pleasure, he realized, dazed. Pleasure without a hint of pain.
His first true taste. Another impossibility. Yes? And yet, everything he’d felt before had been a weak dilution.
No. Surely not. He had this wrong.
He had to have this wrong.
No woman would affect him so powerfully with so little.
“Elin, you are human, yes?”
The color he’d so admired in her cheeks drained, and she smoothed several errant strands of hair behind her ear with a shaky hand. “Yes. Of course.”
He tasted no lie.
“Why?”
“Doesn’t matter,” he grumbled. It was just her, then. She affected him.
His gaze homed in on her hands. Six jagged scars crisscrossed over the tops, the raised flesh red and angry, clearly from recent wounds. They must have come courtesy of one of the Phoenix.
Before he realized he’d moved, he took her by the wrists
