Page 4 of The Manticore's Fire

The tip of its dangerous tail curled, and she swore she saw a hint of a smile on its face. “You will enjoy this. Green tea and mint. I do not have sugar, but it is pleasant enough without it for the human taste, I believe.”

“Thank you,” she replied automatically and then gave herself a brutal inward shake.

What was she saying? She was tasked with killing it and she was thanking it as if she were taking tea with a lonely neighbor. She frowned as she watched the manticore move toward the hearth with a clay pitcher. Fur covered its entire body, but its hide was very much like that of the lion it resembled, which meant she had more than eyeful of the darker sac and genital sheath as the manticore turned that brought a blush to her cheeks. She tore her eyes away and stared at the kettle.

“I really don’t understand what we are doing,” she pointed out to his back as he passed her on his way to the hearth.

“We are being civil,” he replied. “We may be designed to be enemies but there is no reason to let civilization slide further into the abyss than it already has.”

Removing the lid from the kettle, he tipped the pitcher in his hand and a stream of water filled the metal vessel. She shifted impatiently on her feet.

“Right. I’m going to be honest here, I wasn’t exactly trained for… this,” she countered helplessly, drawing the manticore’s green gaze back to her.

His furred brow rose once more. “Not trained to take tea? I did not realize that it required such aptitude.”

She scowled back at him. “You know that’s not what I mean,” she countered. “Right now, I’m supposed to be finding a way to murder you and chop off your stinger so that I can take it back to Dezia and claim my reward. Not having tea.”

His tail swayed menacingly. “If it makes you feel any better, I can simply kill you now and spare you the duress of the unfamiliar.”

“No,” she amended quickly and the corner of his feline-esque mouth pulled up as he nodded to a thickly upholstered chair.

“Then, please, sit,” he rumbled, turning his attention back to the kettle. “I dislike hovering guests.”

“I can’t imagine you having many to worry about,” she muttered in reply but quickly took a seat in a deep purple chair embroidered with gold thread in a tapestry of exotic floral designs that bore just a hint of the geometrical.

To her surprise, the manticore chuffed his amusement and inclined his head, granting her sally as he turned and settled into an enormous wingback chair in a similar shade of deep plum. He stretched out comfortably, the firelight casting heavy shadows over him. He regarded her with luminous, slitted eyes and seemed to smile with a hint of mockery.

“I have more guests than you might imagine, but none quite as charming, and all were fleeting visitors.” His head turned and she caught a glimpse of skulls stacked neatly in a corner as he glanced over at them casually. “They failed to be polite.”

Her mouth went dry as she stared at him. That was one detail that Zayman Bibal had failed to include. He didn’t say anything about the manticore keeping trophies of his kill.

“Oh,” she said weakly. “I suppose you can’t have that.”

“No. I cannot. I despise poor manners,” he retorted.

Abby wasn’t entirely sure how to respond to that, so she fell silent, her eyes following his every movement. It was strange, although he bore a humanoid face, there was very little about him that resembled a human beyond that. His build was too massive and too predatory, bulky in ways that a human was not, and he was lean in places where a human and those species similar in shape to humans would be a bit more filled out. The odd position of his shoulders and shape of chest aside, his hips were exceptionally narrow and his belly almost possessing a caved-in appearance with its sudden and extreme dip from his chest creating a strange slope of his abdominal muscles.

He was built like the perfect predator and possessed a sleek, powerful presence that she was very aware of. Certainly, his legs were better suited to a quadruped predator giving him a unique design for speed and agility and had a distinctly leonine appearance. Unlike his hands, his feet were wide, padded paws with large claws that pressed randomly out from their sheaths as he pensively regarded her in turn. Even the fingers on his large hands were thicker than those of humans with wide fingers that likewise were padded and lethally clawed.

Truthfully, the velvety pads on his palm at fingertips were slightly distracting and Abby found that her gaze returned to them frequently as he stroked the fur along his jaw and absently played with his long mane. She was mesmerized by their movement and the power within his hands that made her mouth go even drier yet as they conjured fantasies of what they might feel like stroking her skin in that same way. Her belly trembled with a hint of rising arousal and the kettle whistled, breaking the tension of the atmosphere between them and he sighed as he stood and walked back to the hearth.

“If I had any sense at all I would destroy you as I do any other intruder who comes here to kill me,” he pointed out, pouring the water from the kettle into an ornate little teapot. “The human king who believes himself master over the great expanse of this desert was clever to send a female. No doubt he thought it would lure me into a false sense of safety, allowing you to easily slit my throat.” He huffed with grim amusement. “As if I am that easy.”

“I doubt it,” she replied with a hint of annoyance. “I was hired because I was the only member of my family who happened to be there. My brothers and parents were occupied. And I’m hardly a seductress.”

“You give yourself far too little credit,” he purred, and the sound ran up her spine with an odd tingle that sent a strange sensation down between her legs.

She clenched her thighs together and flushed.

“But no,” he rumbled thoughtfully. “I do not think you came here with that in mind or else I would have already killed you. But you did willingly enter my home on your own accord—gifting me with your life however I see fit to use it since you failed to accomplish your means.”

“What are you going to do?” she asked, her fingers biting in the thick upholstery of her chair.

He grinned at her lazily. “First, we have tea. Afterward, you will have one chance to escape my den. If you succeed you return home and live your life as if this encounter never happened with the provision that you never return and seek to hunt me again.”

She swallowed hard. “And if I fail?”

His grin widened into a feral, hungry expression as he looked at her over his shoulder and hung the kettle back over the fire. “Then you will remain here as mine. It has been long since I enjoyed a female’s company. Your soft little body will be mine and you will spread your thighs, little human, as I can scent that you wish me to do, so that you may be filled completely with my cock.”

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