Page 45 of Lifebound

“Right.” I breathed in deeply, prepared mentally to make eye contact with him again.

I did—and his eyes.

God, why am I being punished? Is it because of what I did with the dog poop two nights ago? No animals were harmed in the planning and carrying out of that punishment, so…

“Thank you, guy-who-saved-my-life-a-few-hours-ago. I appreciate it.” I barely forced the words out in the right order.

He was genuinely surprised. His brows shot up—though I only saw one because his left eye was almost completely hidden behind his messy hair. It was pin straight, but it was also thick and wild and it kinda suited him. Gave him thatjust-got-out-of-bedtype of look, with a dose ofafter-engaging-in-a-lot-of-activities-all-night-long.

My mind refused to shut up.

Must have been a coping mechanism.

“You’re welcome,” he said. “You’re the Lifebound mortal.”

“Nilah,” I said. “It’s Nilah, notmortal.”

Another two steps closer, and my instincts were now confusing the hell out of me. Half of me wanted to back away, keep as much distance as possible between us, while the other half wanted me to get closer just to see his eyes and those lips better, and maybe even touch his hair a little.

Just to see what it felt like.

“All right, then.Nilah.”

Thick, rough, exactly the right tone. This guy was sex on legs.

Again, I cleared my throat. “Yes. And you are?”

“Call me Rune,” he said.

I arched a brow. “Rune? You mean like those characters and symbols from ancient languages?” I’d heard about runes before, had seen a few documentaries. Was pretty sure that I’d read about them, too.

The guy ignored my question completely and instead turned his head to look back where I’d run from.

Suddenly, it dawned on me that we were still in the same forest where those monkey monsters had attacked me.

Holy shit. I looked up and the sky had turned even lighter, though I could see very little of it through the canopy. The forest was dense and there were enough trees on all sides so that I wouldn’t see anything coming until it was too late—just like Helid and his guards hadn’t.

“It’s not safe to stay out here for long. We have to go,” the man said.

This time, I did step closer to him, but not because I was wildly attracted to him or anything. Just because he knew what he was doing, and I didn’t.

Also, did I mention that he was tall? Like, possibly six four. And broad shoulders, but nottoobroad.

And big hands. He had big hands.

Pretty sure I mentioned that before.

“Okay, okay, hold on. Can we just back up for a moment? I was traveling with some guys—one of them was Helid, the uncle of a prince, and he had guards. We were traveling together and then the monkey monsters attacked us. I need to find them.”

Suddenly, my stomach fell.

Had Helid and his guards even survived?

“Grogs,” the guy said, his eyes falling on mine—falling, not just stopping there. He pinned me in place with them because they weren’t just a combination of the most beautiful blues that belonged in an ocean, not eyes, but they also hadmapsin them. They had these thin silver lines going all around his pupils, close to the edges of his irises like maps, the shapes different in each eye. All those shades of blue could have been mountains and hills and rivers and lakes for all I knew.

He had maps for eyes.

“You mean likefrogs?” I said—which was the first thing that popped into my head, of course.

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