Page 50 of Heart of Fire
“M-my blindfold?” she stammered. “I tore itfree.”
“Makeanother.”
Freyja’s jaw dropped. “Whatfor?”
“So you cannotsee.”
And blinded, she would be powerless again. “No.”
“I will not hurt you, Freyja. I swearit.”
As binding as a dreki’s oath, the goodwives often said, to indicate manners of legal standing. Nodrekiwould willingly break hisword.
She'd felt powerless when Benedikt jerked her out to the green, hooded and vulnerable. Powerless when she cowered beneath the unknown, wondering when thedrekiwould strike. She hated thatfeeling.
Yet her hands tugged at her hem, taking the small knife she wore secreted in her boot and slicing a strip of the black wool free. Shaking slightly, Freyja bound it over her eyes, the wool irritating her reddened skin. He was not taking her power away. He had asked, and she had complied. That gave her some illusion ofcontrol.
“Why?”
Power washed over her, hot and liquid, an enormous cascade of it. Every inch of her skin tingled, her stomach pooling with heat. Tidal waves of molten power. She wanted to reach out and drag her hands through it, but something warned her notto.
“Because I do not wish you to see me,” a man’s deep baritone voicesaid.
Freyja’s jaw dropped open, her hands rising automatically to herblindfold.
“Don’t,” hewarned.
Somehow she stopped herself, though she couldn’t contain the shock. He’d said there was little reason to shift shape. And with that thought came another, unbidden.Why do the dreki hunger for virgin flesh, Freyja? Not to eat, for a certainty. Whichmeans….
“Because we are jealous creatures,” thedrekireplied, his bare feet rasping over the stone as he stepped closer. She heard skin shivering over muscle as he knelt in front of her. “We do not like it when someone has touched what isours.”
Fingers came out of nowhere and stroked her cheek. Freyja jerked, her heart racing, but his touch was soft. Gentle. Like a man soothing a startled filly. Insanely hot, as though the volcano’s fire burned beneath hisskin.
And suddenly suspicion burned withinher.
This wasn’t the first time a man’s skin burned with an unnatural heat. No. It couldn’t be. Couldit?
“What do you want of me?” she whispered. But she knew. Oh God, she knew. And even as she thought it, she suddenly started putting together the little puzzle pieces in hermind.
He hesitated, but not, she thought, for lack of courage. Gauging her reaction, most likely. “It is time,Freyja.”
His warm hand cupped her cheek and she softened, leaning into it. Hungering for… something. Not want, not need. So desperately did she want to be touched as if someonecared.
And this fearsome creature had never hurt her, nor betrayedher.
But had he misled her? She didn’t know the answer tothat.
“Yes,” she whispered, leaning into thedreki’s touch. There was only one sure way to find out if her suspicions weretrue.
Let me burn my fingers, justonce….
His hand caught hers, drawing her fingers to his scalding lips. “You will not be burnt, Freyja, but youwillburn, this Ipromise.”
And adrekineverlied.
Thirteen
ARMS SWUNG BENEATHher and lifted her with appalling ease, swinging her against a chest that was chiseled with muscle and entirely hairless. Freyja pressed a palm over his heart, feeling the erratic thump of it deep within him. An almost purring sound echoed in his throat. Pleasure. As he swept her under the overhang of the cave into a blackness that she noticed even with her eyes bound, she slowly rested her head against hisshoulder.
