Page 45 of His Claim
I moved the crates, checking each one again. Food still there. Weapons untouched. Lantern oil un-spilled. Only the book was gone.
Only the one thing that mattered most.
I sat back on my heels, the knife resting across my thigh, my eyes scanning the shadows again. “We’ll take turns,” I said. “One of us sleeps while the other watches.”
Mariah wrapped the oversized shirt tighter around her, then sat on her haunches, leaning against the wall, her green eyes never leaving me. “I’ll take first watch.”
My lips curved into a grin despite myself. “You’re stubborn.”
She shrugged. “You’re still bleeding. I’m not.”
“You make a fair point,” I said, winking in her direction.
She just shook her head and smiled.
CHAPTER 11
Mariah
Varek had fallen asleep faster than I thought he would.
One moment he’d been sitting upright on the cot, leaning against the stone wall, knife balanced across his thigh, silver eyes still glinting even in the dim lantern glow. The next, his head tipped back against the rock, and his breathing deepened, but his blade was still gripped loosely in his hand.
I sat on the floor across from him, leaning back against the wall, the oversized shirt rolled at the sleeves, my knees pulled to my chest. The knife he’d given me rested in my lap. My gaze kept drifting to him even when I told myself to focus on the dark.
The cavern was quiet. The only sound was the slow drip of water from the ceiling, hitting the gravel floor in a patient rhythm. My heart should have slowed by now, but it hadn’t. Not after what I’d just lived through. Not after what I’d become.
Not after what I’d done.
I could still taste blood on my tongue, still feel the snap of bone and the rush of fur taking over my skin as if I’d split myself in two. The feeling had been utterlyalien.It hadn’t felt like me at all; I had no frame of reference. And yet, I was the one who’d torn out that girl’s throat. I’d done it to protect Varek. To survive.
I wrapped my arms tighter around my knees. My whole life had been spent waiting for the wolves to come, for the day they’d drag me away and use me like they’d used the others. And now… here I was, not just bound to one of them, butone of them.
Mated. Marked. Changed.
I looked at him again.
Even asleep, he didn’t look peaceful. His brow was deeply furrowed, and his lips pressed tight, like sleep was yet another battlefield he was fighting on. The lantern light traced the scars across his chest and arms, some old, some newer, and his fresh wounds still raw, all of them carved into him like stories he’d yet to tell me.
He was a stranger. My mate, my savior, my captor, everything tangled into one. I didn’t know how to feel about him. I didn’t know how to feel aboutme.
I knew one thing though: at least I wasn’t in a cage anymore. At least I wasn’t being dragged into a sterile room, forced under a stranger’s hands, and told my body was nothing but breeding stock to be used as they saw fit.
It was a low bar for freedom, but still, it was something.
I shifted the knife in my lap, my fingers brushing the hilt again and again. The stone walls loomed heavy around me, but theshadows didn’t move. There were no whispers of boots, no glow of eyes in the dark.
Nothing.
I should have been relieved, but instead, I found myself watching him instead of the shadows.
His chest rose and fell in a rhythm that almost matched the dripping water somewhere off in the cavern. His hand twitched once around the knife but didn’t let go. He looked younger in sleep, though no less dangerous, the sharp angles of his face softened by the glowing light.
I let my guard down just enough to study him. The way his hair fell loose across his brow. The curve of his lips when he wasn’t scowling. The muscles shifting beneath scarred skin with each breath and twitch.
He was brutal. Ruthless. Terrifying.
And God help me, he was beautiful too.
