Kitten and Allure

deal – castration was part of it,” I growl, eyeballing the short dagger still strapped to his belt.
He jumps to his feet, arms out defensively. Slipping the dagger out of its sheath, he drops it to the floor behind the couch. It’s out of my reach, which means he believes my threat.
Good.
“Why was I laying on you?” I demand.
His lips are thin, eyes struggling to hide a lingering pain, and his chest is rising and falling in heavy breaths. My anger drains away, like Eydis’ blood over the stone.
I was laying on him because he was keeping me alive. Again.
Everything in me deflates.
“I…” Words fail to follow. Damnit. “I’m sorry,” I whisper.
His brow draws down. “You? Why?”
I press into the back of the couch, and he moves in closer, leaning over me, a hand on either side of my head. Strands of his long dark-and-silver hair fall forward to frame his face. He smells like ink and paper and the books he loves to read. His beard-mustache combo has grown a little shaggy on the road, now more of a scruffy chin and lip, which somehow makes him look hot-as-melted-chocolate.
I run my tongue along the inside of my teeth, trying to find the right words.
“Why are you sorry?” he asks.
I finally settle on what to say. “I’m too much hard work.”
One corner of his mouth draws up into a lopsided smile. “You have no idea,” he says.
I frown at him. “You can’t say that. Agreeing with me is basically insulting me.”
His eyes light up, and wow, his smile is intense.
Which makes it hard for me to keep my fight, hard but not impossible.
“I meant that I can’t fight, have no Seed, and have a mouth born with a mind of its own. I know that. But what did you mean?” I demand.
“You also can’t follow orders. I told you to cover your ears.”
I hold my only arm up. “One hand, two ears. It’s not my fault I heal like a mortal – you know that, right?”
I’m grateful for the element of aggression in this conversation. Otherwise, I’m going to start thinking about how close he is, and his lips, and…
Shut up, Shade.
I don’t know where this is coming from. The guy’s not exactly naked, and I’m hungry and surprisingly still tired – not really the precursors to being lusty.
Not lusty, exactly. Not like the way the servants flutter their lashes and grow pink in the cheeks. I don’t do things like that. Although, I did try to kiss Killian, which he promptly put an end to, and I did let Pax kiss me – a lot – and then there was whatever Seth was doing – which also involved kissing.
I groan. Maybe I do do things like that.
“I know you’re fragile,” he says, still smiling.
I place my hand firmly on his chest and try to push him away from me.
“You, back there,” I say, thanking the gods my mouth still has some wits.
My body, however, is daring me to say come closer, to whisper the words into the almost silent cottage. Spiking my fuzzy head with the most sudden headache I’ve ever had.
He leans in until his forehead is against mine.
“You need to give me some space,” he says, his voice toe-curlingly silky.
There’s no Allure in it. Just Roarke – saying stupid shit, considering he’s the one pushing closer to me. He hooks his finger under my chin and tilts my head back to run his thumb over my lips.
“No,” I gasp. Bloody gasp. “No, you need to give me some space.”
Or not, or you could kiss me?
He leans right in, close enough for his breath to dance across my lips. I exhale, but all he does is chuckle, draw in a long, full breath, then push himself away from me with the kind of force that makes me think he’s desperate to escape.
“You are so much hard work,” he says. “Follow me. Your bubble may not reach the kitchen, and I’m starving.”
My racing heart fights for control, not just the blood pumping kind but the emotional kind too. Roarke – this close. Roarke – almost kissing me. Roarke – wanting me? Is that what just happened? Because chuck, do I want him. I want the way he looks at me and makes the whole world stop and pay attention. Just for another tiny little second.
Which I am clearly not going to get right now.
I struggle with the information, the questions, as I climb to my feet and follow him. It’s not a big room, the type of place that a single person or maybe a couple would feel cozy in.
“Why won’t my bubble reach the kitchen?” I ask.
He stops, scans over the room, then paces toward the door. He almost makes it outside before my wall presses on my back and jolts me forward.
“Odd, I calculated one more,” he says.
I point, disbelievingly, at the space. “How many was that?”
“Seventeen.”
“Seventeen?” I gasp. “I had twenty-two. At the White Castle I had twenty-two! Why?”
He shakes his head and returns to me, wrapping me in his arms. “Doesn’t matter why, because we’re going to fix it right now. Actually, after we have something to eat and tend the horses. Then we’re going to fix it. Come on.”
He lets go of me and leads the way into the kitchen. I believe him, he sounds so sure, but that doesn’t untie the knot in my stomach. My hands are shaking because I’m an idiot. I chuckin’ knew it was shrinking. I thought maybe my stride was getting bigger when we were in the bandit cave. I thought maybe I was staggering too much when we were camped by the river – but no… my bubble has been shrinking.
Though obviously, I’m not worried enough, because my gaze lowers and fixes on Roarke’s ass. He’s got a nice ass – but it’s never been the center of my attention before.
Maybe it should have been?
“All of the answers are upstairs,” he says, looking over his shoulder.