Page 42 of Nansar
"Excellent." The elder turned away, dismissing us with a flick of her wrist as though we were nothing more than an irritating distraction. "Return them to the guest cottage. Provide what they require."
A young male Welati escorted us back through the village, his silence heavy with unspoken judgment. The path between dwellings felt longer now, every pair of eyes a weight on my shoulders. Children scattered at our approach, their whispers following like smoke. Others watched from shadowed doorways, expressions carved from stone and suspicion.
The cottage awaited us, transformed. Someone had swept away every trace of our earlier occupation, replacing it with an almost aggressive hospitality. Fresh furs—thick and luxurious—covered the sleeping platform, the pelts still holding the musk of mountain predators along with the freshness of herbs. The fire pit roared with new life, flames leaping and snapping as if eager to devour the tension crackling in the air.
"You will remain here." Our escort's voice was flat, emotionless. He didn't quite meet my eyes. "Do not attempt to leave. Do not cause trouble."
The door closed with a decisive thud.
For three heartbeats, neither of us moved. Then Chloe spun toward me, and the careful composure she'd maintained before the elder shattered like glass.
"What the hell was that about?" Her voice pitched low and urgent, barely above a whisper. "The scent thing. Why does she think we're lying?"
I crossed to the far wall, needing distance, needing space to think past the pounding in my skull. "Because if we were truly mates, we would smell like each other."
Her brow furrowed, confusion painting shadows across her features. "I don't understand. We've been traveling together for days. Wouldn't we naturally—"
"No." I cut her off, perhaps more sharply than I intended. "Not like that. Not the way she means."
"Then what way does she mean?"
I turned, forcing myself to meet those wide gray eyes. The firelight caught in them, turning them molten silver, and my carefully constructed walls trembled.
"Because we would be fucking, Chloe." The words came out charged with everything I'd been trying not to think about. "Mates don't just travel together. They share everything—scent, touch, their bodies. Constantly." My gaze traced over her before I could stop myself, cataloging the way her breath hitched, the flush creeping up her throat. "The elder expects us to reek of each other, to have our scents so thoroughly tangled that she can't tell where one ends and the other begins. She expects to scent me on your skin, in your hair, between your thighs." I gestured at the space separating us, that careful, aching distance. "Instead, we smell like two strangers who happen to share the same air. That's why she doesn't believe us."
The color fled Chloe's face, then returned in a violent rush that painted her cheeks crimson and spread down the column of her neck. "Oh."
"Yes. Oh."
Silence stretched between us, taut as a bowstring. She stood frozen, processing, her chest rising and falling with shallow breaths. When she finally spoke, her voice had gone quiet, almost fragile. "So what do we do? We have three days before she decides whether to kill us or not."
I sank down onto the edge of the sleeping platform, suddenly exhausted, my head pounding. The furs were soft beneath me, and I couldn't help but imagine Chloe laid out on them, her hair spread like a halo, her body open and ready for me. I shook my head, trying to clear the image. "I don't know yet. But we need to figure something out, and quickly."
Chapter 13
Chloe
Oh shit.
Fucking.
The word ricocheted through my mind like a bullet, leaving trails of fire and frost in its wake. The thought of being intimate with Nansar—truly intimate—sent my heart into a wild, erratic rhythm that had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with a hunger I'd thought long dead.
I watched him pace the confines of our prison, all coiled muscle and restless energy, moving with that preternatural grace that made something low in my belly tighten with want. When had that happened? When had I startednoticinghim like this?
When had the breadth of his shoulders stopped being merely impressive and become something I wanted to trace with my fingertips? When had the flex and play of muscle beneath his skin transformed from background detail to a sight that made my mouth go dry? When had his voice—that deep, rumbling timbre—shifted from comfort to temptation, each word a caress that skittered down my spine like a lover's touch?
After Declan—after what he'd done, what he'dtaken—I'd been certain that part of me had been buried so deep it would never surface again. The part that could feel desire without disgust. The part that could crave a man's touch without immediately wanting to claw my own skin off. The part thatcould experience arousal as anything other than a prelude to violation.
Intimacy had become synonymous with horror. The mere thought of it would send me spiraling into panic, into memories of helplessness and violation that made me want to scrub myself raw until I'd shed every layer of skin he'd touched.
But the stains Declan left weren't the kind that washed away with soap and scalding water, no matter how hard I tried.
He'd drugged me. Stolen my ability to fight, to flee, to even form the wordno. He'd taken my body and used it while I was trapped inside, screaming silently, powerless to stop him. The physical trauma had been devastating enough, but it was the psychological aftermath that had truly broken me—the way it had poisoned every aspect of my sexuality, turned my own body into an enemy I couldn't trust.
Yet somehow, impossibly, Nansar had found a way through the wreckage.
Perhaps it was because he'd never demanded. Never assumed. Never taken a single thing I hadn't freely offered. Every touch had been a question, not a command. Every moment of closeness had been mine to accept or refuse, no pressure, no expectations. He'd given me something I'd thought Declan had destroyed forever. Sovereignty over my own body, my own choices, my own desire.
