Page 58 of Ravenous

He followed close behind, his stride steady and relentless. Deeply irritating in its efficiency.

What would those days be like when he was with another? When Lia sat alone in his borrowed home, listening to her own thoughts.

She’d tried to make friends here. Once a Berserker boy had waved to herduring her drills. His mother had slapped his hand away. The memory still ached worse than bruises.

Lia had no friends. No lover. No future. Nothing until escape. She’d likely never see Arctos again.

She blinked hard, but her vision blurred anyway, a pink film from the sunlight or tears, she couldn’t tell. Her boot slipped on loose shale. She gasped, pitching forward. A calloused hand caught her elbow.

His grip was firm, stabilizing her with effortless strength. For an instant, the world narrowed to that single touch: the rough heat of his palm against her skin, the solid presence of him at her back.

“Watch your footing,” he said, voice low and even—more command than comfort.

“I was,” she muttered. “The mountain came out of nowhere.”

The warmth of his hand lingered as he released her, leaving the air colder in its absence.

She glanced up at him—at the cut of his jaw, the sun striking gold in his hair and brows, the focus already gone from her to the trail ahead.

A man made of discipline and duty. A man who would never look at her and see a female with her own desires.

Not for his body, not even for his affection, but for what he took for granted: belonging.

Chapter 24Nadje

“Look out!” Inkletter shouted.

Nadje ducked just in time to avoid a troll’s club as it whooshed past her head. “Snag the big one’s legs and trace her!”

“Not leaving you in this stampede,” he grated as he half traced through a charging herd of troll females.

“I’ll grab you in time! Just get a grip on her!”

He dove and clamped both arms around a massive troll’s scaly ankles. “I have her! My gods, the ignominy!”

“Suck it up.” Nadje leapt for him, snared his arm, and cried, “Now, Ink!”

He teleported them from the highlands of Umber to their arranged meeting point, a moss-covered bridge at the opposite edge of the territory. There he dropped their quarry.

The female troll roared, green fists clenched. She was ready to kill…until she saw what waited for her: an enormous male troll, one hand clutching a heavy bag of gold, the other gripping his already erect penis.

Careful to reach for the bag and not the other, Nadje hurried over and accepted payment.Clink clink.She hefted the bag. Solid weight. “Pleasure doing business with you,” Nadje said briskly.

The troll barely noticed. He was too busy grunting at his mail-order bride. She answered in kind, exuding a cloud of pungent pheromones.

True love?

Before Nadje could blink, the pair were humping in delight, scaly troll balls rasping warty skin.

Inkletter stared in horror as if watching a clash of wizards or a sinkhole swallow a shifter village whole.

Nadje burst out laughing at his expression.

He scowled, teleporting them both back to her quarters without a word.

Still laughing, she said, “The look on your face, incubus!”

His icy reply: “I’m glad I amuse.”