Page 86 of Hunted

Until I see it.

A sliver of something at the edge, just beneath the fabric.

Something darker.

Too alive to be a tattoo.

My mind, fogged with heat and taste, latches on to it with instinctive sharpness.

‘What’s that?’ I blurt, my voice catching because my gaze is stuck there now, on that glimpse of something that shouldn’t be there.

And I’m dangerously aware of how close my mouth is to the dip of his throat.

18

VALENTIN

My first, deeply vexing instinct is to cover it.

As if I, a centuries-old being with more power in my little finger than this maddeningly sexy human will ever wield in her lifetime, need to hide.

From her.

I wrench my thoughts from the memory of her fighting the feeding thrall. Of how fiercely she pushed through it. How, captivated, I lost myself enough to let slip a word I rarely use for lesser beings.

Extraordinary.

The word pulses through me again, almost as powerfully as the mark throbbing beneath my skin.

I need not look down to feel the faint edge of it revealed where my shirt has shifted, the thing I have kept buried beneath cloth and ruthless discipline. A flaw I have battled with centuries of indifference, despite knowing concealment would not make it less real, less insistent, less capable of betraying me.

And now it has.

At the worst possible moment.

My hand nearly rises of its own accord, protective and possessive, an ancient reflex to shield what cannot be explained without surrendering power.

I do not allow it.

I pivot instead, a small shift of my shoulders that breaks her line of sight without the panic of being caught out. I angle my body so my open collar is no longer an invitation for her curious gaze, so the question hangs unanswered.

If I remain composed, she will not realise how close she has come to pulling a thread that might unravel everything.

But she has already pulled it.

My jaw clenches tight enough to turn bone to dust.

She used neither blade nor cunning nor the brutal competence she wears like armour.

She used her mouth.

Her moans.

The kiss still lingers, etched hard on my senses. The pressure of her lips. The way she tasted of defiance and something dangerously clean beneath it. Something that should not belong in a woman trained to hunt creatures like me.

I have kissed countless women.

Not once did it do this… cut through my control with such quiet violence.