Page 84 of The Hunted

“Have the head of the house cancel any appointments I have for the week,” he told the woman, his gaze never leaving the fur-trimmed cloak.

“But lord, your advisor—”

“Have her cancel them all. And leave.”

“Certainly.”

A small curtsey, and she was gone, too.

That left Eryx.

And the cloak.

A rage swelled within him at the sight of the item all over again. He knew it was irrational and nothing more than her strange pull on him that entirely fucked with his emotions. That didn’t mean it wasn’t there because it was all too real.

He snatched the cloak from the bed with the intention of ripping the garment into useless pieces. Because if for some reason he couldn’t work out this craving for violence on the person it was owed, then at least he could find relief in something as silly as this.

Except it didn’t work.

The second he drew the garment closer to himself, Eryx found the scent of that merwoman downstairs come rushing with it. That first pull of air into his lungs was coated with her. It didn’t matter that he’d been with her only seconds before. He’d been between her thighs with his hands on her damned neck, and still … still, the smell of her on his cloak sent him spinning.

That hate in his heart became wrapped in something tighter and hotter. It didn’t disappear, but rather, sharpened the lust that shot straight down to his cock. Eryx had many better things to do than rip his trousers open before shoving his fist with the cloak down the length of his erection. Hell, he hadn’t jerked himself off in more years than he cared to count. Not since his first lover had been bought when he was just fifteen to satisfy any and every need he’d had. One of many women to keep his bed warm.

He hadn’t the need to do it himself when someone else was always at the ready to do it for him.

Yet, he barely even considered it. Nothing else mattered when the textured fabric of the outer liner tightened around his cock with his fist. Every stroke came faster. The distinct flavor of her flooded his tongue with every shallow breath he took.

That threw him right over the edge.

He spilled his seed into the cloak with a groan that echoed. Surely, the servants down the hall readying a room for Arelle would have heard it.

Eryx burned the cloak in the fireplace. He never left proof of his sins.

Ever.

• • •

Arelle

She counted the days.

One passed.

Then two …

Three.

On the third day’s night, another passing of the sun where she walked the halls of a house that seemed so entirely strange to her with guards not far at her back, Arelle could already smell it in the air. An oncoming storm.

She’d known it was coming from the second she’d woken up that morning. Yet, it’d become painfully clear to her that the landwalkers around her had little to no idea about what the skies and seas were brewing for them.

It was later in the day, when the sun began to fall from the blackening skies, that the wind finally picked up. It was only then that the people in the house began to shut the large shutters on the windows. They hid in their rooms all throughout the estate, including Eryx. But she only knew that from what she had been told.

Certainly not because she was allowed his presence.

Arelle both hated and loved that.

Her guards shut her into the chambers she had been left to use after the maids came in to close the shutters. While the rain battered the side of the house and the winds howled, she was alone.