Page 31 of Fae Unleashed
“What does this mean?” Cerri asked as she ran her hand over the walls like she could push through them with the force of her will alone.
My skin crawled this close to the wall. I fought the urge to yank Cerri back and hold her to my chest once more. My beast growled in warning. There was danger on the air here.
“You hold a part of the castle,” I said as the realization hit me. “You’ve stole a bit of the Seelie Castle from Beryl, but the rest of it seems to be out of reach for you.”
The danger turning the air thick had to be Beryl’s influence on the other side of these walls. If we could steal more of the castle from Beryl, then we would have access to the halls beyond the blockades.
I stared at Cerri in awe. How had she done it? Cerri seemed equally confused as the rest of us. It seemed like this had been an accident. The thought made my heart clench in wild fear. My beast lunged towards the surface with a promise to protect Cerri better than I ever could.
Before I knew it, I had an arm around her.
13
CERRI
Rhoan yanked me to his chest. The rumbling growl vibrating up his throat scrambled my thoughts as I put my hands to the flat planes of his muscles. My eyelids fluttered like my heart when he gently grabbed my chin and tilted my head back.
“No more running off on me,” he snarled. “I can’t protect you if you’re running into Beryl’s hands again.”
I curled my fingers into fists in his shirt and tugged him tighter to me. Rhoan promised safety. He promised dedication. I hungrily devoured the growl in his voice and let it act like gasoline on the fire inside me.
He pushed until my back hit the wall. Sandwiched between a rock and a hard place, my heart raced. I almost begged him to catch it, since it belonged to him anyway.
I rose on my tiptoes with hungry lips reaching for his. Any moment, he would pull away, and I would lose him all over again. Though I belonged to him, he would never be mine.
Yet, Rhoan stayed.
“I don’t know what I would do if—” His voice cracked.
“There won’t be anif,” I promised with steel in my voice.
Was that a promise I could make? In the moment, that didn’t matter to me. I believed my own words with a startling confidence. No one could hurt me because there was something I wanted to live for.
Someone.
“Rhoan,” I breathed as I tried to rise on my tiptoes again.
He put a hand flat to my chest and held me to the wall. The heat of his hand and his lower body pressed against me scrambled my thoughts again. I turned into a creature of carnal need. I writhed under his touch because I neededmore.
Rhoan lowered his head to the crook of my neck. His breath whispered along my exposed throat and sent chills down my spine.
“If I could…” His voice trembled. I could almost feel his need, too. “If I could, I would. Trust me, my princess.”
I yanked his shirt so hard that it ripped. “Why can’t you? I don’t understand. Tell me. Explain why I can’t have this.”
His growl rippled through the room. It enveloped me. I tried to look him in the eye and hold my ground, but the sounds and heat and desire tore my focus from me. His presence was all-consuming. I wanted more. I needed more.
Before I could make any more demands, Rhoan leapt away from me. At the other end of the hall, he called for me to follow him. Without him to hold me up, my wobbling knees dropped me. I slid down the rough stone wall and crashed onto my ass.
I needed a moment to catch my breath after that. Something about that man and the beast inside him riled me up like no one else. The sound of his growl made me think about how his teeth would feel on my skin.
Glancing around, I remembered that we were technically in my parents’ house. It felt a little strange to have such a charged experience under my parents’ roof. Was this an experience most young women got? Had I missed out on it because of the tension in my shifter pack?
“Cerridwen,” Rhoan said from the other end of the hall.
The sound of my full name on his lips made me shudder, but I wasn’t about to let him know that.
“Ew, don’t call me that. Only my mother uses my full name.” I cringed to back up the lie.
