Amazing. He’s using my language, trying not to be the savage.
He looks out at the trees like he sometimes does. “I’d always been fast and clever, strong for my age. Active. Energetic. It was something the family that adopted me hated about me. It saved my life with the wolves, though. They saw me as a fellow hunter.”
“Your family hated that you were strong and energetic?”
“They liked to sit and watch TV, and I had so much wildness and savagery in me—I never liked to sit still.”
“That’s normal boy behavior—not savagery.”
He gives me a look. “You say it because you don’t know.”
I do know—I know he’s wrong, but it’s not an argument to start now. “So they didn’t like your…energy.”
“Out in the wilderness, nobody hated me for being what I was. The wolves never let me actually hunt with them—they were too fast. Too good. But they would bring me food. You can’t imagine how it made me feel. They moved for summer. I didn’t understand that’s what they were doing. I thought they’d abandoned me. But I followed their voices and found them. They accepted me right away.”
“So that’s what you’d eat? Just…flesh?”
“There’s a lot to eat out here. Raspberries, seeds. Walnuts. Some plants have sweet leaves. Fish. I started growing things in our summer place—potatoes and beets. Those I got from the campers. It got even easier as the pups came. The pups saw me as one of their own from the start. I was there for over two generations. Sometimes when the wolves left for hunting and I sensed it would be a long, lonely time before they were back, I’d trek out to the camping areas and take clothes. Or food. I’d talk to the campers sometimes and make up stories that my family was nearby. I’d steal comic books. I still remembered how to read. As I grew older, I took books. Sometimes they’d invite me to smoke and drink and fuck, and I would happily do that.”
An unpleasant feeling fires up my spine. “Yeah?”
“I stole radios sometimes. When I started roaming farther, I’d steal cars. ATVs sometimes.”
“From the campers?”
He nods.
“That explains the driving skills.”
He gives me a look. “I enjoy driving.”
His paddle strokes become hypnotic—stroke, stroke. I watch the tree canopy move by overhead. It’s strangely relaxing. I have to remind myself I’m being kidnapped. “It means a lot that you trusted me enough to tell me.”
“I don’t trust you at all,” he says. “You’re a reporter. You want to show the world I’m a savage.”
“God, Kiro, I’m not like those reporters. That’s not at all my interest.”
“It makes no difference now.”
“It makes a difference to me. Telling your story the way I would? It isn’t about you as a savage. It’s about you as a human. That’s what I’m interested in. I don’t make people into objects. That’s the opposite of what I do.”
He watches my lips. My words mean nothing to him. Just more lies, like everyone who’s lied to him. He points out a tall peak. He tells me how to spot where a bear hibernates.
“I could use all of this information to get away.”
A rich brown lock of hair falls over his slash of a cheekbone as he looks down at me. There’s a brutality to his beauty that sometimes renders me breathless. Like now, riding below him like this, on a cushion of packs between his legs. “You won’t get away,” he says casually.
Shivers go over me. I’m angry, of course. Offended. But I’m a little turned on, and it’s this fact that scares me the most.
I was turned on in the dressing room by his caveman treatment. Now he’s gazing down at me, lord and master of the wilderness, and I’m feeling that same heat. What is happening to me?
“Well, you’re wrong,” I say, mouth dry. “I’m so out of here.”
He stops paddling and smoothes my hair. It’s a tender movement at first; he seems to like to touch my hair almost as much as he likes to stare at my lips. After a while, he clenches his fist around it, as though suddenly remembering he should probably be harsh when I say such things. He jerks it, making me turn my face up to him. “I suggest you don’t try.”
He’s all savage fierceness on a dizzying background of blue, blue sky.
He slides his other hand up my exposed throat, then cups my chin, keeping my head turned up to him. Blood thrums through my jugular, and I know he’s feeling it with his fingers.
It’s like we’re communicating on some primal level.
Like he’s figured out about my caveman kink.
It’s so fucking wrong. But we’re drifting under the blue, blue sky, and he has his massive hand on my throat, and he’s vowed to care for me and protect me with his life.
It’s strangely powerful that he said that.
Kiro doesn’t lie.
It’s kind of amazing considering how people have lied to him and let him down, but Kiro won’t let me down. It’s a strange thing to think about your kidnapper.
My pulse drums under his huge hand…his huge hand that I don’t want him to move.
I wanted the savage story.
Now I’m in it.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Kiro
I let go of her hair, but she doesn’t snap her head forward right away.
She lets me have her neck a little while longer. I slide my hand along it again, so smooth and soft. She lets me touch her freely, unaware of what she’s telling me by exposing her neck like this, like a submissive wolf.
Sometimes I can’t believe she’s mine. Not that I don’t think she wants to get away. I know she does. But if she stays long enough, I can help her come to love it here. And she’ll see I can be a good mate to her. She’ll see that I’ll protect her, that I’ll do anything to make her happy.
Except let her go.
All night on the island, I watched her sleep, dozing only now and then. I enjoyed the feeling of watching over her. I didn’t want it to stop. I didn’t want to miss any of it.
I would watch over the pups now and then, but it’s nothing like watching over Ann. Pups have teeth and claws for fighting, and fur to keep them warm. Left alone, they could find food and fight off most predators. But not Ann. She needs me out here.
I let her go and resume paddling. There’s a stretch of land ahead. “We’ll walk soon.”
I can feel her come to attention with this. Will she really try to run?
I land us on shore and pull the canoe up. I pull out the pack and sling it over my shoulders, then I hoist the canoe. “I’ll walk in front of you. You’ll step where I do.”
Her attention is elsewhere. She’s looking around, weighing her options. My heart sinks. It shouldn’t be a surprise, that she wants to run—I knew she would.
It makes me feel sad, though.
Telling her my story made me feel close to her. I want her to feel the same way about me.
I put down the canoe and shake off the huge pack and unzip it and dig around. I pull out the rope.
“What the fuck? What are you doing?”
“You want to run.” I advance on her.
“What are you doing?” She takes a few steps back, but I lunge and grab her, quickly binding her wrists. Trying to be gentle. I hate that I have to tie her. Maybe if I’d been less pushy with her…less savage with her.
She tries to pull and twist. I grasp her hands in mine. “Don’t. It just makes the knots tighter.”
She stills, eyes glowing with shock and anger.
Please, I think.
I loop the other end of the rope around my wrist and put the pack back on, then hoist the canoe on my back. “The rope will tighten the more you pull.”
I begin to walk.
“Are you fucking kidding me? Like I’m a pet now?” She grabs the rope and pulls back, but she’s not strong enough to do much.
I pull and let her stumble along. I’m trying not to be too hard on her, but we need to make a certain spot by nightfall.
> I cross a stream, balancing precariously on a rock.
“Fuck this!” She digs in and jerks back, putting me off balance, nearly putting me in the water.
I stop and turn.
Her eyes widen, but she stands her ground.
I put down the canoe and go to her, stalking slowly. She backs up, but I have her leash. I reel her in as I approach. “I should let you get away just so you see how dangerous it is. But I’m not that kind of man.”
“No? Call the neighbors and wake the kids.”
I don’t know what she means by that, but I know it’s not the time to ask. I wish I understood her better.
I kneel and tie her ankles with the length of rope I’d hoped not to have to use.
“Hey! What the—” She kicks.
“I’m sorry.”
“I don’t think you’re sorry at all.”
I’m sorry to be distressing her. I’m sorry she doesn’t want to go with me.
I can’t live without her. The slide of my hand over her bared throat was the most powerful thing I’ve felt in ages. Or maybe it was the feel of her writhing in the dressing room under my hands and tongue. I’ve told her my secrets. I’ve vowed to protect her. I can’t let her go.
I hoist her over my shoulder.
She squirms, and I tighten my grip. With one arm, I get the pack back on and then I get the canoe over my head, much as she attempts to prevent me. I nestle it on my shoulders and partly against her, using her to balance it. This will not be easy going.
“Ow! It’s cutting into my leg.”
“We have to make this crossing.”
She kicks. “Come on. It’s cutting off my circulation.”
“You’ll live.”
She does her best to make the walk hard. It is hard. Walking like this is the last thing I want to do. Going up hills is especially hard.
“I’ll walk on my own.”
“You’ve shown you won’t,” I say, hoping to hide how thankful I am to hear that she wants to walk. I’m not good at hiding the truth of things from her. Maybe she can tell; I don’t know.
“This hurts. It’s stupid.”
“That I’ll agree with.”
“Fuck you. Come on.”
“How can I trust you?”
“I’ve never lied. Have I? Have I ever lied?”
I grunt. It’s true, she’s never lied. She’s left things out, but she’s never lied.
“I’m telling you. I won’t run. For now.”
“You’ll walk with me? And you won’t jerk the rope?”
“For now.”
I put her down.
She holds out her wrists. “Untie me.”
“You’ll prove yourself first.”
“You want a relationship with me? This is not a good start.”
A relationship.
Relationships are for the shiny people on the TV at the Fancher Institute. They’re for people who went to school and have jobs and families that loved them. “What do I want with a relationship?” I growl. “Show me you can walk, or I’ll carry you again.”
I unbind her ankles, but not her wrists, and I go on, carrying the pack and the canoe. She follows.
It’s wrong to tie her, but it’s my job to protect her.
We trace along a ridge above a stream. From here you can see the streams split off and flow, and then split off again, like veins in leaves. I spent a lot of time pulling apart leaves as a kid. Not like I had much else to do out here.
I point it out to her. She grits her teeth and averts her eyes, but I know she’s listening.
With horror, I remember how I was with the professor, how I’d soak up his words, how I’d love when he read to me because it cut the boredom, but I’d never let him know it.
A sick feeling comes over me as I think again of her bitter words—You would trick me and take my freedom? Can you get how fucked up that is? You of all people should understand how wrong that is.
I tell myself I’m not like the professor. I remind myself how she betrayed me, how she wants to use me. But the sick feeling just grows.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Ann
Savage Adonis leads me by my tied wrists, deeper and deeper into uncharted wilderness. He carries a canoe on his head. He’ll carry me, too, if I misbehave. Yesterday morning he pinned me down and made me come in a shopping mall dressing room. Today he informed me that I’m to be his mate. He pauses and points out how the streams fork and split apart. He tells me rivers are the same as blood veins, and that blood veins are the same as veins in leaves. He seems to see the forest as a body, a system. Needless to say, leaves and streams and forest systems are the furthest things from my mind.
Would that be a fuck of a hook or what? It sounds like an honest hook, but it hides what’s really going on for me. Sure, we’re journeying deeper and deeper into the wilderness where I may never find my way out. But I feel like I’m moving deeper and deeper into a kind of forbidden craving for him, with his king stuff and the way he handles me. The way he makes me come with impunity. There’s the rush of pleasure I get when I think about him holding me down and fucking me.
Kiro is beautiful and powerful, and he takes what he wants. And I’m the one he wants. It’s wrong. It’s scary. It’s intoxicating.
I tell myself I’m just weak right now, that’s all. I’ve been tired for so long and so fucked up about the kitten. So the peace of this place and his hot dominance and his intelligence and beautiful inner strength, of course it’s powerful. Of course I feel conflicted.
We stop at midday. Maybe it’s later. I suppose it doesn’t matter. Another reason I seriously have to get away.
This man could suck away my soul.
“I’m going to catch some fish,” he says.
“Okay.”
He looks down at the stream, maybe ten feet down a rocky gulley. “Trout down there.”
“Knock yourself out.”
He grabs the rope that binds my wrists. “Are you going to run, then?”
My pulse races. “That’s for me to know you and you to find out.” In truth I don’t plan to. Him being down at the stream doesn’t give me that big of a head start. He would catch me. And my hands are bound. Bound hands will slow me down and mess up my balance. I don’t want to go deeper, but I don’t want to be stupid.
But I smile at him just to make him nervous. I like it, even as I realize what I’m doing—taking the power of the powerless. Meaningless little rebellions.
He pulls me to him. “It would be foolish, even without your hands bound.”
I put on my most defiant smile, just to make him feel out of control. Because he makes me feel out of control. “Maybe you should’ve thought of that before you decided to adopt me as your forced mate.”
The air between us seems to crackle as he shoves me down, making me sit on a boulder next to a tree. He backs up and lays my leash along the ground in a line some seven feet long, eyes on mine the whole time.
“The ol’ leash doesn’t quite reach down to the trout stream, does it?”
He twists his lips.
“Whatever will he do?” I ask playfully.
His lips twitch. Sooner or later he has to see this whole scheme of his is crazy. He crouches down and grasps either side of a boulder.
What is he doing? He’ll never lift that thing. It’s so caveman.
I snort. “It’s called lever and fulcrum. Look into it, dude.”
He looks up at me, eyes crinkled, lip quirked. He grasps the sides of it. The veins in his neck bulge. His face hardens into a grimace. He lifts it, heaves it over a yard, and drops it onto the end of my leash with a thud that shakes the ground.
I shoot up, tugging at it. Trapped. “What the hell?”
He looks up at me. And he smiles.
Smiles.
And I forget to breathe. His smile lights his features, softens everything. Something flops in my belly.
“What the hell,” I say, pulling on my rope. He’s laughing.
>
I should be mad, but I’m having…fun. It’s the weirdest realization. When was the last time I had fun? Maybe before the kitten. Fuck, I forgot about the kitten.
I forgot about the kitten?
I yank on my rope. “This is so crazy.”
“I can’t let you run off. It’s too dangerous.”
“Don’t you see how ridiculous this is?”
“You’re my mate. I care for you. You don’t like it now, but you will.”
“I very much doubt that.”
He brings me closer. “Do you? Do you really doubt that?”
“Really,” I say, belly melting. Fucking caveman, I tell myself. Not into cavemen.
Softly, gently, he takes hold of my hair. He pulls down, as if he wants my throat fully exposed. I shiver as he presses rough lips to my tender neck. The entire surface of my body lights up with nerve endings, fanned by the brush of his lips, up, up toward the edge of my jaw.
Heat simmers in my belly.
Not…into…cavemen.
I tell myself it’s the crisp outdoor air. The exercise. The fact I forgot about the kitten.
He slides his lips over my pulse point and up, then whispers all rumbly into my ear, “Here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to catch a nice fat fish for us down there.”
“How?”
“With my hands.”
“What are you? A bear? You can’t catch a fish with your hands.”
“I can, Ann. Then I’ll make a fire.”
“By rubbing sticks together again?” I ask inanely. Because the rumble of his voice is doing something to my mind.
He lets my hair go. “I’ll use the lighter.” His tone is a dirty promise. “But if we didn’t have that, I’d rub sticks together. I’m home now. This place is mine. Everything here is mine.”
I swallow.
“Then I’ll cook it. It’ll be delicious and juicy, and you’ll eat it.”
“O-kay,” I say sarcastically.
A glint appears in eyes. I’m paranoid that he’s smelling my arousal right on my skin, like it’s misting out of my pores.
“I’m going to feed you.” My heart pounds as he slides his hands over my arms, looking down at me, feral and hot with those kissable lips. “Then I’m going to bend you over and fuck you.”
Savage Mafia Prince: a Dangerous Royals romance Page 19
