Kinked (Elder Races #6)(31)

She had been right. He had never given up sexual control to anybody else. What would it be like to give it up to her, that pure, wild creature? It was never going to happen, so he would never know.

The nape of his neck prickled, and instinct made him tilt back his head and look at the cloudy night sky. There a gorgeous nightmare spiraled, wings outspread to their fullest as she cocked her head and looked down at him.

How long had she been up there, circling overhead and watching him?

His body clenched. The panther in him wanted to leap at her and drag her down to earth. The man wanted to cover her with his body, and make her give all of that purity and wildness over to him.

She came down and landed a short way away from the trees, snapped her wings back, and shapeshifted into her human form. Then she strode into the camp. She must have flown high, because her black hair sparkled with wetness.

She seemed centered somehow, revitalized. Flying for her must be what taking to his panther form and running in the woods did for him. That was when he had an epiphany.

She had a whip that drove her, just as he did.

She squatted in front of the fire without saying anything. They sat in silence for some time. Oddly enough, it was almost companionable.

Quentin looked at the scotch. The liquid was significantly low in the bottle. What the hell. He offered it to her, and after a moment’s hesitation, she took it.

“When you spied on me in my bedroom,” he said, “you liked it.”

She cocked her head at that, considering it for a moment before she shrugged. She drank a mouthful of scotch and passed the bottle back to him. “I loved your cock. The woman and the toys annoyed me.”

He burst out laughing, and a smile hovered at the corners of her mouth. “I’ll confess,” he said. “The woman and the toys annoyed me too.”

Aryal looked at him sideways. “Then why do it?”

He took a deep breath and straightened his back. It was a good question.

Why did he do it?

He could have said several things, and any one of them might have been true. He did it because he wasn’t quite the loner he wanted to be. Because he had a high sex drive, and he was looking for something. Whatever it was, he hadn’t found it yet.

Because the games weren’t right, but they were on the road to something, to a place where he needed to be. Because the games gave him a structure, a way to hold himself back so that he didn’t damage someone who was more vulnerable than he.

He drank then said, “It’s complicated.”

“No, it’s not,” she said. “You’re bent, like me.” He looked at her closely. She was not angling to get him angry. She was simply speaking the truth as she saw it.

“What are you talking about?”

“You can dress it up in those designer clothes you wear at the bar, and turn on the charm, but strip off all the clothes and the charm, and what lives underneath is raw and dark.” Her voice was flat and quiet. “You’re never going to really find yourself the way you’ve been going. You’re always going to feel restless and dissatisfied, until you realize that the games you’ve been playing don’t feed the animal that lives inside of you.”

“You’re full of bullshit,” he snapped. Her words bit him to the bone. He tried to push them away by scoffing at her, while the part of him that had torn loose and was running renegade ran harder than ever.

“Am I?” She stood and stretched with abandonment, as free and wild in her human skin as she was in her Wyr form. She looked down at him, and there was a strange expression in her gaze, something he’d never seen in her before. “There isn’t anything wrong with the darkness, you know,” she said, almost kindly. “It’s just as beautiful as anything else.”

He stared as she walked over to one of the tents, unzipped the flap and crawled inside. A muscle in his jaw twitched. He rubbed at his cheek to make it stop then finished off the scotch. There was no reason in the world not to.

Then, because there was no one to fight with, he crawled inside his own tent. He took off his boots, but kept the rest of his clothes on as he climbed into the sleeping bag. Within minutes, his own body heat had warmed up the bag and he was comfortable enough, at least physically.

Mentally was another matter. He stared at the shadowed ceiling of his tent until the fire outside died down. Then he closed his eyes and pretended to sleep while silence roared in his head.

Where it was so dark.

EIGHT

Morning brought sunshine and warmer temperatures. Quentin had his tent broken down, tarps folded and the last embers of the campfire stamped out by the time Aryal climbed out of hers. She stood staring down at the empty fire ring, her face blurred from sleep. He contemplated the sight sourly. While he had been staring at the ceiling of his tent, she had been sleeping like a baby.

She said, “I was going to make coffee.”

“Too bad,” he snapped. “We need to get moving.”

“So that’s how today is going to be, is it?” She made an exasperated I-give-up gesture, glared at him and took down her tent.

While he waited for her to finish, he opened up two cans of sausage and beans and ate the food cold. Soon after, Aryal did the same, grimacing as she swallowed her breakfast. They each packed what they could carry, the lightweight camping gear tied below their backpacks.

“Let’s go,” he said as soon as Aryal shouldered her pack and tightened the straps.