Araña dropped the pencil halves on the counter. Not the old witch or the pregnant one, then. “Are there others?”
“There’s never only one witch. I don’t know if there are others by the same last name. What does it matter?” There was a sharp edge to Levi’s voice now. “The Wainwright witch has already demonstrated an interest in you. Ask her to help you get control of your gift.”
Sweat coated Araña’s skin at the thought of willingly entering the heart of the flame. She’d only make it worse by attempting what Levi wanted her to do. And to trust a stranger, a witch… “I—”
“Will think on it,” Tir said, his hands settling possessively on her shoulders. “There’s nothing any of us can do to help the healer tonight.”
Levi’s muscles bunched. His eyes bored into Araña’s, in challenge and anger, with a hint of condemnation—as if he could smell her cowardice. The muscles in his jaws worked as if he intended to argue, but he left without saying another word.
Araña pulled away from Tir and went to the door. She closed it against the approaching night and wished she could shut out her conscience as easily.
She turned and found Tir directly behind her. The heat of lust remained, but it was overlaid with the chill of unshared secrets and unspoken suspicion. “You recognized the man I drew in the third picture.”
Tir leaned in, bracing his hands against the smooth wood, trapping Araña. Proximity and the mix of their emotions made for a dangerous, volatile combination. “And your guilt over the healer’s fate pummeled me. Tell me about the vision and why you blame yourself for her misfortune. What could you have done to prevent it?”
“Nothing.”
It was truth and lie entangled. He sensed it. “Tell me why your conscience flays you.”
Araña turned her face away from him, evading, stirring to life something deeply primitive inside him, something that didn’t want to allow her to hide any part of herself from him.
Tir touched his lips to her ear. “Don’t fight me,” he warned, part of him willing her to do just that so he could assert his dominance. “You won’t win. Tell me the truth about your visions. Tell me why they lead to your guilt.”
Araña stiffened in his arms. “And will you tell me how you recognized the man I drew? Or should I guess?”
It was his turn to become tense, and that tension grew when she said, “You weren’t bound for the maze, were you? You were bound for the Church and someone connected to the guard was involved. That’s why the priest has the clerk at the occult shop researching the marks on your arm. They want to use you to heal, to create miracles.”
The precision of her guesses was testament to her intelligence. He’d been used in that manner for centuries—and the threat of being used that way again would remain until he was rid of the collar.
Already he’d come to believe Araña wouldn’t willingly betray him. Not after remaining behind to free him from his shackles as guardsmen drew closer. Not after lying with him and welcoming him into her body. Not after sharing what little wealth she owned after finding the wallet.
But if he gave her Tomás’s name and spoke about the lion, she could well do something foolish in her concern and guilt over the healer’s fate. How hard would it be to locate a wealthy family that kept exotic, dangerous beasts?
Even searching for the information would divert her attention away from the task of finding the texts that would free him. He couldn’t allow it. He couldn’t risk her. For all he knew, guardsmen, Church, maze owner, and Tomás’s family were all working together to recapture him.
She could keep her secrets, for now. Just as he intended to keep his.
Tir’s mouth settled on hers. Her lips were petal-soft against his, though she refused him entry and resisted him with the stiffening of her body. Ferocious desire surged through him, bringing with it all the fantasies he’d harbored during the day, all the possessiveness he felt when it came to her.
He shifted his hands so one was freed while the other kept her wrists pinned to the door. Her heart thundered against his chest. But the shiver of erotic fear he felt in her negated any protest she might voice.
Her heated, sultry scent swamped him, burning away all rational thought. And with a harsh moan he invaded her mouth, cupping her jaw and applying pressure, forcing the barrier of her teeth to lift so his tongue could push its way through firmed lips.
If he thought she’d yield, he was mistaken. She fought him, but the battle was waged on a sensual field.
Hours had passed since they’d lain together next to the fire, since he’d fed her in a primitive display of male dominance and female submissiveness. His hand left her jaw, his fingers ruthless as they unbuttoned her shirt and shoved her bra upward to free her breasts.
She cried out, her back arching; her nipples hard, tight points; her body betraying her. He took a dark areola between his fingers and swallowed her moans as she responded to his touch.
His penis throbbed against the front of his pants. His cock screamed, not only for freedom, but for the feel of her mouth on it.
I need you, she’d whispered in the alleyway near the dock where the boat was moored, and he’d wanted her then and there.
Tir released her nipple. He brushed his knuckles over her flat belly on the way to her waistband.
As he undid the thin leather belt she wore, he imagined using it on her. He’d get the truth from her then.
The image of punishing her nearly sent Tir to his knees. Had he always had such fantasies, or had his time in human captivity darkened his hungers to match those of his captors?
Her hips bucked when he opened the front of her pants and slid his hand into her panties. “Yes,” she whispered, widening her stance, moaning as he cupped her smooth mound.
Tir pressed his fingers into her slick channel and fought the siren call to touch his lips to her lower ones, to thrust his tongue into her sheath. “Please,” she said, pushing into his touch, rubbing her swollen folds and hardened clit against his palm, driving his fingers deeper.
His mind was a confusion of conflicting desires, but one dominated, the need to free his cock from its painful confinement. She cried out in protest when his hand left her wet, heated flesh. He swallowed the sound, loved the way it slid down his throat, filling his chest before sending molten lust to his penis and testicles.
He jerked her pants downward and then opened his own, nearly coming when his cock head touched her bare flesh. His fingers went automatically to his shaft, and for an instant he was tempted to grant himself relief, to coat her skin with his seed.
His penis hadn’t stirred at the brothel. It hadn’t filled in the centuries when he’d been presented with women, both willing and unwilling alike, but with Araña…
He wanted her. When he was with her, he could barely think of anything else but taking her.
Tir’s lips left hers in order to trail kisses along her jaw and up to her ear. He fucked his tongue into the sensitive canal, his fingers tightening on his cock, sliding from base to tip in time with the wet probing.
“Let me touch you,” she whispered, the muscles at her wrists flexing as she tried to escape his grip. “Let me take you in my mouth.”
In a heartbeat, everything left his mind but one need, one purpose—to fuck through her sultry lips and press his cock head to the back of her throat, to feel her tightening on him, sucking him, swallowing him.
He released her pinned wrists. “Do it,” he commanded, resting his forearm against the back of the door, nearly whimpering himself when her hand chased his away from the hard length of his erection.
He quivered as the feminine hand he’d seen wield a knife closed around him in a firm grip. He jerked when the pad of her thumb gathered his escaping arousal and rubbed it into the smooth head of his cock.