Gods, she wanted it to be anything but that. Even morbid curiosity would be better than pity.
Viktor took another step. The necessary gap between their bodies shrank. “I need to know that you’re okay. You look exhausted, Cam, and it’s not like you to lose your temper in front of everyone like that.” His expression pinched with concern. “What’s this about your mom being sick?”
She stiffened. “That’s private.”
Viktor’s eyes slid over her features, searching for something. “Cam, do you need help? I know you think your mother and your brother are your responsibility, but you don’t have to deal with everything alone. Tell me what you need and I’ll give it to you.” He swallowed. “I know it’s been a long time and that we’re not— I know, but I’m here for you, Cam.”
Rage snapped a tight band around her chest and squeezed the air out of her.
He didn’t know anything, didn’t even really care about her, and yet he thought he could corner her? Gentle her? He wasn’t her confidant. He wasn’t anything to her.
She owed him no explanation. He didn’t get to see her grief, nor her pain. He didn’t get to know that she felt like she was half a step away from crumbling under the weight of her grief, that she knew she was losing her mother more and more each day, and that as soon as Marian passed, her brother would jump at the chance to live his life.
He would go, her mother would join their father in Grim’s domain, and she would be left alone to ache for a man who hadn’t bothered to speak to her in twenty fucking years.
She let him see her softness once, when she was young and stupid. He would not get the chance again.
Camille lifted her lip in a snarl and darted away from the table. She dove around him as he stepped instinctively out of her swiping range, heading for the door he guarded. She might have made it, too, if he didn’t have shifter reflexes.
“Oh, no you don’t!”
Viktor’s arm slid around her waist and hauled her clear off her feet. She kicked, but only managed to send her heels flying in two different directions.
Under her gloves, Camille felt her claws sink back into her fingertips, each one bursting with a flare of pleasure-pain. Useless against him.
Luckily she still had her claw-caps on — and they were diamond-tipped.
She yowled a protest as he wrestled her away from the door. He was saying something, his voice pitched to soothe, but she did everything in her power to block him out as she clawed at the arm around her waist. The fabric of his sleeve shredded immediately, but the moment her keen nose picked up the burst of coppery blood in the air, she froze.
Bile climbed up her throat as every muscle locked. Can’t hurt him. Can never hurt him. Gods, I’ve hurt him!
The beast that lived in the heart of every elf wanted to bite and challenge its mate, but it never, ever injured. Fighting was a courtship game they played; a test to see who could come out on top and if they knew how to temper their strength. To know that she’d truly hurt him, even when he deserved it, made her stomach curdle.
“Shh, shh,” he purred against the shell of her ear. “You’re okay, Cam. Everything’s okay. I’m here. Everything’s going to be okay. You’ve just gotta tell me how to help you, sweetheart.” One big hand stroked her short black hair back from her sweaty forehead. Only then did she realize that she had been letting out a high, keening note of apology.
Camille cut off the sound with ruthless will. Leaning forward as much as his grip allowed, she pushed at his injured arm but could not bring herself to look at it. If she stared at what she’d done to him, there was a large part of her that worried she would start stroking him, too.
Her voice was ragged and breathless when she bit out, “If you don’t let me go now, I swear to every god, I’ll tear your fucking head off!”
“Cam, I’m not letting you go until you calm down and stop running from me. Let me help.”
Viktor’s arm tightened around her middle. It was a band of hard shifter muscle. She could force the issue, but when she contemplated simply breaking it, she once more ran up against the solid wall in her psyche that was causing him pain.
Furious, Camille thrashed in his hold, hoping that if she wiggled and kicked and bucked hard enough, eventually he would be forced to drop her. “I would be calm if you left me alone,” she bit out. “I don’t want anything from you! What about me not sticking around did you take as an invitation?”
“You want me to leave you alone when something’s obviously wrong? Not gonna happen.” It was a purely alpha bark, and so very shifter it made her want to roll her eyes. His arm tightened around her middle when he continued, “I’m not your family, Cam. I won’t back off when you hiss and claw at me, and I’m for damn sure going to chase you when you run. I’m not leaving until you tell me how I can help you.”
And then Viktor did something unspeakable: he bit her.
One sharp bite to the pointed tip of her ear, an unmistakable rebuke, made every nerve in her body short circuit. A flush of heat roared through her to settle, with profound viciousness, between her legs. Heat throbbed a low beat there.
Camille clenched her thighs reflexively and bit back a groan.
Every second in his arms, every breath laden with his scent, made the pull worse. She had to escape before she crossed that invisible line, that point of no return that would spell her grisly descent into madness — or, perhaps worse, before her rage melted into something hotter.
She needed to go.
Too bad she couldn’t. Her limbs wouldn’t cooperate, and the longer she stood there, the more muddled her thoughts became. Instinct battered at common sense with soft whispers. It told her to relax, to purr, to play rather than rage. It eased the grip of her claws on his arm and softened the muscles bracketing her spine.
It heated her blood, turned it molten, and demanded she turn, that she press her lips against the strong column of his throat in the most intimate of caresses.
Gods, she wanted the comfort of his touch so badly it hurt.
She felt Viktor’s chest expand with a huge inhale and knew the moment he caught the warm thread of her desire in the air. That should have woken her up, pushed her to break the spell. It should have compelled her to break his arm and run.
His free hand closed over her throat, sealing her fate.
Chapter Two
Camille sucked in a breath and melted into him. It was raw instinct. Elves, unless locked in a life or death struggle, instinctively capitulated when their throat was clasped — by claw or fang. Handled by a consort, an elvish mate, it was a sign of trust and deepest eroticism.
“Cam…” She felt his warm breath stir the short strands of her hair when he let out a hard exhale. His voice dropped an octave when he murmured, “Is this why you ran from me, sweetheart?” There was a jagged, desperate edge to his normally smooth cadence. “Do you feel it, too?”
She swallowed hard as the arm holding her to his chest sagged, allowing him to skim the tips of his fingers along the thigh-high slit in her skirt. It was a small touch, but it sent another wave of molten heat to her core, making her ache like she never had before.
He breathed again, deeper this time, and exhaled a long, sensual purr that rattled against her back. His fingers slid against the exposed skin of her thigh, tracing the seam of her skirt.