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Chapter Four

Xaixek

When I first set eyes on the doe-eyed beauty who’d had somehow managed to lodge herself deep in the quicksand, I took one look at her and wondered how the hell she was able to kill my uncle. She was so…petite…and terrified—frail, even. And she had good reason to be terrified if she was responsible for my uncle’s death.

She smelled so tempting. She awakened an urge in me that I rarely ever felt. A mating urge. The feeling surged deep inside. I wanted nothing more than to pin her up against a tree, yank her panties down around her ankles and rock her world until she was split apart. I wanted to ruin her and I wanted to protect her.

Seeing as how I had her dangling like an insect in a spider’s web, she started batting at me. Her weak shots came out as tiny flutter nudges and minuscule scratches instead. She was no match for me, but I had to give her a credit for her efforts. She was a feisty woman…a deviously sexy thing that I wanted to devour.

As I set her down on solid ground, she tried to scamper away. The smell of my uncle’s blood wafted through my nostrils as the wind shifted with her movements.

“Not so fast,” I said, clicking my tongue at her and grabbing her by her scrawny arm. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Away. Just let me go.”

She jerked away and I let her.

“Don’t take another step or you’ll end up back where you started…in a mud pit.” I warned, and then watched as she stopped short of another puddle quicksand.

“What the heck?” She look around. “Why are there so many?”

“Different territory. Different climate. You should’ve never come this way,” I told.

“It wasn’t as if I had a map,” she shot back.

I growled. She was sassy and frail. Great.

Warmth seeping from the gash in my side, reminded me that the beast had almost taken me out. I glanced at the human again. I wanted to fuck her, yes. And maybe kill her too. There was no question about that. I was however, wounded from my battle with the beast. Knowing what she did, I might have let it slaughter her—but I was on strict orders from the king to bring her back alive. The king wanted this murderous bitch brought back to him with a beating heart and in one piece. I was going to make damn certain that on my watch, that’s what the king got, with a few exceptions.

As I pondered how to make her break, she seemed to be looking somewhere off in the distance. She was also shifting from feet to feet. Either she had to pee or she planned to flee again.

“Don’t move from the spot. Or I’ll have no choice but to use force.”

She folded her arms under her rounded breasts. “What a way to threaten a woman.”

Her fighting spirit added to her appeal. Even with the mud caked on her, I wanted to make her scream. I couldn’t fuck her if I wanted to kill her, too. But her smell was was delectable. It had taken me no time to find her. Yet, I had to believe that it was more than just her tempting scent that egged me on. I’d been tracking my entire life. I was born to be a bounty hunter. I just had the instincts in me from day one. No beautiful human chick was going to deter me from my mission.

She had a unique, citrus aroma that intoxicated me. No matter. I’d keep my boundaries. I had a job to do. I was a bounty hunter, not a human rapist.

But I could understand it now. No wonder Uncle Roult wanted to take a human woman to his bed. Had he succeeded? This woman was exceptionally beautiful. To have such a treasure, my uncle had paid dearly with his life.

“Why don’t you just leave me here to die?” she blurted, shaking her arms to dispel some of the mud off her skin.

“Can’t do that,” I said, but I didn’t add that I had thought about it.

I glanced down at my leg. It felt like it was going to give out on me. There was a gash near my shin. It was superficial, non-lift threatening. I could always wrap it in a cloth later, but for now I needed to deal with this little vixen and get her promptly under control before she got away again.

“You called me a murderer earlier. If you think so, then why save me from that beast? Why take me out of the quicksand?”

Miscalculating just how badly my wound leg was, I moved toward her and then halted as the pain seized me. She noticed and glared down at the blood. At first, remorse filled her face but then she glared at me.

“You can barely walk,” she stated.

I frowned and closed the gap between us. “I can walk just fine,” I growled through clenched teeth, tearing off a strip of fabric from my loin cloth and then wrapping my leg with it. I watched her like a hawk.

“What happened to that beast?” she asked.

Ah, she was looking for the beast. She probably wanted to know if the coast was clear so she could run.