Taken by the Blood God (Devil Springs #4)

Chapter 7

Chapter

Seven

Minerva

I was much more relaxed when I went downstairs for a cup of tea.

At least until I walked into the kitchen.

Once again, Talant’s large body was sprawled out at the end of the table, his legs straight out beneath the table and an arm hooked over the back of his chair. His other hand was curled around a coffee mug.

With his damp, dark hair waving around his sculpted face, his chiseled, bare torso, and the lord-of-the-manor demeanor, his picture could be in a wall calendar titled The Gods of Magic and Mayhem .

But his eyes were nearly black when he looked up at me, and his jaw was tense. While his pose seemed relaxed, Talant was anything but.

I didn’t speak as I went over to the stove to make tea, but my back burned, likely from the heat of his gaze. When the silence stretched further between us, growing heavier with all the things we weren’t saying, I decided enough was enough.

“I know you’re eager to be on our way, but I think it’s best if we wait until tomorrow to leave. You need to regain your strength, and I need time to prepare. And that’s assuming you know where your brother is imprisoned.”

Talant didn’t respond, but I swore I could feel his attention sharpen on me. I refused to let it intimidate me.

“Did he give you permission to share his true name with me?” I asked, scooping loose black tea into a mesh ball.

This time he spoke. “Yes.”

“And he agreed to be bound to Devil Springs?”

A pause before another, “Yes.” His tone was downright surly.

I faced him, leaning my back against the counter, and crossed my arms over my chest. “You do realize that you’re asking me to risk my life to free your brother, correct?”

That question seemed to break through whatever foul mood had come over him since he left my bedroom that morning. His furrowed brow smoothed out, and he stopped glaring at me.

“Yes.”

“Then perhaps you could be a little less of an asshole about this, and we could discuss a plan so that my risk decreases.”

He stared at me in silence, and the atmosphere of the room changed. There was a charge in the air, an edge of heat that made the hair on my arms stand up.

“In what way am I being an asshole?” he asked, straightening in his chair.

He had the look of a cat moments before it pounced on a mouse.

Narrowing my eyes, I didn’t back down. “You’re answering my questions with one-word answers and scowling at me like I just kicked your puppy.”

“How does that make me an asshole?”

I flung my hands up in the air. “Right there, more of an asshole. Your arrogance, refusal to take anything seriously, and inability to have a conversation with a woman without flirting are what make you a general asshole.”

I froze at the sound of his chair scraping back on the floor. I hadn’t meant to blurt all that out, but he’d been pushing my buttons since last night. First with his talk of being lonely, and then letting me crawl all over him in my sleep.

Now he was being downright hostile.

Every time I thought I had a handle on him, he changed his behavior. I didn’t know what to expect or how to react. It made it so much more difficult to keep my guard up when he was around because as soon as I started to harden my heart toward him he did something to test my resolve.

My heart began to race as Talant stood. His movements were slow and measured. Our eyes locked together in a battle of wills as he prowled toward me. Once again, he reminded me of a cat, but he was no tamed tabby. No, he stalked toward me with the predatory grace of a panther.

I didn’t try to evade him. Running from a cat on the hunt meant it would chase you down before it tore you apart.

No. I wouldn’t show him a single weakness.

My chin lifted as he got closer, stopping less than a foot away. I kept my gaze locked on his, refusing to back down an inch. Not that I had anywhere to go with the cabinets at my back.

He put his hands on the counter on either side of me, caging me between his arms. His wrists barely touched my sides, but I could still feel the heat from his skin seeping through my dress.

Talant leaned down until our faces were only a few inches apart. “Perhaps I’m not the one behaving like an asshole,” he murmured.

I laughed in his face, but he didn’t react at all. He merely studied me with those ruby and bronze eyes, his expression unreadable.

When I stopped laughing, he said, “You should remember who I am, little witch. And that my hearing is better than any shifter or vampire you’ve met. Especially when you’re in the shower with your?—”

“I get the picture,” I snapped, lifting my hands to shove at his chest. My cheeks burned when I realized he knew what I’d done upstairs in my shower.

Talant didn’t move an inch. Instead, he leaned in, using his weight to pin my body against the cabinets and my hands to his pectorals. His fingers went from clasping the edge of the counter to gripping my hips. The hard bar of his dick pressed against my belly, and I felt a spasm deep in my pelvis at the sensation.

“If your body needs relief, I can certainly help you with that,” he purred, sounding exactly like a panther that caught his prey. “As many times as you need me to.”

My face heated. Goddess help me, I hated the way my body reacted to his touch. And his words.

I shoved him again, this time adding a boost from my magic.

Talant took a step back, his hands flexing on my hips.

“I prefer to be able to tolerate my lovers. Not actively loathe them.”

He stilled, his fingers losing their grip on my body. If I hadn’t been staring at him so closely, I would have missed the flash of pain that crossed his face. It was so brief that I wasn’t sure I saw it at all.

In a blink, Talant released me and stepped back. I reached behind myself to brace my hands on the counter. My knees were so weak I wasn’t sure they would hold me.

“You have the day to gather what you need. We leave tomorrow at first light,” he said.

Before I could remind him that I needed his brother’s true name, he left the kitchen. It was the second time in less than two hours that he’d walked away from me leaving me unsettled.

I thought I was beginning to understand him better, but it seemed I was wrong.

Talant was a puzzle I was no closer to solving.

Even though my instincts told me I should cut and run, I couldn’t resist putting the pieces of him together until they fit.