"I turned the latch and pushed open the chamber door. Finding him already sitting up. His chest bare and slick with a sheen of sweat. His keen gaze focused on me. Eyes hooded as though he knew something I didn't."

I met his look. "I d-d-don't...know...why am I here?"

"I do."

"Why?" I queried. Blinking dumbly. All I could think was how badly I wanted him. Craving running my hands over his smooth skin. Stroking down his body and feeling that hard length in my hands. Sensing these were all things he'd want.

"Because when a creature of my kind desires a mating partner, they can emit huge amounts of pheromones that function as a beckoning."

Beckoning? Summoning? Was that why I'd felt as though my feet were mechanically taking me down the hall.

I felt my foot lifting and carrying me across the threshold of the doorway.

"Stop!" He commanded, lifting a staying hand while my foot was still perched on its toes, my heel hovering as I'd obediently paused mid-step.

"What?"

"Don't come any closer." His gaze suddenly flashed glowing amber in the dark and he shielded his face behind a large palm. Peering over one edge. "You need to stay out, Belle. Be very careful."

"Of what, Bodin?" I asked breathlessly. Eying him cautiously. Sensing that I shouldn't be here.

I should go. So, why couldn't I get my feet to turn me around and take me back down the hall, the way I'd come?

***

"You're here because a primal instinct deep in your spirit is demanding you come to me. And I'm generating pheromones commanding it. A fact which I'm aware but cannot stop. However, I'm also driven by those same hormones to throw you into my bed and take you beneath me."

I gasped at the directness of his flatly stated words. "Bodin!"

"There's no offense in speaking the truth in private, Belle." He said softly.

I realized there was some great honesty in that. Who was around to witness the insult?

So, could it really be called an insult then when it was something he considered mere fact?

"My point, Belle, is that if you come to me, I will take you."

"I've already come to you." I pointed out.

Why? I shook my head at my own stupidity.

"Valid point." He lowered his hand to reveal his brightly glowing eyes. Shining like a night creature's do in meager light.

Why are they like that? I studied them as best as I could from across the room.

It has to be a trick from the torches in the hall. I frowned and eyed the floor. Did I really think so? After finding a tiny talking fox in my bedroom?

"Come to me then, Belle." He said so huskily that I felt my body lurching forward before I caught myself. "But only if you want to lay with me as greatly as I want to be deep in your heat again."

My heat? My body? My jaw gaped. I wondered if I should be ashamed that at my near-spinster age, I was only now hearing these terms.

I could feel the intensity of his gaze roving over me like a caressing touch.

***

"Are you sure that's what you want?" A tiny voice asked from just outside the doorframe.

I leaned back out to peer down near the floor trim. Shocked to see Vix blinking her huge, strange eyes at me.

She was leaned against the wall until she was nearly flat, as if she was trying hard to blend into the wall. But her plush orange and white-tipped tail waved back and forth with interest.

"I-I don't know..." I whispered sideways to her.

But it was Bodin that answered. "Then retreat that step in which you came and return to your chamber, lock the door and stay safely inside."

"Am I safe there, Bodin?"

"No." He said honestly. "I'm trying to be patient with you, Belle. But I've never made it secret how badly I want you."

Want or merely lust for? I wasn't sure how much Bodin really knew the difference of. I knew I had lusted for men that were attractive. There had even been a time many years ago when I had fancied myself yearning for Bodin.

But then I'd seen the passionate of that poet in a performance and fallen in love with his deep words. The longing stare he'd given the woman in his arms and how silken his tongue had seemed as he declared great emotions that I knew most men would never discuss aloud.

At least no man I knew.

***

"Decide, Belle!" His urgent growl drew me back to the present.

I was breathing raggedly. Knowing I should go but somehow driven to crawl across this room if I had to, to reach him. And I was strangely certain he'd soothe the ache burning down low between my legs and banish the dark dreams that had me reaching for him in the dark.

"If you, do it, Belle." Vix whispered nearly inaudibly. Shaking her head slowly. "There'll be no returning from it."

I frowned at her. Wondering what she meant.

"He's already taken my innocence." I muttered sideways. Hoping he'd not here. I glanced up at him and saw his chest heaving. His fists tight on the bedding as though he were physically pulling it over his lap to hold himself from leaping to his feet and rushing across the room.

"I thought as much. But you haven't gone to him, have you?"

"Not yet."

"It'll change everything, Belle. One taste of your own doing taints it all."

Taints?

What? I glowered at her. Wishing she'd be more clear.

"Belle!" I looked back across the room at Bodin. "Decide!" He roared. Leaning forward and his voice deepening to something that sound more earthen. Deeper, and echoing like something you might here in the deep veins of a cave.

As he tipped a few inches further, the torchlight caught him in a strange glow. Framing him in a glowing brown glow which seemed to pulse in the blackness. Making everything brighter. His eyes were still shining amber and I swore I could see the strange silvery outline of what could only be branches jutting from his brow and curling back then out as it split into several twisting pieces.

It has to be branches. I stared at him in shock. Or...

It can't be.

But I squinted into the dark and became even more sure that I was right.

It's the outline of antlers in the dark.

What the devil is he?