The way he’d looked at her last night, before sleep claimed them both. Like she was the only variable that mattered in his endless calculations. Like keeping her safe and fed and warm was the most important task in his entire kingdom.
No one had ever looked at her like that.
What does “warming the bed” actually mean here?
The question she’d asked herself when he’d first outlined the arrangement resurfaced with new urgency. She’d assumed something clinical. Transactional. A human bed-warmer to soothe whatever instincts drove Yzefrxyl males, nothing more.
This didn’t feel transactional. This felt like being wanted. Genuinely, possessively, obsessively wanted.
The thought should have terrified her.
“You’re thinking too loud.” Sylas’s voice dropped to something lower. His claws traced up her spine through the thin shift—careful despite their sharpness, five points of gentle pressure that made her back arch involuntarily. “I can almost hear the calculations.”
“I calculate. It’s what I do.”
“Mmm.” He pulled her closer, tucking her head beneath his chin. His heartbeat was slow and steady against her cheek—that inhuman rhythm she was learning to recognize. “And what conclusions have you reached?”
“That you’re impossible to figure out.”
Another rumble of amusement vibrated through his chest and into hers. “Good. Keep trying. I enjoy watching you work.”
She should push away. Should demand answers, or space, or some kind of acknowledgment that this wasn’t normal—that waking up wrapped in his arms with his arousal pressing against her wasn’t part of any agreement they’d made.
But his warmth was seeping through her. His purr had resumed, vibrating through her chest, steadying something that had been fractured since the crash. Since before that, maybe. Since she’d learned that relying on anyone meant getting disappointed.
And despite everything—despite the circumstances, the captivity, the impossible situation she’d found herself in—some part of her didn’t want to move.
Some part of her wanted to stay exactly where she was, cocooned in heat and fur and the steady thrum of a monster’s contentment.
Her stomach growled.
The sound was loud in the quiet chamber. Mortifyingly human. Her body’s needs announcing themselves with perfect timing, cutting through the blossoming tension between them.
The playful energy vanished.
Sylas went still. A different kind of still. The lazy satisfaction drained from his body, replaced by something sharper. Predatory awareness shifting to something more focused—more intent.
His purr cut off entirely.
“When did you last eat?”
The question came out low. Dangerous. That tone she’d heard him use with the council. With the engineers. With anyone who displeased him.
Elsa tried to remember. Yesterday? The broth he’d forced on her before the bath? Before that, she couldn’t recall. The days had blurred together since the crash—survival mode erasing small concerns like meals and rest in favor of staying alive. Foodwas fuel. You ate when you could, and when you couldn’t, you ignored the hunger until it stopped screaming.
“I don’t—”
“When, Elsa?”
Her name on his lips startled her. He so rarely used it. Pet. Little human. Female. Anything but her name.
“Yesterday,” she managed. “The broth. You made me eat.”
“And before that?”
She didn’t answer.
His arm loosened—not releasing, but repositioning. Suddenly his massive paws bracketed her face, claws gentle against her skull, forcing her to meet his eyes.