Free The Devil's Concubine by Jaide Fox

frowned, studying her with a mixture of anger and confusion. He could see
    she wasn’t merely startled, however. She was shivering as if she was freezing.

    There was something about her expression and the way she glanced back at the
    window and then moved away from it that gave him pause. After a moment, he crossed
    the room and stood where she had moments before, staring through the small crevice.

    He could see nothing. He knew his own sight was far better than hers, so it could
    not be anything beyond his view that had disturbed her. Pulling away from the window, he turned to study her for several moments and finally glanced at the view again.
    Enlightenment dawned and yet he could hardly credit it.

    “You are afraid of the height?”

    Aliya stared at him mutely for several moments, but she could think of no reason
    to deny it. “I can not fly,” she said stiffly. “I have never been so high above the world.”

    Some of the tension eased from Talin at that comment, and the roiling, sick anger
    that had been eating at him eased slightly.

    He was almost tempted to smile. One look at her face was enough to assure him
    that would be poorly received, but he was relieved beyond measure that she had not,
    apparently, reserved that look of sheer horror for him. Frowning, he thought back over it and realized that she had hardly even glanced at him before when she was so terrified, and she had certainly shown no compunction about fighting him when he’d brought her
    to the tower again.
    THE DEVIL’S CONCUBINE
    Jaide Fox
    35

    That had been because of her fear of the view, he decided.

    Perhaps not all of it, he thought wryly, remembering what she’d said to him when
    she had discovered the door and windows were covered. She had seemed relieved about
    the shutters, but no more receptive to him.

    He supposed it was something, at least, that she was more afraid of the height
    than she was of him.

    Inwardly, he sighed. He was not generally such a numbskull, or so impulsive. If
    he had been a man child, she would have every reason to fear and loathe him for stealing her away. The fact that he was not only made it worse, not better, for he knew the man children despised and feared those they called the unnaturals. He felt a sense of
    hopelessness for the situation. No matter what he did now, he could not take back the way they had begun. The best he could hope for was that she would grow accustomed
    and come to accept and even that was bound to be an uphill battle.

    She was attracted to him, even though it was obvious she loathed herself for it.
    He hadn’t imagined that. As innocent as she was, she had responded to his touch readily.

    Dismissing that thought abruptly when he felt the blood begin to surge through
    his veins, he focused on what he’d come for--a change of clothing.

    At least he hadn’t been so hardheaded, and stupid, as to press her right away,
    though the look of her naked form had sapped much of his sense straight down to his
    cock. Even thinking of it now made his blood surge and his cods tighten painfully. He glanced at her full lips with an insatiable hunger, then looked away and gathered his thoughts, steeling himself against the desire to take her.

    It had taken distance from her to gain that much brain function, but he had
    realized that it would probably make things easier between them if he gave her time--at least a few days--to get over the worst of her fear and distrust.

    He wasn’t certain his patience would outlast more than a few days of being
    around her. She was his, regardless of how she might feel about that now, and his
    knowledge of that made it very difficult for him to control the beast inside of him that was clamoring to claim her in every way.

    He’d stripped before it occurred to him that, as an innocent, his nakedness might
    discomfit her. When he glanced at her, he saw it had.

    Her eyes were wide as saucers and she’d backed away until she’d come up against
    the