Her eyes met mine, and something electric passed between us. The surrounding shadows trembled with it.
"Varkolak..." My name on her lips was a question, a plea.
I answered it by closing the distance between us, capturing her mouth with mine. I tasted sunlight and everything I'd been denied in her kiss. Her arms wound around my neck, pulling me closer. The surrounding shadows darkened, intensified, responding to the surge of emotion coursing through me.
I backed her against the wall, lifting her effortlessly, her legs wrapping around my waist. Her hands tangled in my hair, pulling me deeper into the kiss. I groaned against her mouth, my control slipping.
"We shouldn't," I said, even as my lips moved to her throat.
"We should," she countered, her head falling back to give me better access. "We absolutely should."
My shadows wrapped around us both now, an extension of my desire. When her hands pushed at my torn shirt, I let her remove it, exposing my chest to her exploring fingers.
I carried her to the bed, laying her down with more gentleness than I knew I possessed. When I joined her there, something extraordinary happened. The shadows that always accompanied me intertwined with something emanating from her, not shadows exactly, but similar. Lighter. Like twilight to midnight.
"Do you see that?" she whispered, eyes wide as she watched the patterns forming above us.
I'd never seen anything like it. Our shadows with hers somehow visible now merged and danced, creating intricate, beautiful patterns overhead as our bodies pressed together.
"This is impossible," I murmured against her skin.
"Does it matter?" Her hands pulled me closer.
It didn't. Nothing mattered except her beneath me, her soft sighs as I explored her body, the mesmerizing dance of our combined shadows overhead. When I finally joined my body to hers, the shadows above exploded into something like starlight, dark and bright simultaneously.
We moved together, learning each other's rhythms, the shadows mirroring our every motion. I could feel the heat of her body against mine, her soft curves molding to the hard planes of my form. The scent of her arousal filled my nostrils, intoxicating and primal. When she cried out, arching beneath me, the patterns overhead shimmered and pulsed in time with her racing heartbeat. I could taste the salt on her skin as I dragged my lips along her throat, feel the thrum of her pulse beneath my tongue.
My release followed, more intense than anything I'd experienced in my long life. Pleasure crashed over me in relentless waves and I heard myself growl, low and guttural, as I spilled myself inside her welcoming warmth. For a breathless moment, the world fell away. There was only her and I, our bodies joined, the shadows dancing above us in exquisite patterns of ecstasy. In the aftermath, I gathered her close, marveling at the feel of her in my arms. I knew in that instant that she was mine, that I would never let her go. Aya had bewitched me, body and soul, and I was lost.
After, as she lay curled against my chest, the shadow patterns continued to swirl lazily above us, slower now but still present.
"What does it mean?" she asked, tracing patterns on my skin.
"I don't know." I pulled her closer, unwilling to analyze the impossibility of what we'd just experienced. "Nothing like this has ever happened before."
CHAPTER 7
Aya
I woke to the warmth of sunlight streaming through the window, reaching across empty sheets where Varkolak had been. My body still hummed with pleasure from our night together, little sparks of sensation dancing across my skin at the memory of his touch. I stretched, savoring the delicious ache in my muscles.
"Varkolak?" I called out, but the silence of our home answered me.
On the wooden table by the bed lay a note written in his elegant, slanted script:Gone hunting. Rest. I'll return with food.
I smiled, pressing the note to my chest. Last night had been transcendent. The way he'd held me, like I was something precious. The way he'd whispered my name against my skin. For the first time since arriving in the East, I felt truly at home.
A home I never thought I'd find after losing my parents.
I rose, wrapping one of Varkolak's soft furs around my naked body, and padded to the kitchen. The kettle was still warm. He hadn't been gone long. I hummed as I prepared tea, my mind replaying flashes of last night: his hands in my hair, his mouthon my neck, the way his shadow form had curled protectively around me as we slept.
The air shifted.
The fur slipped from my shoulders as I froze, tea forgotten.
Something was wrong.
"Who's there?" I spun around, clutching the fur to my chest.
