Kai runs a wet hand through his hair, a few of the dark brown strands breaking free and resting near his temples. “I don’t know. At first, I had no control over which animal I shifted into. Eventually, I learned how to subdue the urge and then how to direct it to a specific animal. I am limited to only animals that I’ve seen.”
I shake my head in disbelief. “You can shift into many animals, and Jahlee can’t shift at all. That seems…”
“Unfortunate,” he supplies.
“Does anyone else know? Besides Jahlee, I assume?”
He smiles, his entire face changing with the expression. There is fondness and contentment there, and I unabashedly observe him, tracing every part of his broad jaw and cheekbones glinting beneath the starlight. “No one else besides the two of you. Because she is nosey, she happened to find me hiding in the jungle as I was practicing switching from one animal to the next.”
I laugh at that as I drop my attention to the water, tracing my fingers over its surface. The urge to share something—anything—with him is too strong to ignore. Just like every time that I’m in his presence, I lose the battle to keep my emotions steady.
“You once asked about my best friend, the one you saw me with on the beach before we left the Mage Kingdom,” I say, and though it isn’t exactly the secret I should tell him, I let the words pour from me anyway. “His name is Daje. Growing up, I was an outcast despite being a princess. I was verbally tormented. Told I was too weak, too lacking. That I wasn’t a worthy mage. That I couldn’t be anything other than a failure. Daje stood up for me, often at his own expense. As we grew older, I could tell that his feelings for me were changing. That they were morphinginto something deeper, but like a coward, I didn’t acknowledge them out loud, and neither did he until the night of the Summer Solstice.”
I look up to find Kai’s rapt attention on me, and it makes it a little easier to keep going.
“I’ve always been singularly focused, driven to find answers to problems that plague not only me but my entire kingdom. Daje didn’t—doesn’t—see the value in that. He believes me to be stuck in a cycle, I think, one of self-imposed masochism, but the truth is, I can’t help but be this way. I can’t help but look for the right answers, even if—” I pinch my lips together, forcing down the inadequacy that threatens to come out as tears. “Even if there are none to be found. That night, Daje gave me an ultimatum. He proposed to a woman who hasn’t existed since our childhood, and I am clinging on to a friend who has undoubtedly changed. All this time away has made me realize that perhaps I’ve never had anyone in my life who has been able to acceptallof who I am. The good and the bad. The sharp-tongued warrior and the obsessed researcher. The princess who is trying to live up to the title. I wonder if maybe the combination of things that I am is too much foranyone.”
Self-consciously, I avert my gaze again as I offer him a little more vulnerability.
“Here, I’ve been forced to question my desires. Mysanity. I find myself wondering what exactly I’m going to return to when my time here is up. And what I’ll miss when I leave.” My hand runs over my chest under the water, my heart aching in a way that makes me draw in a tight breath.
Kai’s attention on me feels like a tattoo of its own, marking me until my bare flesh feels raw from the burn of it. The water ripples as he moves towards me, his hand wrapping around the side of my neck as his thumb pushes under my chin to tilt my head up and force me to meet his gaze. His other hand restson my hip, his fingertips digging into the skin as he draws me towards him. “Only the weak will find you to be too much. Any male who aims to subdue you is not deserving of the same air that fills your lungs.”
“And what about you?” I ask, my hands tentatively resting on his firm chest. “You wish I was less of a bother.”
“I have no interest in taming you, Bahira.” He leans down until his mouth is angled above my own. “And I am no mere male. I am a king. One who recognizes when there is a queen in his presence.” Before I can respond, his lips collide with my own while his tongue claims mine in hungry sweeps, narrowing my focus so that I don’t dissect his words and the intent behind them too deeply.
My heart ricochets between my ribs, the feel of him in my hands and on my mouth and so near my body ignites every part of me. My need for him is more than wanting to satiate the desire for sex. I want to come undonewithhim.I want to feel our bodies joining until he’s stripped of every piece of armor he wears for the world and, instead, is bared to me—onlyto me.
He smiles against my lips, his hands sliding down my slick body to grip my thighs as he lifts me up. My ankles lock behind him, my nails scraping over his shoulders as he carries me out of the hot spring. Our dinner is still spread out over the blanket, and Kai sets me down only long enough to sweep every container to the side. My gaze catches on the dots of neon blue and green glowing on the ceiling of the small cave above us as he wraps an arm around me and lowers my back to the blanket.
Something aches within me when our gazes lock. It demands attention, but I’m too frightened to give the emotion a name. I feel oddly unsure of what to do with my hands, gliding them down his back and then over his shoulders and into his hair. His weight on me is welcome and warm, his body fitting to mine as if it were molded just for me. My equal in every way.
“My undoing,” he rasps, leaning in to kiss and nip my neck and shoulder. All I can do is nod in return because I’m becoming undone too.
He slides into me in one easy thrust, my desire for him unrelenting and hot and terrifying. He’s everywhere—not just within my body but in my head and in my breath and, further still, in my heart. The stupid thing beats harshly, each flutter of it opening a floodgate of emotions that have no business being here as we writhe together. Our breaths become labored, but unlike our previous joining, the eagerness filling the spaces between us is softer. It’s still as desperate, my nails scouring his flesh as his teeth leave an imprint on my own, yet this isn’t just fucking. It’s everything I’ve always been too scared to admit wanting. Everything that’s lacked with the myriad of other partners I’ve had.
“Bahira,” he rasps my name out, and it sounds like a reckoning. Itfeelslike one as my climax twists down my spine and lower, every muscle pulling taut when the tension begins to crest. He grips my thigh in his large hand, pushing it out wide as he buries himself in me. His thrusts become deeper andharder, his cock stretching me as my walls clamp down around him. I hold him as I come, breathing his name against his mouth while Kai pulses inside of me, another declaration of my name sworn between us.
My lips tingle though they still search his mouth—content with whatever he’ll give me as our chests heave. It’s that thought, that utterly forlorn andpatheticthought, that tethers me back to reality. The one where I am only a guest in his kingdom and due to return home soon. Where I’m lying to him, keeping him in the dark about what he assumes I can do—what hevaluesme for.Thatreality punches me in the gut until I feel the air knocked from my lungs. I slowly slide away and sit up, my breathinglabored because I know that there is no escaping what I need to do next.
Kai stands beside me, grabbing something from his pack before exiting the cave. I hear the splashing of water, and then he is back at my side, handing me a wet cloth. We clean up in silence, Kai casting glances my way that grow more and more concerned.
“Your silence is deafening,” he finally remarks when we’re partially dressed, him with his trousers on and me in my top and undergarments. “Do you regret this?” He asks the question so earnestly—without judgment—that I have to squeeze my eyes shut.
“No, and I’m fine,” I lie.
His fingers wrap around my jaw, and he forces me to look at him, waiting until my eyes open again before he speaks. “Say that again but make it more believable.” My bottom lip trembles, and the tip of his thumb traces over it. He releases me to tuck my hair behind my ear, his eyes once more holding mine captive. “Do you remember when you asked if I liked your hair on the ship? And I denied it?”
Swallowing, I nod my head.
“I lied. I fuckingloveit.”
Then Kai leans forward, his lips gently kissing my temple, and it’s too much. I have to hope that he’ll understand. That he feels whatever this is between us as strongly as I do and it will be enough to wash away the betrayal. Waiting until he’s leaned away, I curl my fingers into my palms so that the nails bite into the skin. Bracing myself, I confess, “I don’t have magic.”
He looks at me as if the words I’ve spoken aren’t in a language he understands. Nausea rumbles in my stomach and moves up my torso until it’s burning the back of my throat. He tilts his head to the side in one sharp movement, studyingme like he can see through skin and bones as he searches for something that might not be there.
“You are mage.” A statement, not a question.
