He kissed me like he’d been starved and I was a feast. Like he’d been suffocating and I was oxygen. His teeth caught my lower lip, and I gasped, which he took as an invitation to kiss me deeper, harder, until I couldn’t tell where I ended and he began.
My back pressed harder against the tree, bark biting through my clothes, but I didn’t care. His touch was everywhere—my waist, my hips, sliding up my ribs, one hand venturing to cup my breast through the fabric and I gasped into his mouth.
“This is insane,” I managed when he moved to kiss down my jaw, my neck, finding the place where my marks pulsed hottest.
“Yes.” His teeth scraped against my throat, and I made a sound I’d never made before. “We should stop.”
“We should,” I agreed, but my fingers were in his hair now, holding him against my throat as he kissed and bit and marked me with his mouth.
“Someone could see.”
“Let them.” His hand slid down to grip my thigh, hitching it up around his hip, and suddenly we were pressed together in a way that made coherent thought impossible. “Let everyone see. Let them know you’re—”
“Don’t say it,” I warned, but there was no heat in it.
“Mine.” He said it anyway, against my skin, and I felt the word like a brand. “You’re mine, Elle. Say it.”
“I—”
His hand slid higher on my thigh, fingers digging in possessively. “Say it.”
“This doesn’t mean—”
“Say. It.” His mouth found that spot behind my ear that made me shake.
“Yours,” I finally gasped. “I’m yours. But you’re—”
“Yours.” He pulled back just enough to look at me, and what I saw in his eyes made something in my chest crack open. “I’ve been yours from the start. From before I understood what that meant. From before I could admit it to myself.”
“HEY!” Bryx’s voice carried from somewhere close by, loud and urgent. “HUNT’S BEEN SPOTTED! WE NEED TO MOVE NOW!”
Kaelren pulled back with a snarl that was pure frustration. We stared at each other, both gasping for air, both disheveled, both marked with swollen lips and blown pupils.
“This isn’t over,” he said, voice wrecked.
“I know,” I replied, still trying to remember how to breathe normally.
He stepped back reluctantly, and the loss of his warmth felt like a physical ache. His hand caught mine, threading our fingers together in a gesture that felt more intimate than everything that had just happened.
“We need to run,” he said.
“I know.”
But neither of us moved for another heartbeat, just standing there in the darkness, holding hands like the world wasn’t ending around us.
Then Bryx’s panicked shout came again, and reality crashed back.
We ran back to find the crew already moving, weapons drawn, supplies gathered. The Wild Hunt’s horns were closer now, close enough to make my teeth ache. Fenric was nowhere to be seen, but the Florakith servers watched from the doorway with knowing smiles.
As we fled into the night, Kaelren’s hand never left mine.
We were spiraling toward something inevitable.
And whether it would save us or consume us entirely, neither of us could say.
16
Kaelren
