A corner of Viktor’s mouth kicked up. “From me,” he answered, jutting his chin toward the fire. “The smoke will move with the wind. That way we’ll always know if you might be in danger of smelling me.”
Her throat constricted. “Ah. Thank you.”
Viktor’s gaze was warm, utterly focused. “I meant it, Cam. This isn’t a trap. I’m not trying to take your choice from you.”
She had to look away from his earnest expression. Hope burned in her chest, unbearably hot, even when she reminded herself that there was still so much standing between them.
“I know you didn’t mean to,” she admitted, compelled by the memory of the guilt and horror she saw on his face during their call. “You didn’t know.”
“Why didn’t you tell me before?”
She shrugged. Swirling the tip of one capped claw in the sand by the edge of the blanket, she answered, “We don’t like to talk about it. The pull is— well, you can see how it can be a vulnerability.”
“I know you told me some— Well, we talked about it a little last night, but I want to know more. Is it like taking the kohl?” he asked.
Camille tilted her head to one side and then the other, considering his question. He wasn’t far off. What orcs calledtaking the kohlwas their own mating imperative. “It’s pretty similar, though there are some key differences.” She licked her lips, amazed that she was telling him this at all. That they were even having a civil conversation while the urge to get closer to him ate up her insides in great, heaving gulps. Even without his scent in her lungs, she craved him.
“Explain, please. I want to understand.”
“Well, for starters, we don’t experience any skin pigment alteration.” Camille lifted her hands and wiggled her fingers near the fire. Sealed in supple black leather and polished silver, her claws looked particularly wicked. “The only real outward sign of it is the retraction of our claws, like I told you… before. Hence the gloves. It’s considered… indiscreet to go without them.”
She glanced up, eager to see his reaction, and found Viktor raking a hand through his blond hair. The strands were bleached by the sun and saltwater — a result of all the time he spent outside with his packmates. A sharp spike of jealousy pierced her. What would it be like to be part of his pack? To tumble with him in the wild?
She imagined it would be like shedding a thousand-pound weight from her shoulders, or surgically removing the steel rod from her spine. To be free to play, to tumble and run, with no one waiting to see her slip up or looking for a weakness to exploit, was a luxury she could only imagine.
“Okay,” Viktor breathed, brow furrowed over troubled eyes. “What else? What other symptoms are there?”
Camille shifted her gaze away and tried to banish the longings that threatened to steal her voice. “Mostly it’s internal. Increased aggression, a compulsion to initiate skin contact. Things like that.”
“Is it reversible?”
His heavy gaze was as tangible as hands on her skin. Goosebumps broke out across her body as she struggled to find an answer to his question. Habit and old wounds demanded she lie, to cover her weaknesses lest he exploit them, but…
But she wasthere,on the beach with him, in the place where they had first become friends, and she didn’t want to lie.I am no coward,she thought again.
If she could jump off one cliff, surely she could leap off of another.
Taking a deep breath, she quietly explained, “Yes and no. Once contact is made, there really is noreset button.The craving will always be there. But if no other contact is made, the harm can be mitigated. There are steps you can take to purge yourself of their pheromones and get mostly back to normal.”
Viktor’s voice was terribly strained when he said, “It hurts you.”
“It’s not pleasant, no.” She thought of her ice baths, of the withdrawal, of the itch under her skin and the keening pain in her soul. “But there’s a reason it’s worth it.”
“Because you don’t want to be mated to outsiders.” His tone was flat, non-judgmental, and yet she felt a wealth of hurt radiating from his side of the fire.
“Partly,” she admitted, looking up at him through the fringe of her lashes. The firelight made his bronze skin glow. Even with the hard look on his face, he was so, so beautiful. “Not for me personally, though. The main reason is that…”
She shook her head, struggling to find a way to explain such an intricate, private thing. Viktor waited patiently as she gathered her thoughts. “It’s that there’s this… invisible line. You can cut off contact and go back to being mostly normal until suddenly one day you can’t. No one knows how much contact it takes, the amount of exposure necessary to flip the switch, but at some point it becomes irreversible. Once that happens, binding yourself to your consort isn’t just a compulsion, it’s lifesaving.”
Viktor’s eyes went hunting sharp. The skin covering his cheekbones went taut with tension when he asked, “What do you mean? Will it kill you?”
“The pull itself? No. Not physically.” Camille rubbed her palms together, sending grains of sand back to the ground. Her voice was whisper-soft when she continued, “The hormone imbalance drives us insane. Aggression gets out of control. Paranoia sets in. Sleep stops. Appetite vanishes. Eventually you wither into nothing, but only if your loved ones don’t take pity on you and execute you first.”
She heard his sharp inhale, but felt too raw, too exposed to look at him. “It is what it is. The only cures are isolation or capitulation. You find a way to live with it, or you give in. Easy.”
For a long time, there was silence between them. The fire crackled, sparks popping as the logs slowly began to collapse in on themselves. Heat radiated outward, making her cheeks flush, but inside she felt a deep, dreadful chill.
“Teddy never said anything.”
