Atria squeezed her eyes shut and tried to block it all out, but with the orc right next to her, it was impossible to focus.
She didn’t often long for her life in the Sanctuary, but there were many reasons that empaths fled to them. The most important beingsolitude.Her kind absorbed emotion through the air whether they wanted it or not. Even rigidly built mental barriers couldn’t stop it. The only escape was in isolation.
She’d gotten good at blocking out or at least forcing herself to not pay attention to the fog of feelings that accompanied public spaces since she left the Sanctuary, but occasionally it still got the better of her — like now.
Atria tucked her curled fists against her stomach and tried to regulate her breathing, searching frantically for air that seemed too dense for her. She just had to make it through the first few minutes of the flight. Once they gained altitude and leveled out, people would calm down. She could hold on until then, so long as the vampire didn’t get any more nervous and the orc didn’t unleash all that roiling aggression.
Her stomach was full of the rich dinner Margot and Theodore treated her to, and she could almost feel the ghost of their bubbling happiness. If she could focus on that, then she would be fine.
She could do this. She didn’t exactly have a choice.
“Breathe for me.”
A warm, gloved hand covered her clenched fists. All that aggression seemed to evaporate in an instant, leaving a steady current of worry in its wake.
Atria latched onto that feeling with both hands. It wasn’t agreatone, but it didn’t threaten to make her throw up like too much anxiety was wont to do, nor send her into a panic attack. Or both.
Opening her eyes, she found the orc staring down his sharp nose at her, his brows lowered and his lips pressed into a hard line. His fingers squeezed her fists — one hand was big enough to enclosebothof them in a firm grip. She couldn’t feel his skin, but his warmth, his touch, grounded her.
“Deep breaths,” he coached her, low enough that only she could hear. “You’re all right. Nothing’s going to happen to you.”
Embarrassed and relieved in equal measure, Atria cleared her throat and gently extracted her hands from under his. “Thank you,” she whispered.
His hand moved slowly back onto the armrest. Almost to himself, he muttered, “Don’t thank me yet.”
ChapterFive
She didn’t recognize him.
He wasn’t sure what he expected, since he never intended to get so close to her, but he couldn’t stop himself from fixating on that one detail.She doesn’t remember me at all.
Aglimpseof her was all it took to change his life, while she had… what? Gone on like he didn’t exist?
When he forced his way onto the plane and saw her by the window, it felt like his whole world shifted, his universe forcefully realigning itself to revolve aroundher.Even his body felt different. His blood fizzed in his veins, his senses sharpened, the skin of his hands and feet burned, and even his damn claws retracted.
All of that was somehow secondary to the inescapable fact that he had never in his life experienced such a painfully swift erection. Every drop of blood in his brain seemed to rush to his cock so fast, he swore his vision whited out. Pinched behind his fly, it refused to die down no matter what he did. Worse, the more he smelled her, the harder it got — somehow, despite the fact that his body only had so much blood to spare and his cock could only get so fucking hard.
Being next to her was pure misery combined with the most exquisite bliss. He was at once coming out of his skin, leaking pre-come into his briefs at an alarming rate, and so angry he couldn’t see straight.
A great start to whatever this shit is gonna be.
The only problem? There was not even a hint of recognition in her eyes. Nothing.
It shouldn’thave bothered him, but his brain was going haywire, his instincts were making him want to scale the walls, and the vampire with the deathwish next to him kept sneaking inquisitive looks at his mate.
He understood why. Dressed in a big, cozy sweater and a long, semi-translucent skirt over a short one that barely reached the tops of her thighs, she looked like she just stepped out of a cozy library or something. The outfit made her already irresistible curves and heart-shaped face seem that much softer. The kind of softness he wanted to sink his claws into andbite.
She looked like a damn dream — a fairy tale princess who wore flowers in her hair and smiled down at her knights from the top of her lofty tower.
He wanted to wrap her hair around his fist, lay her down in a bed of pretty flowers, and wreckher for anyone else. Maybe even in front of that skinny vampire or those gargoyles, just so they knew exactly what they couldn’t have. Or not.
Perhaps he’d just settle for marking every inch of that satin skin with his tongue, teeth, and release instead.
Losing my damn mind,he thought, subtly adjusting himself when he was sure Atria’s gaze was firmly away from him.
Instinct demanded he keep his eyes on her and drink in all that he’d deprived himself of — long mahogany hair, honey brown skin with an undertone of gold, big eyes, a softly sloped nose, full,fulllips — but it was that very compulsion that kept his eyes forward.
Right up until she began to hyperventilate.
