“Why do you always have to argue?”
My heart stopped.
It can’t be.
Not a single beat. How was I still alive and breathing?
I thought I had known fear before. But not like this, never like this.
It can’t be.
The witch… she’d implied it might never happen—
Arran stumbled forward. “Veyka.”
The world ceased to exist. I could not see anything beyond the male in front of me. His brutal, beautiful face, twisted with such emotion. Such longing. And pain. Pain I knew, because it had arched through me with every single breath. Then fear—fear that it was a dream. That this was not real. That in a second, a minute, he would forget me again.
I did not recall crossing the courtyard again, only knew that I needed to touch him and then suddenly I was. Maybe I’d slipped through the void.
But I stopped short of touching him. Scared, that the mirage would fall away.
Arran was the braver of the two of us. He was the one who reached out, his hand cupping my face.
“Ancestors, Veyka,” he breathed, skating his thumb over my cheekbone and down over my lips. “I am so sorry.”
I melted.
Collapsed.
My muscles ceased to function. So did my mind.
Arran’s arms were around me as my knees hit the ground. His mouth was on mine, silencing the strangled sobs that shook my chest. I was still afraid to touch him—but then his hands were on mine, shoving them into his hair, over his shoulder. The contact awakened me. I could not get close enough, hold him tight enough. That golden thread of our mating bond, it did not just connect our hearts through our chests. I swore that I could feel it threaded and shining through every inch of my body, one long string that did not just connect us—it was us. And we were one.
“Veyka,” Arran said my name, again and again as he rained down kisses on my face, my neck, my ears. “I’m sorry. I am so sorry.”
“You do not get to be sorry.”
“I said awful things—”
“I stabbed you in the heart.”
He paused, hands splayed on either side of my face, pressing my forehead to his. “Even that was not enough to drive us apart. Not for long.”
Breathing was not necessary, not when Arran’s mouth was on mine. His tongue was in my mouth, reclaiming every corner. Twirling around mine in that exquisite, teasing dance. He caught my lower lip between his teeth, sucking hard as he pulled away.
“You taste,” he shuttered. “You taste so fucking perfect.”
I tried to tell him that I tasted the same as I had the last time we’d kissed, but words were impossible. Not when his mouth dropped to my throat, scalding hot kisses and scraping canines and— “Arran. Arran, please. You are going to kill me.”
He growled at the mere suggestion. Male and beast, in unison. Wet, hot desire slid between my thighs, soaking myleggings. I needed these clothes off—his, mine. I needed him naked against me.
Nothing between us. Never again.
Arran must have heard my thoughts—I might have been screaming them through the mating bond. I was too out of my mind to notice or care. He tugged the thick wool tunic over my head. His tunic.
The growl in his throat turned possessive. His hands were too as they cupped my breasts, held in place with only a tightly wound piece of linen. Hardly sufficient for climbing mountains, but I hadn’t wanted to risk my single bustier.
Arran glared down at the wrapping.
