Heat gathered behind my eyes because I didn’t deserve his love. Not when I couldn’t return it in kind.
“Look at me,” he said softly.
I lifted my chin, blinking back tears as I fell into the depths of his sapphire eyes. “Pashim…”
He ran his thumb over my bottom lip, and my stomach flipped hard. “You can have this,” he said. “The warmth. The comfort. My heart. Araz would not begrudge you this relief. It is not unheard of for our women to take more than one lover at a time. I know Araz is your twin flame. I am content to be a star inyour sky.” He leaned in, his mouth coasting mine. “I dreamed of you. Of your lips. Of the taste of you.”
Heat pooled low in my belly. I lifted my chin, reacting before I could think better of it, and our mouths brushed, the contact an electric pulse. I gasped, and he caught it, his mouth closing over mine in a show of dominance that tore a moan from my throat. Heat flooded me. Eager. Hungry. Yearning. I opened for him, taking what I needed and giving him what he desired. No thought. No doubts. Just this singular moment of connection. Mouth to mouth. My body pressed to his. My hands tangling in his silken hair as I clutched him close, breathing him in between kisses that deepened and deepened until my pulse was throbbing in my throat and hammering between my thighs.
I wanted him. Fuck. I wanted him inside me.
No!
I broke the kiss, my breath ragged, vision blurring. “I can’t. I can’t do this. I can’t love you in the way you deserve. When it comes down to my heart, it willalwaysbe Araz. I’m sorry.” I slipped from the pallet.
He let me go, eyes filled with the soft understanding that was him.
Yudh looked up as I joined him on the flat stone on the edge of the copse. “I’ll take watch.”
“I doubt you have slept yet, Leela.”
“Yudh, please.”
“I’ll sit with her,” Kalani said, joining us. “You rest for a while.”
Yudh looked between us, then nodded. “I do not need much sleep, so wake me when you feel tired.”
I lowered myself onto the rock, and Kalani joined me. “Are you all right?” she asked softly.
My instinct was to say yes, but I needed to talk to someone about this. To confess. “No. I just…I kissed Pashim. A lot. And…I wanted to do more. I love him, but I love Araz more. More than anything, and I can’t believe I even entertained the thought that I could…I’m a horrible person.”
She was silent for several beats. “You’ve almost died several times over the last few days. Our world is in peril, and its fate rests on your shoulders. It’s not unheard of to find solace in a warm body in times like these.”
“Pashim isn’t some random body.”
“I know.” She smiled at me. “Which is why your body feels safe to open to him. He loves you, and he will happily give you the comfort you need. But I understand why you’d hesitate to take it. You’re a good woman, Leela. Better than any I have come across. Better than me. You understand that crossing that line with him would seal something and break something at the same time. You understand the limits of your heart, and although you love fiercely, you are also single-minded in that connection.”
I sagged, my shoulders dropping because she’d nailed it. Mapped me in a way that I’d been struggling to. “I need to speak to Pashim. To explain and?—”
A low howl cut off my words.
Kalani’s head whipped up, nostrils flaring as she slowly stood.
Another howl joined the first. This one closer. Clearer.
“Wolves,” she said. “We should get back to the fire.”
A third howl, then a fourth. Communication between a pack.
“They’ve probably smelled us,” Kalani said. “We need to move. I’ve heard nasty tales about the wolves in this region. I thought we’d avoid encountering them if we skirted their territory.”
She ushered me back to the copse, where Yudh and Dhoona had already begun packing up our supplies.
Pashim approached us. “We’re leaving.”
“Yeah, I heard them.”
The brothers had just finished loading up the moona when the creatures began to stamp their hooves before planting them firmly on the ground and lowering their heads, mist billowing from their nostrils.
