Shit. Wrong question.
Mate or not, apparently my tendency to be a suspicious arsehole hasn’t entirely disappeared.
Her eyes narrow. “You were having a conversation in the middle of a crowded tavern. If it was private, you should have gone somewhere else.”
The witch takes another handful of steps back.
“How much did you hear?”
“Who says I heard anything?”
I snort, and she scowls. “If you had leaned yourself any further back on that bench, you’d have landed your arse on the floor.”
She steps, I step, a slow dance toward the Veil.
I could reach her in half a heartbeat.
I wouldn’t even need a portal to do it. Just one quick lunge, a hard beat of my wings, and she’d be in my arms.
The idea is so appealing that for a few long, aching moments, I’m not certain I won’t give in to it. Surely this woman, this witch, my mate, can’t hate me so much withouteven knowing me. We’ve made a bad beginning, but what’s such a thing between mates?
Only… her wariness and suspicion do not fade.
She takes a few more steps, quickening her pace until we enter a wide clearing around the stone arch that holds the Veil. The portal between realms, the domain of the Goddess herself, pulsing with opalescent white light in the darkness.
The witch inches toward the light, eyes darting back and forth between me and the Veil with silent calculation.
She’s going to run.
I feel it as surely as I feel the burgeoning bond springing to life in my chest, and every one of my hunter’s instincts focuses squarely on her.
Goddess, I hope she doesn’t run.
I hope shedoesrun.
The thought of her running, of me chasing, of hunting her down in these woods, following her scent, listening to the frantic beat of her heart, fingers closing around warm skin and…
Fuck.
I’m not going to chase her.
As long as she doesn’t run.
I can’t think. Can’t get a handle on the racing of my blood in my veins and all the terrible, wonderful, unfamiliar instincts coursing through me.
“Witch,” I grate out, “whatever it is you think you’re—”
“It’s none of your business,” she shoots back.
“It is.” I want to stifle the growl in my chest, I really do, but as she takes a few more quick steps toward the shimmering of the Veil, my muscles bunch and ache with instinctive, unstoppableneed.
“Oh yeah? Why?”
“You know why.”
Can she not feel it, this wild magick between us? Does she not know what it means?
The thought breaks over me like a bucket of cold water.
