This is worse. This is so much worse.
Being this close to him without having to crane my neck is a completely different kind of terrifying. I can see every microscopic detail of his face. The sharp angle of his jaw. The thick, pulsing column of his throat.
His shoulders relax slightly, his hands resting palm-down on his thick thighs. He looks utterly, completely calm. A sharp, mortifying spike of self-consciousness hits me. Trapped exactly at eye-level under his intense, amber stare, I am suddenly acutely aware of the sweaty, unwashed tangle of my hair, and the ugly grease stain currently ruining the front of my blouse.
I fiercely want to step backward to hide my messy state, but the sheer, suffocating heat rolling directly off his golden skin anchors my feet to the stone. The intense temperature physically shimmers the air between us.
An involuntary shiver rocks through my core, sending a sickeningly hot flush straight between my thighs. The sudden rush of arousal peaks my nipples into tight, unmistakable points against the thin fabric of my stained blouse.
I cross my arms over my chest to hide them, all while fighting the urge to step directly into his heat.
Carajo.I have a water crisis to manage.
“If you cut the rations,” I say, my voice shaking annoyingly, “the weakest humans will fail first. Human kidney functions cannot survive on a Drakav baseline.”
I expect him to interrupt. I expect him to argue or...something. Instead, he watches my face with an intensity that makes the fine hairs on my neck stand straight up.
“I know Zan is hauling the extra water out to seal in the emergency skins,” I push, refusing to step back from the blistering wall of his heat. “I need you to release a portion of that surplus directly to my control. Just for the sick bay. I will personally track every single drop.”
His amber eyes drop slowly to my mouth while I forcefully speak. They flick to my cheeks, intensely monitoring the bright, hot flush of my skin.
“I am not asking for more water for myself,” I say, my chest heaving with the sheer physical effort of maintaining my aggression against his terrifying silence. “But without it, we cannot fight the fever. You are guaranteeing that five more women will fail by tomorrow. You cannot cut the sick bay. Do you understand me?”
When my breathless argument finishes, his gaze locks solidly onto my eyes again. He sits in complete silence for a long, terrible moment.
Then, he raises one hand and slowly taps a claw against his own temple. He forces his vocal cords to obey him again, the English words harsh and grating.
“You... think.”
He lowers his hand and sweeps it in a broad gesture across the cavern, rumbling a deep sequence of Drakav too fast for me to translate.
“All. You see,” the translator chirps flatly in my ear.
Kol’s eyes never leave mine. The golden light radiating from his skin deepens to a burning, suffocating amber.
The air between us goes so thick I cannot drag oxygen into my lungs.
He speaks a single Drakav word.
“Kresh.”
The translator in my ear chirps: “Agreed.”
I blink rapidly. My mouth actually falls open. All the adrenaline I had pulled into my muscles suddenly has nowhere to go.
Without the anger to hold my spine straight, the sheer, crushing wave of exhaustion finally hits me. My knees begin to shake. My entire body completely crashes.
Kol plants his hands on his knees and stands. He unfolds his enormous body, towering over me again.
Every single cell in my exhausted body screams at me to step directly into his blazing heat. The urge to simply collapse against his strength and demand he carry me back to the dark safety of my mat is overwhelmingly strong. I am fighting my own self just to stay standing.
He drags his gaze slowly up my body, turns his broad back to me, grabs a bone battle ax from near the ash pit, and stalks toward the outer tunnels without a single backward glance.
I forcefully bite my lip to keep from whimpering at the sudden, freezing loss of his heat.
The exact secondKol is out of earshot, Jacqui completely descends on me.
“Erika,” she hisses, grabbing my arm and forcibly hauling me away from the central fire. She drags me back toward the dark safety of the sleeping partition, where Mikaela is waiting with her hands clamped tightly over her mouth. “Do you have any idea what you just did?”
