When the air pressure behind my shoulder shifts, I think it’s Alex coming to check on me.
But I don’t hear a single footstep. Still, I feel the displacement of air as something enormous stops right next to my ledge.
I don’t open my eyes. Honestly, I physically can’t without vomiting from the pain, but I don’t need to look. I know exactly who is standing over me, because suddenly the stagnant air of the cavern smells like dry, sun-baked stone and overwhelming masculinity.
The warlord doesn’t say a single word.
He just stands there in the dark for a long minute, silently watching me shiver.
Then, there is a quiet scrape of leather against rock.
Somehow, he folds his frame into the cramped space on the ledge right beside me. He intentionally positions his huge body between me and the open tunnel, completely blocking the freezing wind.
An enormous wall of blistering heat settles against my left side.
He doesn’t reach out for me. He doesn’t touch me. Not even a little. There is exactly one inch of empty space stretching between his thick bicep and my shivering shoulder.
I stop shivering anyway.
The heat radiating off his golden skin crosses the tiny gap between us, soaking through my thin shirt. It feels like stepping in front of an open oven. The warmth drives the freezing chill right out of my aching bones. I keep my eyes tightly shut, mostly because I’m too busy fighting the deeply humiliating—and very human—urge to just pitch over sideways and collapse against him.
And then, the sound starts.
It doesn’t start in my ears. It starts directly inside my own chest.
I blink, confused and trying to sort through the blinding pain in my head before I finally realize the deep, resonant rumble isn’t coming from me.
It’s coming from Kol. He’s vibrating.
I stiffen in surprise. The vibration pouring off him seems to deliberately seek my body out. It crosses the gap, sinks through my skin, wraps around my ribcage, and drops into my belly.
And just like that, the migraine behind my right eye is gone.
The total absence of pain leaves me utterly breathless. My brain misfires trying to process it. The relief is so sudden that my muscles instantly go slack against the wall. The vibration sinks past my ribs, past my organs, and settles directly into my spinal cord. My fear just switches off. All I want is to do whatever he tells me to.
I slowly crack my eyes open.
Kol is sitting beside me, his broad shoulders angled outward as he glares at the dark shadows of the open tunnel. Every thick tendon in his neck stands out. His claws are planted so firmly on his thighs that they’re digging grooves into his own skin. The continuous purr roaring out of his chest is so deep it actually makes the cold air between us tremble.
“What are you doing?” I barely manage to whisper.
Kol still doesn’t look down at me. I genuinely have no idea what’s going on in his alien head, but my body reacts to his absolute refusal to look at me with a sudden, hot flush of adrenaline. My stomach does a hard flip. He looks like he is holding himself back by a very fragile thread.
He grunts a single Drakav word, his jaw locked tight.
“Sitting,” the flat automatic translation chirps in my ear.
He is such a liar.
Exhaustion begs me to just lean exactly one inch to the left, press my face into his vibrating chest, and let him take charge. I want to. I want it so badly I could cry.
Somehow, I keep my spine upright, staring blankly at the tunnel wall. He does the exact same thing, locked in a battle with his own restraint while literally vibrating the pain straight out of my skull.
We sit together like that in total silence for ten full minutes.
Then, Tharn slowly approaches the outcropping. The huge secondary warrior stops several feet away, his ears pinned flat against his skull. He looks genuinely terrified to interrupt whatever Kol is doing.
He doesn’t make a single sound, but his amber eyes lock onto Kol. I can feel the sudden shift in the air as a completely silent exchange passes between them in the mindspace.
