A slow, burning flush creeps up my neck and floods my cheeks.
“I won the broadcast pool,” she adds, crossing her arms looking incredibly smug. “Two extra pieces of jerky for me.”
I open my eyes and glare at her. “There really is a bet?”
“There are several, actually,” Jacqui says.
“I am going to kill both of you.”
“You’re blushing,” Mikaela points out, tapping her own cheek. “That counts as a win for my secondary timeline.”
I refuse to engage. I turn on my heel and walk rapidly toward the alcove with the mapping table, my footsteps echoing too loudly against the rock.
Warriors are already surrounding the stone, which looks like a petrified tree trunk. As I approach, the crowd parts fast. Several of them stare openly at me. They jerk their heads away the second I catch them looking.
Kol is standing at the head of the stone. His shoulders are tight. His hands are planted flat against the scored surface. When I step into the empty space directly at his right side, he turns his head slowly and looks down at me.
The weight of his golden stare is staggering. It is also unapologetic.
The silence around the rock is charged and suffocating.
I should be furious. Or at the very least, incredibly annoyed. My rational brain is screaming that I should be demandingan apology for him accidentally broadcasting a highly explicit dream about me to an entire cave of towering aliens.
But the logic is completely flattened by the paralyzing, furnace-like heat radiating off his body.
I lean closer to his arm.
“Jacqui told me,” I say quietly.
His entire body stills. Whether he can understand me or not I’m not sure, but I’m not pressing my forehead to his. Not here with half his men watching.
The deep V between his golden eyes is sharp.
“For what it’s worth?” I murmur, keeping my voice low. “I woke up reaching too.”
His golden eyes drop to my mouth... andstaythere.
The heat that rolls off him hits my skin like standing too close to an open flame. My pulse stutters. A liquid ache drops straight to my core, and the muscles deep between my thighs clench—once, twice, several times. I have to lock my knees to keep standing because a sudden rush of slick heat just flooded my center.
His claws dig slowly into the solid stone, scoring the surface.
He doesn’t look away from my mouth. I can’t look away from his hands.
Justine arrives at the mapping table, slightly out of breath, and drops into her position beside Rok. I am so fucking happy to see her that the words rush out of me like a yappy parrot.
I start pointing a shaky finger at canyon lines, blurting out something about patrols just to break the suffocating silence.
Kol’s golden eyes finally snap away from my mouth. He looks down at the stone.
The rest of the briefing is a blur. Justine translates. I point at the stone. He grunts a low confirmation. Every time he shifts his stance, the blazing heat of his bicep brushes my elbow.
My pulse is hammering in my throat.
I can’t focus. I step back from the table, trying to take a single deep breath to gather myself. Instead, I inhale a lungful of the freezing, bone-dry cavern draft. My sinuses instantly prickle. My eyes water. I turn my head into my shoulder and sneeze.
Ten warriors instantly draw their weapons.
The scrape of bone-spears and serrated blades echoes deafeningly against the walls. The clan drops into combat crouches in a single, fluid motion, spinning in all directions to face the dark tunnels and high vents.
