I could stop her. I could pin her wrist against the furs with one finger. But the physical contact of her hand unmaking my defenses paralyzes my higher reasoning.
The strip falls away.
The cool cavern air hits the raw, starfield skin of my forearm for the first time. The contrast is shocking. The scatteredpinpoints of bright starlight beneath the dark patches shift and glow.
Eh-ree-kah stares down at my star-fractured skin.
Her face does not register a single trace of fear or disgust. Her dark brows pull together in a sharp V. A brief flicker of wonder flashes across her eyes, but she smothers it beneath a hesitant squeeze of my bicep.
“How long have you been hiding the transformation?” she demands, her voice dropping to a harsh whisper.
I lean forward, capturing her stubborn stare, and press my forehead firmly back against hers to rebuild the mental bridge. “Two sols.”
Her eyes widen a fraction as she connects the timeline, before she instantly shutters her expression. But the mindspace is not like a door you can quickly close. I catch her thoughts anyway.
She drops the hide strip onto the furs and points a pale finger directly at the center of my chest, her glare fierce despite how close we are. “You’re an idiot.”
“You’re in excruciating pain,” she continues, leaning into the contact. “You’ve been hiding it because you think your people can’t see their leader struggle. Haven’t you? You think you have to be invincible.”
I close my eyes against her furious dark stare. The urge to wrap my hand around the back of her neck and drag her flush against my chest again is swiftly becoming an unbearable ache.
“I am the dra-dam,” I project across the link. It is a dark vibration of absolute fact.
“That’s not strength, Kol,” she snaps right back, her chin lifting defiantly and brushing my nose. “That’s stubbornness. It’s stupid. Your body is falling apart.”
Her breath abruptly hitches against my skin. Across the mental bridge, the sharp, bright spark of her anger suddenlydrains away, replaced by a breathless dismay. She shifts her weight, her fingertips lightly brushing the jagged spread of starfield skin radiating heat into the cool cavern air.
“Is it...” she asks hesitantly, her voice dropping to a trembling whisper. “Are you in pain because of me?”
I open my eyes. Her dark ones are searching. I slide my hand up to cup the side of her neck, my thumb resting over the jumping flutter of herdra-kirbeat. The possessive rumble of my purr vibrates directly against her chest.
“Not because of you,” I project into her mind, the dark, absolute weight of the truth sinking seamlessly into her bones. “For you.”
Her dark eyes widen. The rigid line of her jaw goes slack. Her dra-kir spikes against the side of my thumb.
She does not pull away. She leans into my space. Her small hand slides up to my jaw before trailing down my neck to press flat against the center of my chest. Her palm burns directly over the thudding of mydra-kir.
She exhales a short, uneven breath that hits my throat.
The next tremor hits without warning.
A seizing heat rips horizontally through my right side. The muscles along my ribs lock so hard I lose my vision momentarily.
A harsh, grating sound tears out of my throat. I drop forward, burying my face into the curve of her neck. My towering frame forces her backward, pinning her spine flat against the furs.
She does not scramble away. She does not panic.
Her arms wrap tightly around my broad shoulders. Her small hands grip the tense, knotted muscles of my back, anchoring her weight against the rigid shuddering of my frame. Her breath is a hot, steady whisper against my ear.
The pain is blinding, a furious, tearing heat reshaping my nerve endings and muscle fiber to perfectly accommodate the fragile human female currently holding my weight.
But beneath the agony, that deep, building ache between my hips surges back. The same foreign throb I woke to after the dream. It has no name in my language. It has no precedent in my body. But it is there, undeniable, pounding in time with each beat of mydra-kir.
Her soft thighs part slightly, trapping my rigid hip between them as I shudder against her. The friction of our bodies pressing together sends an electric shock straight to my groin.
A deep, chest-rattling purr erupts from my throat, vibrating fiercely against her collarbone.
She gasps, her spine arching up off the stone ledge, pressing her hips tighter against the hard ridge of my upper thigh.
