I slide off the edge of the shelf. The moment my boot hits the floor, his head snaps up.
His eyes lock onto mine, and a low growl rolls out of his chest.
The lingering nausea from the battle vanishes. The exhaustion that’s been hollowing me out for weeks just... snaps. I am suddenly, completely, ferociously awake.
I take a step toward him.
“Kol.”
He flinches. A single syllable tears out of his throat in his own language.
“Kah.” Stop.
I take another step. “No.”
His whole body shudders.
“Eh-ree-kah.” My name breaks apart in his throat. His chest heaves.
“I know,” I tell him. I keep my voice steady. I keep walking. “I know what’s happening.”
I step into his heat, the top of my head barely reaching the center of his chest. If he suddenly shifted his weight, he’d crush me. I don’t care.
I press my palm flat against his bare chest, right over the frantic drumbeat at the center of him.
Light.
It funnels out from under my hand. Blinding white. The starfield beneath my fingers whirls outward, racing up my arm. Heat. It floods my veins. The light crawls up my elbow. Every point where my skin touches his, the constellations write themselves onto me.
A booming pulse hits the center of my skull. At first, my legs almost buckle with the sheer, overwhelming rush of data. It’s like being hit with a battering ram of information. And as I grip him and look up, I realize it isn’t my pulse in my own head.
It’s his.
I get a tidal wave of his absolute exhaustion, his sheer terror for my safety, and an all-consuming, overwhelming obsession pouring straight into my nervous system.
I suddenlyfeelhim.
A sob tears out of my throat.
“I can feel you,” I gasp, my fingers digging into the hard, raised ridges of the status markings on his chest. They burn under my hands, but the connection is absolute. “Kol. I canfeelyou.”
Before he can move, his entire body locks rigid.
His head snaps back, cracking on the stone behind him as his teeth bare in a nasty snarl.
“Kah.” The word comes out weak as he tries to push me away, but the surge of his biology hitting mine is too much. I couldn’t let go even if I wanted to.
Kol collapses.
His knees hit the stone hard, his hands slamming flat onto the floor.
I don’t let go. I feel the flash of his pain as bones realign. I feel his desperation to get me away from him where I would be safe.
I don’t pull back. I don’t run.
I fist both my hands deep into his thick, sandy hair, leaning my entire body weight against his heaving shoulder.
“I’m here,” I say into his scalp. “I’m right here.”
