Slowly, reluctantly, he releases me.
The sudden loss of his heat is shocking. My bound hands instantly feel freezing, raw, and totally exposed to the cavern air. For one completely insane heartbeat, my body actually sways forward, craving the weight of his hands again.
I catch myself before my feet move. There are a hundred things trying to kill us on this dust-rock, and I will not let a pair of warm hands be the thing that breaks me.
“Thank you for the bandages.” I clear my throat, grabbing the bundle of fibers and stubbornly turning my back on him.
Kol watches my back for exactly three more seconds. The weight of his stare burns straight through my shirt. Then he turns, crossing the alcove in those absurd, ground-eating strides, and heads back toward the central fire.
I scrub the weave until the electrical tingling in my palms stops.
It takes a very, very long time.
Chapter 3
HOW TO SLOWLY LOSE YOUR MIND OVER A TINY, LOUD HUMAN
KOL
Ihave not slept.
The cavern is completely black. The central firestones cooled hours ago, but my core is running hot enough to burn. I lie flat on my broad back on my sleeping mat, staring at the unseen ceiling, my chest rising and falling in harsh, controlled breaths.
I can still feel her.
It has been an entire cycle since I took her bleeding hands into mine, but the physical sensation of her soft, fragile skin is permanently burned into my palms. The sharp, storm-wind scent of her is trapped in my lungs, choking out the stale air of the cavern.
Every time I close my eyes, mydra-kirseizes with violent, possessive need. I swing my legs over the edge of the stone ledge, my claws sliding out in pure frustration. My glow immediately flares, before I forcefully dim it back down to a dull thrum.
I must move before I lose the battle against my own instincts, cross the cavern, and find where she sleeps.
I push myself up, breathing the freezing night air deep into my chest, and force my focus outward to my clan. I open my mind.
The mindspace hits me like a dust storm tearing through a sealed cavern.
I sweep my awareness through the connected frequencies. I feel everyone. I feel Rok’s steady, immovable presence, currently wrapped around the bright resonance of his mate, Jus-teen. I feel Tharn’s restless energy, muffled by the sharp warmth of Jah-kee. I feel Sarven actively bleeding loud, purring contentment into the dark, firmly anchored to his Mih-kay-lah.
Then my awareness sweeps toward the far corner of the cavern.
And I hit the void.
Sorn has returned. He is sleeping less than forty paces away, but in the mindspace, he is a gaping hole. He projectsnothing. No dreams, no echoes. Just an unnatural silence that scrapes painfully against the edges of my mind.
I sent him into the wastes alone. I sanctioned the hunt for the human female we all knew the dust had already claimed, and the dust took a piece of Sorn as payment. I crush the cold surge of guilt before it can leak into the shared space. A dra-dam cannot afford the indulgence of weakness.
I step out of my alcove to begin my patrol.
I head directly to the water channels at the back of the cave and dip two fingers into the collected surplus basin and taste. The water is freezing. It tastes clean; hardly a trace of the toxic bloom that nearly killed the clan. The filtration weaves the females built are holding the poison back.
My gaze shifts to the baskets set directly into the basin near the mouth of the flow, and my body reacts before my logic catches up.
I step closer, my claw catching on the fiber weave.
The clean scent of the filtered water is instantly obliterated by the sharp, distinct smell ofher.
Eh-ree-kah.
I can scent the exact spot where her tiny, bruised hands wrestled this basket down into the current. Beneath the sharp scent of the wet weave is the faint, copper trace of dried lifeblood where her knuckles cracked during the work.
