I do not answer at first, because I do not know how. At least not in a way she would understand. Not in a way that would not change everything.
Home,I want to tell her.You are home.Instead, I drop my hand from her chin, but do not step back. I cannot leave her side now that I have tasted the sweet air that surrounds her like an aura.
She sways, caught between instinct and reason, between the safe boundaries of the known and the pull of something darker. Forbidden.
My vow binds me. Holds me back and stops my hands from taking. But I am still a beast. Still a thing made of hunger and instinct, and she stands before me half-wild herself. It would be easy,so easy, to take.
The thought is as intoxicating as it is dangerous.
I could pull her against me, answer her question with my mouth instead of mere words, feel her soft skin beneath my hands. I could sink my teeth into the delicate curve of her throat, claim her in the way my instincts demand.
And she would let me. But she nearly died, and that is heavy on the body and the soul. And I made a vow. I will not take what she does not freely give.
She is trembling, but it is not the cold. She shifts, wrapping her arms around herself. A shiver courses down her spine, and I know it is not only from exhaustion. She is looking at me like I am no longer just a myth, but like I am something else entirely.
Hers.
“What is this place?” she asks, still looking for answers.
I do not speak, but instead, as she shivers again, I reach for her hand. A silent invitation. A choice.
She hesitates. Then, slowly, she takes it.
I stare down at her tiny hand in mine, the contrast stark—her fingers delicate where mine are thick and scarred, roughened from centuries of survival. Her skin is still chilled, her fingers trembling. I do not think—only act. My thumb sweeps over her knuckles, slow and careful, chasing away the last of the cold that tried to steal her from me. If it had a form I would slaughter it in retribution.
Her breath shudders, sharp and unsteady. A small sound escapes her lips—not quite a gasp, not quite a sigh. As if she,too, feels something shifting beneath her skin, something too vast to name.
She does not pull away. Instead, her fingers curl slightly, gripping mine in return. The smallest movement. A whisper of a choice. But I feel it sink into my palm, through my skin, and settle deep into the marrow of my bones.
Not just warmth returning to her skin in response to my heat—but something more. Somethingbecoming.A beginning.
I lead her along the edge of the pool, steam curling in the air between us. When the path narrows I cannot bear to drop her hand; I just move so that we are still touching, still connected. Behind me I hear her murmur under her breath, barely audible?—
“That ass though.”
I go rigid.
I do not know the phrase, but I know the words and, more importantly, the way she says them. I can feel the scorching heat of her eyes as they explore my body, sense the vibration of her throat bobbing as I hear her swallow hard. I can smell the way desire overpowers her sweet Spring scent.
A rumbling growl slips from my chest before I can stop it, and I freeze, locking every muscle in response to the overwhelming desire to spin around and take her in my arms, vow be damned.
She crashes into my back, lets out a startled yelp, stumbles and falls.
I whirl around to see the pool swallow her whole. For a fraction of a second, she vanishes beneath the surface. The water surges in around her, the glow rippling outward, distorting the outline of her flailing limbs.
Her panic echoes through me. The sharp intake of breath before she went under. The way her limbs fight against the pull of the water. The frantic, uneven quickening of her heart audible to my sharp ears.
She thrashes—wild and disoriented. The weight of her soaked clothing drags her down. She does not recognize that she is in water shallow enough to stand. This can’t be panic from the fall.
This is something deeper. A fear that does not belong to the water but to the avalanche, the suffocating cold. The way the snow swallowed her whole. She is there, not here.
I move before thought. Before logic. Before restraint. I jump down into the pool, and my hands close around her waist. I lift her effortlessly, quickly pulling her face above the surface and holding her close.
She gasps, coughing, fingers clutching at my shoulders as I steady her against me. Her body is soft in my arms, warm breath ghosting over my skin. Her fingers tighten into my fur, and she is no longer drowning.
But I am.
Chapter Sixteen
