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I glance down at where she’s touching me, then lift my eyes to hers. For a moment, she looks almost startled by her own decision. But she doesn’t pull away. “Malakai.” My name sounds different in her mouth.

The ground trembles.

Fuck.

Ezra sees it. “Sage.”

She doesn’t look at him. Her eyes stay on mine. I can feel the Harvest trying to use what already exists between us.

That’s the danger.

It doesn’t create hunger. It feeds it.

Sage steps closer.

I don’t move. Her body is inches from mine. Her fingers tighten around my wrist. “You feel different.”

“How?”

“I don’t know.” Her voice is quieter.

The party disappears around us. Not literally. It simply stops mattering.

Her gaze drops to my mouth again. This time, she doesn’t pretend it didn’t.

I lift my hand slowly, giving her every chance to move away before my thumb brushes along her jaw.

She doesn’t.

Her eyes flutter closed for half a second, and under our feet, the Earth shivers.

I lean closer but stop before our mouths meet.

Not touching.

Not yet.

Her breath warms my lips.

“Tell me to stop.”

Her eyes open.

Instead of answering, her fingers curl into the front of my shirt and pull me the rest of the way to her.

Her lips brush mine, tentative at first, barely there. Then I taste her, and whatever hesitation existed between us disappears.

For one impossible second, I forget everything.

The field. The ritual. The screaming buried beneath the soil.

All of it.

There is only Sage.

Warm beneath my hand. Alive against my mouth.

Choosing this.