Chapter 2
TWO
NARLA
An hour later, the pressure beneath her skin had become unbearable.
Narla stood behind her booth, smiling at customers, wrapping purchases, radiating the peaceful competence everyone expected from the candle witch. Inside, a scream was building.
The surge pulsed through Haven Shores. She could feel it—beyond pressure but a rhythm, a heartbeat that matched the drums from the main stage and the thud of her own pulse in her ears.
Every supernatural in the park had to feel it.
The wolves were restless, pacing the perimeter with more intensity than security required.
The lions kept scenting the air, noses twitching, muscles coiled.
Even the witches were jumpy, their magic sparking at unexpected moments—Junie had accidentally set her own hair on fire twice already.
And Narla’s candles wouldn’t behave.
The violet had spread. Half her display now burned in colors that shouldn’t exist—purple and gold swirling in the flames, reaching toward the tent ceiling with hungry fingers.
Customers had started to notice, casting curious glances at her booth, whispering to each other.
She’d made excuses. Festival magic. Equinox energy. A new product line she was testing.
Lies. All of it lies.
She didn’t know what her magic was doing, only that it had slipped her control entirely. And that hadn’t happened since—
Since Niccolas died. Since Derren showed you what he really was. Since you learned what fear actually tasted like.
She shoved the memory down. Now was not the time.
Ember had abandoned his circling to perch on the tent pole, watching her with ancient knowing in his amber gaze. He hadn’t delivered a single dead mouse to anyone’s doorstep all night. That was how she knew it was serious.
She felt him before she saw him.
The awareness hit her with physical force—his presence, his proximity. Her magic knew him. Her body knew him. And tonight, with the surge cresting and her control crumbling, she couldn’t pretend otherwise.
Her pulse spiked. Heat flooded her skin. The candles on her table flared in unison, flames stretching toward the tent opening where—
Wyatt emerged from the crowd.
“There’s a situation.” He stopped at the edge of her display. “The wards near your cottage triggered again. I need—”
Their gazes locked.
The surge pulsed.
Every candle on Narla’s table ignited simultaneously.
Not gentle flames—pillars of fire in violet and gold, surge colors, roaring upward with a heat that pushed customers stumbling back.
The tent fabric began to smolder. Ember screeched and launched into the air.
Someone screamed. The drums from the main stage stuttered, and for one frozen moment, the entire festival seemed to hold its breath.
Narla couldn’t move. She couldn’t breathe. Her magic had ripped free entirely, surging toward Wyatt with a force that felt tidal, unstoppable, inevitable.
He lunged forward.
His hand closed around her wrist.
Contact.
Years of carefully maintained distance, shattered in an instant.
The surge ripped through them both.
Narla gasped as heat and electricity blazed up her arm, through her chest, into every nerve ending she possessed.
Her vision went white. Her magic spiraled completely out of control—the candles ignited across the festival grounds, a hundred feet in every direction, flames responding to whatever was exploding between them.
Wyatt’s grip tightened. His eyes had gone full panther—pure molten gold, no human amber left—and she heard his bones creak as his beast surged toward the surface.
“What—” His voice had dropped into a guttural rasp, barely human. “What the fuck is—”
She couldn’t answer. She couldn’t think. Every defense, every barrier, every carefully constructed pretense she’d built was burning away, leaving nothing but raw, desperate want.
She wanted him. Had wanted him since the first day she saw him, since that lightning strike of recognition that she’d buried under fear and grief and the certainty that she couldn’t let anyone close. She’d denied it every single day, and the surge stripped that denial away and left only truth.
“Storage tent.” The words scraped past her lips. “Behind my booth. Now.”
A rational part of her screamed that this was insane, that she couldn’t do this, that she was putting herself in danger and him in danger and everything she’d worked so hard to protect—
The surge didn’t care about rational.
Wyatt’s other hand fisted in the back of her dress. He hauled her toward the tent flap without a word, barely pausing to shove past the startled crowd, his grip on her wrist iron-tight and his breath coming in harsh pants.
The storage tent was twenty feet behind her booth—a cramped space filled with backup inventory, boxes of candles, spare tablecloths. Dark. Private enough.
He shoved through the canvas opening and pulled her in after him.
They collided before the tent flap had finished falling.
His mouth found hers—rough, starving, years of denied want concentrated into a single explosive point of contact.
Narla’s back hit a support beam, and she didn’t care, couldn’t care, because his hands were already tearing at her clothes and she was clawing at his uniform shirt and the surge was screaming through them both.
“Fuck.” The word came out half growled against her lips. “All this time—”
“Stop talking.”
She yanked his shirt free of his pants, got her hands on bare skin, and felt him shudder.
The muscles of his back flexed under her palms, hot and solid and real.
His mouth dropped to her throat. His teeth scraped over her pulse point, and the hint of danger—of what he could do, of what his beast wanted to do—sent heat pooling between her thighs.
Her magic went haywire. The candles she’d stored in here ignited all at once—pillars and votives and tea lights bursting into violet and gold flames that threw wild shadows across the canvas.
The air filled with the scent of beeswax, herbs, ozone, storm-charge, and the sharp, unmistakable musk of a predator in heat.
She didn’t care. Let them burn.
Wyatt’s hands found the hem of her dress, shoved it up around her hips. His palm slid up her inner thigh, and Narla’s head fell back against the support beam, a sound escaping her that was half gasp, half plea.
“Look at me.”
She did. His eyes were still full panther, glowing gold in the firelight, and the predator staring out of them was hungry. Desperate. Just as wrecked as she was.
“Tell me to stop.” His voice barely sounded human. “Tell me to stop and I’ll—”
“Don’t you dare stop.”
His control snapped.
He lifted her against the beam, her legs wrapping around his waist, her fingers digging into his shoulders hard enough to bruise. His mouth claimed hers again—deeper, more demanding—and she felt his hands working at his belt, heard the metallic rasp of the zipper.
No preamble. No tenderness. This wasn’t about romance.
He pushed her underwear aside and thrust into her in one hard stroke.
Narla cried out—pleasure and pain and relief, years of emptiness suddenly, brutally filled. Her nails scored down his back. Her magic surged again, candles exploding around them, flames dancing in impossible colors.
Wyatt didn’t pause. He gripped her hips hard enough to leave marks, a sound tearing out of him—low and guttural and not quite human—as he fucked her against the support beam with a rhythm that was punishing, relentless, driven by need neither of them could control.
“Shut up and move,” she breathed.
He snarled against her throat. His hips snapped harder, each thrust driving her up the beam, and Narla’s pleasure built in her core—hot and tight and demanding. She fisted one hand in his hair, yanked his head back, kissed him with teeth.
The surge pulsed around them. Through them. Every flame in a hundred-foot radius flared in sync with their heartbeats, and distantly she could hear shouts of confusion from the festival, could feel the magical ripple of a dozen candles igniting.
She didn’t care. Nothing existed outside this tent. Nothing mattered except his hands on her skin, his body inside hers, the desperate sounds he made against her throat.
His thumb found her clit. Pressed. Circled.
Narla shattered.
The orgasm ripped through her without warning—white-hot and devastating, blanking out her vision, blanking out her thoughts. Her magic exploded outward, and she felt Wyatt growl her name against her throat as he followed her over the edge.
Silence settled. Nothing but the sound of harsh breathing. The crackle of flames. The distant, oblivious sounds of the festival continuing beyond the canvas.
Then reality crashed back.
Wyatt’s grip on her loosened. His forehead dropped to her shoulder, his breath coming in ragged pants against her skin. His eyes were still panther-gold when he pulled back, but horror was fighting its way to the surface.
“That was—”
“A mistake.” Narla untangled herself from him and yanked her dress down with shaking hands. Her legs barely held her when her feet hit the ground. “The surge—”
“Obviously affected us both.” He was already refastening his belt, not looking at her. A muscle ticked in his jaw.
“This can never—”
“No.” His voice came out flat. Empty. “Never.”
They stood in the ruins of the storage tent—scattered boxes, overturned inventory, the melted remains of several hundred dollars’ worth of candles—and didn’t look at each other.
Narla’s hands wouldn’t stop shaking. Her body still pulsed with aftershocks. Her magic burned raw and exposed, stripped of all its careful defenses.
What have I done?
“I’ll—” Wyatt ran a hand over his face. His uniform shirt was half-untucked, scratches visible on the back of his neck where she’d marked him. “I’ll go first. You should wait a few minutes before—”
“I know.”
He hesitated at the tent flap. His gaze found hers in the dying firelight.
A current passed between them. Recognition. Terror. Need that hadn’t diminished at all.
Then he was gone.
Narla stood alone among the wreckage of her candles and her composure, trembling from head to toe, and struggled to remember how to breathe.