Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Sylvie
Acold breeze whipped around my overheated neck, and I opened my eyes to see Kenai looking at me with such intensity that I gasped. His whole body was poised over me, like he was ready to run at any moment.
Kenai was here, and everything was going to be alright. Every single part of me hurt, and I was so, so hot, but I knew I was going to be okay.
Somehow, my hands were already on him.
“You shouldn’t be able to see them,” he murmured, his eyes filled with a mixture of wonder and alarm. “Humans can’t see through our glamour.”
“Humans? Glamour?”
He leaned in, and I caught his scent—like a forest after the first snow, something wild masked beneath a calm, wintery exterior. Something shifted in his expression; his pupils dilated, and I could’ve sworn I heard him inhale sharply.
“What are you?” he asked, voice rough.
“I’m…” I started to say a lawyer, but the words got lost somewhere between my brain and my mouth. Everything felt soft and distant—except for him. He was in sharp focus, this strange, beautiful man with silver eyes and impossible antlers.
He shook his head. “This is bad. This is very bad.”
“Bad how?” I asked, though I was having trouble focusing on the conversation. I ran my hands under his coat, tugging at the hem of his shirt until my fingers found the warm, smooth skin of his abdomen. He let out a low grunt.
“I need to go,” he said abruptly, but he didn’t move. If anything, he seemed to be leaning closer, as if pulled by some invisible force. He buried his face in the crook of my neck, inhaling deeply.
“Don’t,” I whispered, my fingers hooking over the waistband of his pants. “Stay.”
His eyes closed briefly, and when he opened them again, there was something almost pained in his expression. “You don’t understand. I can’t…you’re…”
“I’m what?”
“In heat,” he answered quietly, and the words sent a shiver through me that had nothing to do with the cold. “And I’m about to…”
He didn’t finish the sentence, but something was happening to him. His breathing was heavier, and there was a tension in his posture that suggested he was fighting some kind of internal battle.
“About to what?” I asked, though part of me already knew—the part that wanted to climb him, wrap my legs around him, and grind against him until the ache between my legs finally eased.
“Rut,” he breathed, the word barely audible. “Gods, I can’t…this is…”
The market was nothing but background noise. All I could focus on was him—the way his chest rose and fell, and the way he was looking at me like I was something he desperately wanted but couldn’t have.
“Maybe that’s not such a bad thing,” I heard myself say, though I had no idea where the words came from.
His eyes flashed, and for a moment they looked almost inhuman. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I know exactly what I’m saying. I know that I want—”
“No.” He backed away so quickly I nearly toppled over. “This is wrong. You’re not…I can’t…”
He raised his hand, and I could’ve sworn I saw something shimmer in the air between us. The world suddenly felt weighted, like I was trying to breathe underwater. My eyelids grew impossibly heavy, and the market began to spin gently around me.
“Sleep,” he said, and his voice seemed to echo from very far away. “Just sleep, Sylvie.”
The last thing I saw before darkness claimed me was the anguish in his silver eyes, and the way his mouth formed words I couldn’t hear but somehow understood:
I’m sorry.