Chapter 28
Elora
Elora’s heart beat in perfect rhythm with her prey’s footsteps, each thump a countdown to the inevitable.
The night breeze carried Rell’s scent to her—a mixture of leather and sandalwood—so uniquely him that her heightened senses could now identify instantly.
Her nightglider form hugged the shadows of a ventilation duct, sleek black fur absorbing what little moonlight illuminated The Hive’s rooftop.
He’d proposed this game as training. A chance to sharpen his ability to sense approaching danger.
He dangled pastries as an incentive, but Elora needed no bribe.
This was her true reward: surrendering to primal instinct, silencing the endless chatter of her thoughts as the beast within took command.
Rell paced fifteen feet away, his back to her, head tilted slightly as he strained to detect any sound of her approach. He carried no weapons—they’d agreed on that much—but his weight settled into the balls of his feet, knees flexed like a spring about to uncoil.
“Here, kitty.” He made a tsk sound, like he was trying to lure a kitten.
A purr rumbled in Elora’s chest, but she suppressed it.
Patience. His shoulders hunched slightly upward, the fabric of his shirt pulling taut across his back with each careful pivot of his head.
Every few seconds, he’d roll his neck, the vertebrae making soft popping sounds in the quiet night air.
But the longer she waited, the more his muscles would loosen, his vigilance fading with each passing minute until he’d wonder if she’d abandoned their game entirely.
She inched forward, belly low against the cool surface of the roof.
Another vent system jutted from the rooftop, its metal edges cool against her fur as she slid her body around it.
The distance between them shrank—one bound, maybe two.
Her haunches tightened, a familiar pressure building along her spine as each individual claw slipped from its sheath with the whisper-soft sound of silk sliding against silk.
Five minutes passed. Ten. She watched him grow increasingly agitated, checking over his shoulder more frequently.
Rell’s spine curved against the metal housing of the air exchanger.
His fingers raked through his dark hair, leaving furrows that caught the moonlight.
A sigh escaped him—barely audible, but in the stillness, it might as well have been thunder.
The taut line of his shoulders softened, muscles uncoiling beneath his shirt as his gaze drifted toward the horizon rather than scanning his surroundings.
That’s it, she thought, feeling her pupils dilate fully in the darkness. Let your guard down.
Elora’s haunches coiled and released, propelling her across the rooftop in three silent bounds.
The night air parted around her sleek form, her whiskers registering each subtle shift in the breeze.
Her heartbeat slowed to a predator’s calm as her claws retracted just enough to silence her approach, the pads of her paws absorbing any sound that might betray her presence.
Rell sensed the change in the air too late. He whirled, eyes widening, but Elora was already airborne. Her wings unfurled with a soft snap as she soared over him and delivered a powerful kick to his shoulder.
The impact sent him reeling, boots skidding across grit and metal as he stumbled from shadow into silver. Moonlight caught the whites of his eyes, the parted surprise of his lips. His right knee buckled.
Before he could recover, Elora spun with preternatural grace and launched herself at his chest. Her claws extended instinctively, the predator in her taking full control. They collided with enough force to knock the breath from his lungs, and together they crashed to the ground.
Elora landed atop him, victorious, her weight pinning him firmly to the rooftop.
Her claws had caught his shirt during the takedown, tearing through fabric to leave thin scarlet trails across his chest. As droplets of blood pearled along those shallow furrows, their iron scent flooded her nostrils, silencing her rational mind as something ancient and ravenous took control.
She lowered her head to the shallow cut on his chest, her tongue tracing the crimson line. His blood bloomed across her taste buds—copper coins and ocean salt—sending a primal hunger spiraling through her body that had nothing to do with food.
Revulsion should have crossed his face. Instead, his pupils swallowed the storm-gray of his irises, his chest rising and falling in quick, shallow bursts. His scent changed, deepened—musk and heat and want—that made her nostrils flare and her spine arch involuntarily toward him.
“Elora,” he whispered.
Her body morphed, fur receding into skin as she found herself straddling him in human form, lungs still working like bellows. Though her claws had vanished, the wildness remained, pulsing beneath the surface of her newly bare skin.
Blood thundered in her ears, drowning out everything but the sight of him beneath her— the shallow cuts she’d left beading crimson, his eyes mirroring her own need.
Before her mind could form a single coherent thought, she was devouring his mouth with hers.
Her teeth caught his bottom lip, drawing a groan from deep in his throat that vibrated against her skin.
The copper tang of his blood mingled with the salt of his skin as her tongue swept past his lips, claiming territory she hadn’t known she craved until this moment.
Rell surged up against her. His fingers knotted in her hair, the slight pain at her scalp making her vision blur at the edges.
His palm found her thigh, fingertips pressing five distinct points that would surely bruise by morning.
The night air slipped between the leaves of her Al’teran garb, raising goosebumps along her exposed skin, while the evidence of his desire pushed firm and insistent against her abdomen through the fabric of his pants.
Her hands slid beneath the tatters of his shirt, nails dragging lightly across his skin as she explored the ridges of muscle beneath. She could feel his heartbeat hammering against her palm, matching the frantic rhythm of her own.
His mouth abandoned hers. Teeth scraped the tender spot below her jaw. Her head tipped back of its own accord, offering more. When he found the hollow of her throat, her breath caught, suspended, before escaping in a sound she barely recognized as her own.
Her pulse stumbled.
The spark each kiss ignited felt alive and real.
Too real.
The sound she made was too loud. It wasn’t her.
She tried leaning into those feral instincts anyway, letting her fingers clutch at his shoulders, nails digging into muscle.
Rell’s hand moved upward between her thighs. Even through the thin fabric, the heat of his touch burned. The beast within her purred with satisfaction while her rational mind recoiled.
A familiar voice cut through the haze of desire. Whispering reminders of restraint, of dignity. What would Tehvan think if he could feel her pulse now, racing with such wanton need?
Rell’s fingers found their way beneath the fabric’s edge, meeting heat and wetness that made his breath catch. “Gods, Elora,” he murmured against her throat, voice breaking with need. “You’re so—”
His words dissolved into static.
The ground seemed to fall away beneath her.
A hairline crack spread through her consciousness.
The heat that had been building inside her crystallized and shattered, leaving only the raw, terrible clarity of her own vulnerability: exposed, trembling, desperate.
Everything laid out before she’d decided what any of it meant.
This wasn’t control.
This wasn’t desire.
Her body was running ahead of her, dragging her somewhere she hadn’t decided to go.
She squirmed away from his touch. Rell immediately raised his hands in surrender, palms open and empty.
Desire curdled into something rancid. Her body, moments ago a vessel of pure sensation, now felt like an ill-fitting costume she couldn’t remove.
She scrambled backward off his lap, arms crossing over her chest, knees pulling toward her chin.
If she could just make herself small enough, perhaps the prickling awareness of her own skin would subside, and with it, this nauseating sense that she’d betrayed herself.
“Hey, hey,” he said softly, his chest still rising and falling with rapid breaths. “It’s okay. We can stop.”
“I—” The words caught in her throat.
“You don’t need to explain.” His voice was gentle. “We don’t have to do anything you’re not ready for.”
That was precisely the problem. Her body still ached for his touch while her mind screamed to run.
She sat frozen between contradictory impulses—her pulse a metronome counting beats of want, then fear, then want again—as if two separate creatures inhabited her skin, neither willing to surrender control to the other.
Rell stood without a word and walked away.
A cold emptiness bloomed in her chest. Of course he would leave.
She’d teased and tempted, then recoiled like a frightened animal.
The residual feeling of his hands on her body, so gentle despite their strength, made her curl tighter into herself.
What kind of broken creature was she, to want something so desperately and then flee from it?
But then footsteps approached again, and she glanced up to see Rell returning. In his hands was her brown traveling cloak, the worn fabric familiar and comforting. Without speaking, he draped it over her shoulders.
Elora clutched at the fabric, pulling it tight around her body. The weight of it was grounding, and she felt her breathing steady as she disappeared into its folds. The soft wool smelled like herbs and pine—like safety.