Colliding Souls
The roar of the Blackwood waterfall was deafening, echoing off the jagged, icy walls of the northern caves.
Kade and I moved silently through the damp darkness, guided only by the eerie, metallic glow of his golden eyes. The scent of the Nightshade Ash grew suffocatingly strong the deeper we went.
Finally, we found it.
Resting precariously on a stone ledge directly above the underground spring that fed the Bloodbane territory's main water supply were three massive wooden crates. The lids were pried open, slowly dripping the thick, black magical sap directly into the rushing water below.
"Don't touch the wood," I warned Kade, pulling a series of glass vials from my apothecary satchel. "The dark magic is concentrated. It will rot your skin on contact."
Kade stood back, his massive frame tense, his eyes scanning the shadows of the cave for any remaining assassins. "Can you neutralize it before we destroy the crates?"
"I have to," I murmured, working quickly. I mixed crushed moon-flower petals with a highly volatile, acidic base I kept for emergencies. "If we just smash the crates, all that concentrated poison will dump directly into the spring at once. It would kill your entire pack by sunrise."
I stepped carefully onto the slippery stone ledge. My hands were remarkably steady as I poured the glowing, silver mixture directly over the black sap inside the first crate.
The reaction was instantaneous.
A violent, high-pitched hiss echoed through the cavern. The dark magic practically screamed as the pure healer's acid began to eat away at the poison, turning the black sap into harmless white ash.
I quickly moved to the second crate, repeating the process.
But as I poured the vial into the third and largest crate, something went horribly wrong.
Vivienne hadn't just left the poison; she had laced the final crate with a volatile explosive rune. The moment my neutralizer hit the rune, the dark magic flared with a blinding, violent purple light.
"Freya, move!" Kade roared.
He didn't hesitate. The Alpha King launched his massive body across the slippery stones.
BOOM!
The explosion ripped through the confined space of the cave.
The shockwave knocked the breath completely out of my lungs.
Kade tackled me mid-air, wrapping his massive arms securely around my body, shielding me entirely as we were thrown violently backward into a narrow, shallow alcove in the cave wall.
A terrifying, deafening rumble followed. The explosion had destabilized the ancient cave ceiling.
Tons of solid rock, ice, and debris came crashing down exactly where I had been standing a second ago, sealing the entrance to our alcove completely.
Then... absolute, suffocating darkness.
Dust choked the air. I couldn't see my own hands. The only thing I could feel was the crushing, solid weight of Kade's massive chest pressing flush against mine, pinning me safely against the cold stone wall of the alcove.
"Kade?" I coughed, my voice trembling in the pitch-black space. "Are you... are you hurt? Your shoulder—"
"I'm fine," his deep, gravelly voice vibrated directly against my ear.
He was breathing heavily, his chest rising and falling against my breasts.
The space was impossibly small. His muscular thighs were tangled with mine, and his arms were planted on the stone wall on either side of my head, taking the brunt of his own weight so he wouldn't crush me.
"The crates..." I gasped, trying to shift, but there was absolutely no room to move. Every tiny adjustment caused my body to slide frictionally against his.
"They're buried," Kade rasped, his voice dropping an octave, becoming impossibly thick. "The poison is neutralized under the rubble. You did it, Freya."
"But we're trapped," I whispered, the reality of our situation finally setting in.
"Marcus knows where we are," Kade said, his hot breath fanning across my cheek. "When we don't return by sunrise, he will track my scent. My guards will dig us out. We just have to wait."
Wait.
In total darkness. With our bodies pressed so tightly together I could feel the erratic, thunderous beating of his heart perfectly syncing with my own.
The intoxicating scent of his dark pine, smoke, and sweat filled the tiny air pocket. It was overwhelming. The mate bond, which had been cracked open when I healed him in the bedroom, was now roaring to life, feeding on the adrenaline and the intense, undeniable physical proximity.
"Freya," Kade whispered.
I felt his nose gently brush against my jawline. He was tracking my scent in the dark, his heightened Alpha senses completely hyper-focused on me.
"What?" I breathed, my voice barely a squeak. My hands instinctively rested flat against his broad, muscular chest. I told myself it was to keep distance between us, but my fingers traitorously curled into the fabric of his shirt.
"Your heart is racing," Kade murmured, his lips grazing the sensitive skin just below my ear, sending a violent, electric shiver straight down my spine. "Are you scared of the dark?"
"No," I lied, my breath hitching as his massive, calloused hand slowly slid from the stone wall, his fingers gently tracing the curve of my waist. "I'm scared of you."
Kade froze. The heavy silence in the dark alcove was deafening.
"You shouldn't be," Kade finally whispered, the absolute devastation returning to his voice.
"I would tear my own heart out of my chest before I ever let anything hurt you or our son again.
I swear it on the Goddess, Freya. I was a fool four years ago.
A terrified, arrogant fool who thought he had to be a monster to protect his mate. "
His hand moved up, his large, rough fingers gently cupping my cheek in the pitch-black darkness. His thumb brushed over my lower lip.
"I have starved for four years, mia luna," Kade confessed, his voice breaking, laced with absolute, agonizing desperation. "Every single night, I looked at the empty side of my bed and wished the High Council had just killed me instead."
Tears pricked my eyes. I couldn't see his face, but I could feel the raw, unfiltered truth pouring through the mate bond. He wasn't the ruthless King right now. He was just a man begging for his soulmate.
"Kade..." I breathed, all my defenses, all my anger, completely melting away in the dark.
"Tell me to stop," Kade pleaded softly, his face hovering mere millimeters from mine. I could feel the heat of his lips. "Tell me you don't want this, Freya, and I will pull back. I will never cross the line again. Just say the word."
I couldn't say the word.
My inner wolf was howling. My body was burning.
Instead of speaking, I slid my hands up his chest, wrapping my arms securely around his thick, muscular neck, and pulled him down into the dark.
Kade let out a raw, guttural groan of absolute surrender.
His lips crashed down onto mine.
It wasn't a gentle kiss. It was an explosion. It was four years of agonizing grief, devastating jealousy, and unyielding love crashing together like a tidal wave.
His mouth was hot, demanding, and completely possessive.
He kissed me as if I was the only oxygen left in the collapsing cave, his tongue sweeping past my lips to claim what had always been his.
One of his massive hands tangled in my copper hair, angling my head to deepen the kiss, while the other arm wrapped fiercely around my waist, pulling my body impossibly flush against his hard, aching arousal.
I kissed him back with equal desperation. I bit his lower lip, a soft whimper escaping my throat as the intoxicating taste of him flooded my senses. My fingers dug into his broad shoulders, holding onto him as if the world was ending around us.
In that tiny, dark alcove buried under tons of rock, the war was forgotten. The plague was forgotten. The High Council didn't exist.
There was only the Alpha King, finally reclaiming his Queen.
Suddenly, a loud, scraping sound echoed from the rocks behind Kade.
"Alpha! We're coming through!" Marcus's muffled voice yelled from the other side of the rubble.
Kade and I violently broke apart, both of us gasping heavily for air. My lips were swollen, my heart hammering so hard it hurt.
Light pierced the darkness as a massive boulder was shifted away.
Kade didn't immediately move away from me. He rested his forehead against mine for one final, breathless second, his golden eyes glowing fiercely in the sudden sliver of moonlight.
"We're getting our family back, Freya," Kade vowed, a dark, beautiful promise vibrating in his chest. "No matter what it takes."