Chapter 9 #3
He wouldn’t speak the words, but the look in his eyes conveyed his thoughts, his… potential offer.
“You know,” he began teasingly, still tugging at that bind. “If you wanted me in bed with you, you could’ve just asked—no need for the magical tantrum.”
Raana scowled, and with another flick of her fingers, the shadow around his wrist became a force pressing against him. A weak attempt to push him off the bed that barely had him faltering as he grinned. “Fuck off.”
Raana wasn’t sure how many hours had passed between when she’d shot awake from her nightmare, gathered herself to wash up for bed and change again, and emerged back into the room, not feeling entirely of death, but thankfully, darkness still prevailed outside.
Maybe she could catch at least a few hours of sleep.
Upon entering the bedroom, she found Adrien had returned to his couch, paging through one of the volumes from the bookshelf. He looked up and surveyed her oversized nightclothes, borrowed from him. “I’m a bit disappointed you didn’t bring your nightgown.”
She flashed him a deadpan look. “This arrangement is hard enough without me in anything scandalous.”
She settled back on the bed as Adrien set the book aside. “I’m not really tired anymore.”
Rather than lying down, Raana scooted closer to the edge of the mattress, tucked her legs beneath her, and faced him. “I’m tired, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep.”
The beige rug on the floor may as well have been the ocean that had separated them for the years before Helene had forced Raana to leave Cataea. All for her safety, all to keep her hidden, but—Raana missed her old life. Her coven.
Helene could have that life again now, couldn’t she? Now that she was rid of her burden.
“Raana.”
Her name said gently carried from the other side of the room. Raana lifted her head, and Adrien asked, “Where’d you go?”
She narrowed her eyes. “You’re very nosy.”
Adrien shrugged and leaned back in his seat. He spread his arms over the back of the couch as he lounged, and Raana had to push back the thoughts of how inviting he looked, that spot in his lap perfectly open for her.
“We’re both just sitting here. I mean, I have no problem looking at you all night, but talking could be nice, too.”
“Everything we should be talking about, I don’t want to talk about,” she said. “Otherwise, I’ll remember that I should be mad at you for lying to me… even if you couldn’t tell me the truth.”
A frown passed Adrien’s face, albeit briefly. He tilted his head to the side, considering. “We don’t have to talk, then.”
“Really?”
“Your mind’s pretty deep in the gutter, Scornn.”
“Your words aren’t very subtle, Your Highness.” Leaning back on her hands, she cast her eyes to the side. “Sleeping with you shouldn’t be the way I avoid my problems. My feelings.”
“Sleeping with you shouldn’t be how I want to avoid mine.”
Raana snapped her eyes back to him, her blood heating despite herself as she hung on to that one word. Want.
She ignored the intensity of his predator’s gaze surveying her. It invigorated her, though. Dug deep, stripped her down in a way she didn’t quite mind.
“So difficult being a prince,” she teased. “Your biggest issue is what now? Finding your soulmate?”
For a moment, she regretted the words that had come out, fearing she’d opened a fresh wound of his—or a new wound of her own.
Ridiculous.
She knew this. He was not hers and could never be hers.
Before Adrien could comment or counter, as if to make herself feel better, to appear that she didn’t care, Raana said, “You know, I probably could—find her, I mean. Or figure out what she’s like.”
Several emotions passed over Adrien’s face then, each one pelting her harder. Shock, once he realized she wasn’t joking, then doubt, fear, and then, what made her stomach sink most—the smallest glimmer of hope.
He’d banished that fast, though. He’d banished it all for aloofness. “And how is that?”
Part of her wished she hadn’t answered. Wished she hadn’t spoken at all.
“I’m adept when it comes to reading auras. Of power, of people. The way your bonds work—with mates being a part of each other—I might be able to find her in you.”
His brows furrowed. “Like Isla and Kai?”
“Exactly.” Raana adjusted herself. “It may have been easier to detect because they’d bonded, but I could separate them. Isla as warmth and light, and Kai as… cold. But not a bad cold. A refreshing cold. The soothing kind.”
“So different,” Adrien noted.
Raana’s shoulders rose and fell. “And yet, perfect for each other, it seems.”
She hadn’t missed the smallest downturn of his mouth before he righted it. “So it seems.”
Choosing not to dawdle on it, she continued, a bitterness settling in her chest. “Technically, you’re holding a piece of the woman you’re fated for, even if it hasn’t been ‘awakened’ yet. If I could find it, feel it, within you, within your aura, I could tell you what she’s like.”
Silence fell between them, and Adrien glanced out the window behind him. To the moon, the stars, and the forest beyond. A part of Raana hoped, desperately, he’d decline the offer.
He turned back to her. “Is this magic?”
“At a point, it would become so. It’s a natural gift I have. I don’t need my conduit or any incantation unless I’m trying to track someone across space. As long as you yield to me and drop all your defenses, I shouldn’t have to dig into my magic… or we could keep staring at each other?”
“Tempting.” Adrien grinned before sliding over on the couch. “I’m at your mercy.”
Raana did her best to hide her disappointment and didn’t bother commenting on what dangerous words those were. She could’ve sworn wariness colored Adrien’s face as she rose from the mattress and crossed the great breadth of ocean to him.
Did he not trust her—or did he truly not want to know?
Raana placed herself on the plush surface beside him, right where her knee bumped up against his.
One of the hands Adrien had placed on the back of the couch fell to her side atop the cushions, his fingertips brushing over her thigh, electrifying her skin.
Raana didn’t flinch away, didn’t ask why.
Just accepted what felt like a current between them.
She surveyed him for the umpteenth time that night.
His handsome face, those tattoos, his body.
His hair was disheveled as if he’d been running his own stressed fingers through it, and she remembered when it had been her hands tugging at those raven-black tresses.
When she couldn’t get or feel enough of him.
A man that was everything she shouldn’t want, shouldn’t have, couldn’t have.
And now, she was about to find out exactly why all of that was true.
Outstretching a hand, willing her heart to settle, Raana laid it upon his bare chest.
“Yield,” she reminded him as a force of her, not her power, collided with what felt like a stone wall.
Then, as easily as an inhale and exhale of breath, his barriers tumbled.
The rush of it was overwhelming, almost euphoric, and Raana’s eyes slid closed.
It was like observing a spider’s web, a finely woven blanket. She envisioned and felt and tasted. Color, light, life. Different cords, different experiences, all bearing the same essence. His essence. A crackling fire. A summer storm. She needed to find what varied.
Adrien couldn’t have been more different from Kai.
Where Raana had found some unknown, deeper common ground in Kai’s aura, his power, Adrien’s essence seemed to clash.
It pushed where Kai had found a way to pull.
And where Raana had felt the Alpha of Deimos whole, despite what had been occurring with his mate, Adrien had been fragmented.
The most obscure pieces of him were torn away, lost forever.
Taken by the first woman he’d ever loved. The woman he’d offered his soul to.
She felt Adrien’s fingers brush against her leg again. Her heart stopped entirely when she opened her eyes to meet his, the gold beneath simmering.
This was… intimate, more than anything else that had occurred between them. Sleeping together the first time had been a feverish rush to rip off clothes and satisfy a deep ache for something primal. They’d given themselves to each other, but not entirely. Not the way he opened to her now.
And for a moment, she may have understood, may have felt why the mate bond of wolves was as wondrous as claimed. To have a connection like this, to be a part of someone in this way, to have them with you, woven through you always.
She wanted to stay.
She wanted to push herself forward, to twine herself, her power, her magic with him and his.
But—
Not hers.
And then, as if in answer, she felt it.
A chasm unlocked. Something new, something fresh and bright.
“Spring.”
The word tumbled from her mouth.
Adrien blinked, his eyes beginning to dim. “What?”
Raana backed away. Her cheeks were searingly hot as she stared at him. “Your destined mate. She feels like spring. She’s soft like meadows. Like fresh blooms and gentle rains.”
Adrien swallowed thickly, scanning her face as he took in that fact and seemed to tuck it away. Raana didn’t know how long they remained like that, gazing at each other, before she pulled her hand away.
Silence held for beats and beats of Raana’s heart, and she looked down at her hands as if she could still feel him there.
“You remind me of winter.”
Raana snapped her head up, meeting Adrien’s stare. Winter? “Biting and frigid?”
“Stunning.” The word rolled off his tongue easily and bounded through her.
“Until the ice beneath you melts away, and then you’re drowning.
” His hand had been traveling up her side, over her waist. She didn’t flinch at all as he brought his touch up to her cheek, brushing a curl away and tucking it behind her ear.
His fingers were gentle over the edge of it.
“You’re dangerous. Forbidden—and inevitable. ”
Raana hung onto the last word. “You’re the one who keeps calling upon me.”
“I know.” Adrien’s eyes scanned her face. Dropped to her lips. Back to her eyes. “I can’t seem to stop, no matter how many people tell me to.”
Raana’s breath caught, and she suddenly didn’t know what to do with herself. Her hands, her body. She said, “You should listen to them.”
Adrien gave a slight shrug. “Probably.”
She cleared her throat. “Are you going to?”
“Probably not.”
A sharp breath slipped from her mouth, and she found her fingers moving lazily over the skin of his arm. She was quiet while she thought, refusing to meet his eyes while she tried to remind herself of the reality. But reality didn’t exist. Not in this room. Not now.
“You know, you’re just something else I’m going to lose,” she told him. “You’re not meant for me; you never have been. So, no matter what I feel. No matter if it’s lust, no matter if I like you. It means nothing. It goes nowhere because this story doesn’t end with us. It can’t.”
“Raana.” Raana looked up and felt like she’d melt under his gaze.
“Right now, there’s only you. It’s only been you since we met, even before I liked you.
Even when we’re a mountain apart. You never leave my mind.
And I’m a selfish, stupid prick to make you go through what I’ve already endured.
Wanting someone who wasn’t mine, not truly—but I can’t stop wanting you.
I can’t stop wanting us to figure this out. ”
Raana gnawed on her lip. “Our paths are set.”
“We could die tomorrow, for all we know. Our paths could end,” Adrien said. “And instead of the two of us in that bed right now, we’re here, on this couch, pretending we’re not thinking the same thing.”
So much for being wise.
A barely there grin passed her lips. “You know exactly what I’m thinking?”
Adrien smirked and gripped her hips to pull her into his lap. Raana felt like her heart would beat straight out of her chest as he looked up at her. “Am I close?”
“It was more so about you on top of me, but this will do,” she said, wrapping her arms around his neck. “Kiss me.”
A fire seemed to light in his eyes before he leaned a bit closer. His whisper tickled her skin. “I won’t be able to stop.”
“Then don’t.”