Chapter 16
Chapter
Sixteen
Iwas just here.
I could barely believe my eyes when Kyre pushed open the door of a stone cottage situated about halfway between the ring of shacks and the Lykaon’s grand home in the center of the village.
This was the entryway I’d just dreamed about.
The memory was so fresh in my mind that I had no trouble recalling every detail, from the charming arched doorways to the steely gray color of the stone walls.
And right over there, right next to the iron oil lamp hanging from the wall hook, was where he spun me around and...
Okay, no. I wasn’t going to think about that. Not right now. Not after humiliating myself in front of half the village.
“Whose house is this?” I asked, desperate to talk about anything else.
“No one’s now,” Kyre said, placing the lantern he’d used to light our walk on the narrow console table near the door. It used to belong to my family before my mother took her place as Lykaon.”
“So this is where you grew up?” The image of a tiny Kyre racing up and down these halls sprang into my mind.
“It was.” He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall next to the door. “But this place hasn’t been my home in years.”
“Because you had to move to the unmated cabins when you came of age.”
“That’s right,” he said with a nod.
“So, what’s that all about?” I asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m just trying to understand,” I said with a lazy shrug. “Your mom and Calindra talked about it a little during lunch, but I still don’t get the point of forcing a bunch of guys to live in shacks just because they don’t have girlfriends.”
“It’s not like that.” He shook his head.
“Then tell me what it’s like.”
Kyre stared at me in silence for a moment before closing his eyes and letting out a hard sigh. “Sophia, what are you doing?”
“Asking a relatively simple question,” I said. “I just want to understand ferus culture a little better.”
“No, you don’t.” His eyes were emerald daggers when he opened them again. “You’re asking questions, trying to understand me.”
So, maybe I was. “You make it sound like a terrible thing.”
“It is,” Kyre snapped. “And if you had any sense, you would have figured that out by now.”
Damn.
I felt like I’d been slapped in the face. Or punched in the gut. Maybe both at once. At any rate, it was a struggle not to recoil from the blow.
“My God,” my voice was a breathy whisper. “You really can’t stand the sight of me, can you?”
It was one thing to suspect it, but another to know without a doubt.
For a brief second, it looked like he was going to do something. Open his mouth. Tell me I was wrong. Push himself off the wall. Launch himself across the entryway. Anything.
But no.
Instead, stood as stiff and silent as one of those giant redwoods outside.
“Is it because I shot you?” That I could understand. Firing a .45 straight into someone’s chest didn’t make for the greatest first impression.
“That was nothing,” he said.
“So, then it’s me.” I hated the way my voice was shaking…and my hands…and my lower lip. “It’s not the unexpected burden of getting stuck helping a silly kirre or the frustration of your friends and family thinking you have some bond with me. You just hate me.”
“Don’t say that.” His voice vibrated with tension.
“Why not?” It was the truth after all. “It’s been pretty damn clear from the beginning that’s how you feel.”
The tendons in his neck stood out, stretching tight, as he shook his head. “You have no idea what I feel.”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure I do,” I shot back. “You’re not exactly fooling anyone with that crappy poker face. It’s been clear from the start that you regret getting to me before those wolves had a chance to do their thing.”
“Sophia—”
Hearing him say my name like that, like he did in my dreams, only made the pain in my chest worse.
“Oh, God.” Just thinking about those dreams caused a weight of shame plummeting straight into the center of my belly. “After tonight, you must be laughing your ass off at me, knowing the girl you can’t bear to look at has been having erotic dreams about you for months.”
The air between us began to rumble with his growl. “Stop talking, Sophia.”
“Or what?” I threw up my hands. “You’ll rip my heart out with those claws of yours? Go right ahead. It’s either that or die of embarrassment. Because that’s what will happen if I have another dream about you when I fall back asleep to—”
He moved faster than lightning.
One second, he was against the wall, muscles coiled tight, and the next, he was flush up against me, pressing my back against the wall. I didn’t even have time to gasp, let alone scream.
Not that either one would have done me any good.
It wasn’t as if my voice had any chance of carrying through these stones to the outside world. This house was as solidly constructed as any fortress.
Kyre braced his hands against the wall behind me, imprisoning me in his arms. Head bent down, he stared into my eyes.
“I said stop,” he repeated, his voice lower now, but no less intense.
It was impossible to resist his commands when he was this close. Even knowing that he detested me, the alpha still held some strange power over me. The strongest protest I could manage was to lift my chin and hold his gaze.
“I do not hate you, Sophia.” The words vibrated through his chest and into mine. “I could never hate you. Never.”
“But—”
He pressed a finger against my lips, cutting me off. The touch might have been light, but it felt powerfully intimate.
“Listen to me,” he said. “You asked me about my dreams. I didn’t answer because they are the same as yours.”
What? I couldn’t believe it. He had to be lying.
I couldn’t figure out why…but he had to be.
Still, he kept going.
“For months, I’ve been dreaming of you.” His voice dripped down as rich and sweet as honey. “Of taking you right here against this wall. Dreams of hearing you call out my name, again and again, just like you did tonight.”
He held his arms so straight and tight that I could feel the tremors of tension running through them.
“Why didn’t you say something?” I asked.
His scowl deepened. “Why didn’t I tell you that since the moment I saw you all I’ve been thinking about is tearing these damn coverings off your legs and pulling you down on top of me?”
Okay, I could see how it might be hard to slip that into a conversation.
And it wasn’t as if I was one to judge. I’d been living in fear of someone finding out about my dreams for months now.
“I get it,” I told him. “You should see the one I usually have about you. Some of the things we do to each other in that one would make the devil himself blush.”
His warning growl deepened.
“But it’s okay,” I quickly explained. “I just keep telling myself that dreams aren’t reality. Nothing says we have to act on them.”
“That’s not how this works, Sophia.”
He dipped his head down, nuzzling his nose against the crown of my head as he drew in a deep breath.
Holy shit. Was he smelling me? And why was it so hot?
“At first, I hoped it might be possible,” he said. “I thought that if I focused on Lash and my anger at him for daring to threaten you, for causing you pain, then maybe…”
His voice trailed off as the rough bristle of his beard rasped against my cheek.
“Then maybe you could resist the pull between us,” I finished for him.
“Exactly.”
And the tragic truth was his plan had been working…right up until the point where I pushed him too far.
“But what if…” Oh God, what was I even thinking? “What would happen if we gave in to these…urges?”
He slowly shook his head, but all the gesture accomplished was to gently caress the side of his face against mine.
“You don’t want that, Sophia,” he warned. “Trust me.”
I’d be the judge of that. “I’m just curious.”
“You want to know what would happen if I took you right here and now up against this wall? You want to know how I would touch you? How I would make you scream my name?” I didn’t think it was possible, but his voice dropped lower than ever before. “Is that what you’re asking?”
Heat rushed to my face. Hell, it rushed through every part of me. My whole damn body was on fire.
“Not exactly.” I wasn’t talking about specifics. I already had a pretty clear idea about those. After all, my dreams were just as explicit as his. “I mean, what would happen after?”
His arms straightened out again. His head lifted back up, looming over me like before. “That depends.”
“On what?”
“On if I give you my bite or not.”
My eyes went wide. His bite? I’m not sure I liked the sound of that.
“What kind of bite?”
“One right here.”
With one hand, he spun me around. With the other, he brushed my hair over my shoulder before sliding his palms up my arms. His fingers laced with mine, pinning me in place.
Just like in the dream.
Then his lips pressed against the nape of my neck.
Holy shit.
A cascade of tingles raced over my skin, leaving swaths of goosebumps behind. My back arched, pressing into the unforgiving hardness of his chest.
“If I bite you there,” he murmured against my skin, “you become mine.”
“Yours?” As sexy as it sounded, the explanation didn’t actually clear anything up. “Your what? Your girlfriend? Fiancee? Wife?”
“Just mine,” he answered. “Totally and completely. Mine now and forever. My mate until the day we die.”
Like Hannah was to Tauren.
A kirre bonded to an alpha. A woman trapped for the rest of her life between two worlds.
“And if you don’t bite me?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he admitted before pressing his lips against the back of my neck again. “I’m not sure it’s even possible.”
Oh, it was possible. That was the one thing I was sure of.
“People have sex in my world all the time without biting each other,” I offered up as proof.
“Not like us, they don’t.”
To convince me, ground his hips against my backside, causing heat to blossom between my legs, soft and wet. Suddenly, the chances of me finding the strength to walk away from his embrace went way down.
“But what if we don’t actually have sex?” I tried.