Chapter 13 #3
“You have to spend money for water?” He sounded appalled. “Do they make you pay for the air as well?”
“They would if they could.”
“I don’t understand why you’re so impatient to get back to that miserable world.”
“It’s not totally miserable,” I argued.
Okay…so maybe that wasn’t the best defense of kirre civilization. Though it would make a hell of a slogan for the advertising brochure.
Visit beautiful kirre civilization. It’s not totally miserable.
The thought made me chuckle.
“What are you laughing at?” Tauren asked.
“Just the situation,” I said. “If you had told me a week ago, I’d be swimming with an in the Wilds, I’d have laughed in your face or peed my pants. Maybe both.”
Tauren’s chin cocked to the side. “Are you really that scared of this forest?”
“Absolutely,” I admitted without an ounce of shame. “This place is gorgeous, but I don’t doubt for a second it would eat me alive if given half a chance.”
“You don’t have to worry about that. I’ll never allow the dangerous parts to get close to you.”
I laughed again. That wasn’t the defense he thought it was.
“I hate to be the one to break it to you, Tauren,” I said. “But you are the dangerous part.”
Before he could reply, I ducked under the surface again, thrusting my arms and legs in the direction of the waterfall. I came up for air in the middle of one of the clouds of floating mist at its base.
I turned around, looking for Tauren, but he wasn’t where I left him.
I gasped when, a second later, he surprised me by emerging just inches away.
“I’m not dangerous, Hannah.”
It was a strange thing to insist, especially when I’d seen him holding Franklin’s disembodied head.
I kicked my legs against the water and softly glided backwards. “I watched you kill a man right in front of me.”
“And I’d do it again,” he said, following close behind. “I’d kill anything or anyone that tried to hurt you. But that makes me dangerous to them. Not you.”
“What if I don’t want anything to be dangerous?”
The closer I moved back toward the falls, the more the tiny droplets stung as they hit my bare skin.
“There is no life without danger,” Tauren said, continuing to close in on me. “But you already know that. Why else would you have ignored the warnings of your dreams and followed your instincts to the Wall?”
“Temporary insanity,” I joked—though I doubted any doctors back home would laugh.
“A moment of clarity,” he countered, moving in closer. “Something deep inside you knew I was here, waiting for you.”
“So is death.”
“Not today.” Even though his voice was soft and low, it was still powerful enough to carry over the crash of the water. “Today, you’re alive. Your breath is hard. Your heart is pounding. I can hear it.”
Even over the crashing water? Who was I kidding? Of course, he could. Tauren was always surprising me with the things an alpha was capable of.
“It’s just because I’m swimming,” I tried, but he wasn’t buying it.
Water swirled around him as he kicked himself forward, closing the distance between us before I could even think about reacting.
“Then hold on to me,” he said, already taking my arms and wrapping them around his neck. “And we’ll see if your heartbeat slows.”
Oh, the man was diabolical.
It didn’t matter that the water was close to freezing. The instant my arms were laced around him, my whole body started to heat. The feel of all his bare skin next to all of mine was electric, causing my blood to pound even harder.
“Tauren—“
“I like it when you say my name,” he cut in before I could tell him this was a terrible idea. “Do it again.”
“Tauren, listen—“
“Oh, I’m listening.” His eyes darkened. “Your heart is beating even faster now, Hannah.”
“It’s just because I’m scared.”
“It’s because you’re alive,” he countered. “Your world has made you too tame to recognize the difference. Find that sliver of natural wildness inside you, and listen to what it’s telling you to do.”
I shook my head. “I don’t have that voice inside me.”
“Of course you do,” he assured me. “You wouldn’t be here with me if you didn’t.”
Was that true? Or was this all some kind of sick game played by his precious Fates?
God, it was hard to think when I could feel his body next to mine.
“I think it’s telling me to get back to shore and run as far as I can away from here.”
“I seriously doubt that, given the way you’re running your fingers through my hair.”
I was?
Oh shit, I was.
Less than a minute after wrapping my arms around him, my hands had already gone rogue, roaming up his neck to the back of his head, and combing his wet, heavy hair through my fingers.
“Sorry,” I said—but didn’t stop.
“Don’t be sorry,” he said. “Just listen to the cravings inside you.”
It was becoming increasingly hard to do anything else. Everything about the situation was so sensual. The juxtaposition of the soft water and Tauren’s hard body. Of warm skin and a cold pool. Of the white misty air and the shadowy forest surrounding us.
Even my instincts were contradictory—the logical part of me desperate to flee and the animal part begging to surrender.
“I’m not sure I trust them,” I admitted.
“You don’t have to.” Tauren slid one of his hands down my back and over the curve of my ass. I hissed in a breath as his strong fingers raked across the back of my thigh, lifting it up and guiding it around his waist. “Trust me instead.”
That was an even worse idea. “I shouldn’t.”
“Forget should.” His voice was deep now. Thicker and richer, like honey dripping off his tongue. I’d never heard anything so seductive in my life. “Listen to want instead.”
He was casting a spell on me. I was certain of it. Why else would I be considering this madness?
“But what if the things I want lead straight to my death?”
“They won’t,” he promised.
“You can’t know that.”
“Of course, I can,” Tauren said, pulling my other leg up and hooking it around him. “This connection between us isn’t the source of death. It’s life itself. And don’t you want to feel alive?”
Oh God, yes.
After living half a life for so long, it was the only thing I wanted.
“But—“
“No more buts,” he growled, his mouth dangerously close to mine. “Tell me what you want, Hannah. Tell me now.”
It was a command, plain and simple, and defying it proved impossible.
“I want you to kiss me.”
The words fell from my mouth before I could stop them.
Tauren’s eyes darkened. I wet my lower lip, unable to break away from the magnetic pull of his gaze. A soft breeze slipped through the trees, and I shivered.
Then after what felt like an eternity of silent anticipation, he pulled me flush against him, gripped the back of my neck, and kissed me.