Chapter 27 Rhys #2
“Watch me.” The words came out with more conviction than I felt, but seeing her uncertainty made something protective rise in my chest. “I’m not losing this either. The pack, the territory…” I paused, then decided, fuck it. “You. None of it.”
The bond flared with the intensity of my conviction, and her breath caught as the emotion traveled through our connection.
“Rhys—” she started. Whatever she’d been about to say was interrupted by the sudden need to prove my point in the most direct way possible.
I kissed her there in the firelight, surrounded by celebration but feeling like we were the only people who mattered. She tasted of smoked meats that made my wolf settle and prowl at the same time.
When we broke apart, her eyes were wide and dark. Arousal rolled off her, and I had to close mine to keep the bulge in my pants from taking over my every thought.
“We should go back by Logan,” she began.
“Yeah,” I agreed. I took her hand and led her away from the bonfire.
She shook her head with a chuckle. “So much for going back.”
We got further away from the celebration on the Moonstone Plateau, toward the tree line where shadows offered privacy. My wolf was restless with a need that went beyond supernatural dependency—something more fundamental and significantly more dangerous to my peace of mind.
“Rhys,” she said. We’d reached a cluster of pines that formed a nook, hidden from the main celebration but close enough to hear Raina’s voice rising in another verse.
“I know this is probably stupid timing,” I said, backing her against the nearest tree. “And we should be networking or whatever passes for diplomacy at pack send-offs instead of—”
“Instead of what?” There was challenge in her voice, in the way she looked at me like she could see through any excuse I could make.
“Instead of admitting that somewhere between wanting to strangle you and wanting to protect you, things got complicated.” I studied her face in the filtered moonlight, noting the way her pulse jumped at her throat, the slight dilation of her pupils.
“Complicated how?” she asked with mock innocence.
“You know how,” I said finally.
“I want to hear you say it.”
The challenge in her voice made my wolf pace beneath my skin. She wasn’t going to make this easy, wasn’t going to let me hide behind deflection or sarcasm. Fair enough.
“I care about you,” I said, the admission feeling like jumping off a cliff. “More than is smart, more than is safe, definitely more than is convenient given our current circumstances.”
She huffed and crossed her arms, her eyebrows raising.
“This isn’t easy for me, but it’s true.” I reached up to trace the line of her jaw and throat, feeling her pulse quicken under my fingers. “I don’t do flowery speeches or grand gestures.” I gestured between us, at the space where our bond hummed with connection. “But whatever this is, I’m in.”
Her smile was small but genuine. “That might actually be the most romantic thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
“Your standards are concerningly low.”
She reached up to tangle her fingers in my hair. “I don’t need poetry. I need honesty.”
“Then honestly,” I said, leaning closer until I could feel her breath against my lips, “I’m terrified of how much I need you. Not the bond, not the fucked-up supernatural dependency. Just you.”
When I kissed her this time, it was with the kind of desperate intensity that comes from finally admitting something you’ve been fighting. She kissed me back with equal fervor, her hands fisting in my shirt like she could anchor us both.
The smoke from the celebration was on her lips, and I felt the wild rhythm of her heart against my chest. Her hunger matched my own, need that went beyond physical and into territory that should have sent me running.
“I care about you too,” she whispered against my mouth, and the words sent electricity through nerve endings I’d forgotten I had.
“Good,” I said, placing my hands on her waist and trailing kisses down her throat to where her pulse hammered beneath her skin. “Because I’m pretty sure I’d make an ass of myself trying to convince you if you’d said otherwise.”
She laughed, the sound turning breathless as I found a particularly sensitive spot just below her ear. “Rhys, we should… people will notice if we’re gone too long.”
“Let them notice,” I said. Even as the words left my mouth, I knew she was right. We were supposed to be the guests of honor, not sneaking off like teenagers with poor impulse control.
Before I could summon the willpower to step back, she did something that short-circuited every rational thought I possessed.
She bit me. Not hard, not enough to break skin, just gentle pressure at the junction of my neck and shoulder that sent fire racing through my bloodstream.
“Sable,” I breathed, my hands tightening on her waist.
“I can taste what you’re feeling,” she said, her lips still pressed against my throat. “Through the bond, through your skin. It’s…”
“Erotic?”
“Perfect.”
This time when she bit me, it was with purpose. With fangs that pierced skin and found the vein that carried everything I was. Instead of the desperate hunger from before… this felt different. Intimate. Less about survival and more about choice.
Her feeding wasn’t consuming, and it didn’t feel like before, when I couldn’t breathe without it. I was being caressed from the inside and could sense her emotions while she tasted my blood.
She moved back, teeth back to normal as if nothing had happened, but the bond between us was alive with new fervor. A single drop of my blood was on her lower lip, dark as wine in the moonlight. Without thinking, I reached up and wiped it away with my thumb.
“That was…” I started, then stopped because there weren’t words for what had just passed between us.
“Different,” she finished, wonder in her voice.
“Yeah.” I studied her face. “Better.”
“Much better,” she agreed, reaching up to trace the small wounds she’d left on my throat.
Her breath ghosted over me and my cock grew hard, and I knew waiting much longer wasn’t an option.
This bond was going to bring us in, and I was ready for it.
Ready to have all of her, to let my wolf take hers and to consummate the bond the way it was always intended to be.
I was about to suggest we find somewhere with more privacy when a voice spoke from the darkness behind us.
“Hello, little sister,” a male voice said, accent thick with old European sophistication. “I’ve been looking for you.”