Chapter 13 Arden #2
For some reason, this made Baz blush lightly, a faint pink that rose to his cheekbones. “Yes, my sense of smell is better than a human’s, but this is very challenging for tracking. Heavy rain and flowing water make the worst conditions to try to follow a scent trail.”
The rain continued to pour down, sluicing off her poncho, flattening Baz’s hair and rendering it several shades darker than its usual sandy brown. Arden tucked her cold, wet hands up the sleeves of her poncho, warming them against her wrists like she remembered doing on sledding hills as a kid.
The roaring water was mesmerizing. She couldn’t get over how it had changed from the friendly, flowing creek where she had collected drinking water and bathed.
How much deeper could it get? Already it had covered the meadow in shallow but fast-moving water, the tops of grasses dipping and bobbing as the water swirled around them.
Nearer to the main channel, the grass had been flattened enough to vanish completely beneath the brown surface.
“If Fern is on the other side, how on earth can we find her?” she asked Baz.
“I don’t know. I wonder if there’s a place to cross nearer than the culvert.” He gave her a serious, intense look. Rain dripped off the ends of his hair. “Do you remember anything like that? A foot bridge, maybe even a fallen tree?”
Arden shook her head, which sent cold water down her neck. She raised her shoulders uncomfortably. “Not that I ever noticed. Maybe if we follow the creek, we’ll find a place to cross?”
“I can’t think of anything else. Let’s try it.”
They picked their way along the water’s edge, accompanied by the rumble of the flood.
Arden could barely recognize anything. She could no longer find the place where she had waded across to climb the hill, or the low rock wall where she had placed her bathing things.
The entire world was water, swirling and flowing, dripping off the trees, running into her eyes.
She wondered if the others were having any luck. Lexie would be searching as hard as she could, and for all Declan’s flaws, he was clearly devoted to his clan.
“Baz, is there a reason why Declan doesn’t like me?”
“He doesn’t like most people when he first meets them. It takes him a while to warm up.”
“Oh.” She wondered if that was all of it. Declan’s animosity seemed very personal, considering it was aimed at someone he’d never met before. Maybe he had guessed something about her past.
Speaking of secrets ...
“Baz, when Lexie interrupted us, you had started to say something. Do you remember what it was?”
Baz slogged for a moment in silence. “I was going to talk about fated mates. Do you know what those are?”
Her heart sped up. “I’ve heard of it. Shifters pair-bond, don’t they?”
“It’s a little more than that. We have a sort of sixth sense, I guess, that gives us insights humans don’t have.
Or at least humans don’t have it as consciously as we do.
I have always believed that humans do have it, they just aren’t aware of it in the same way that we are.
No matter what Senator Hamilton and those like him claim, I have always believed that our people, yours and mine, are more alike than they’re different. ”
Arden shivered a little, for reasons that had nothing to do with the rain. She wished Baz hadn’t mentioned her ex. “I’d like to think that.”
“Believe it. I believe it myself. Arden ...” He touched her arm, turning her to face him.
The trees had closed in around them. Muddy water still swirled around their feet, flowing across the roots of the trees as the water continued to rise.
But the trees formed a canopy above them.
It was almost like being in a sort of bower.
The force of the rain and wind was cut, so that only light drops pattered down around them.
They were still as wet as if they had fallen in the stream. Baz touched her hood lightly, pushing it away from her damp hair.
“What?” she breathed, looking up at him.
“You,” he said nonsensically. He was gazing into her eyes; his own hazel ones were wide and soft. “Arden, you asked me why I came to that meadow and found you with the wild shifters. It was because I knew you were in trouble. I don’t know how, I just did. I believe that you are my fated mate.”
Her breath caught behind her teeth. Somehow she had known where he was going with that. And at the same time, he couldn’t be—she couldn’t be.
Surely fate would not be this cruel.
Baz’s lips were parted, and her gaze was riveted on his mouth.
A full lower lip, a light dusting of stubble below it.
In sunlight, there would be a golden glow on each bristle; now, in the rainy dimness under the trees, all she could see was the shadowed planes of his face and the soft light of his eyes.
And there was a light to them. They weren’t glowing exactly, but caught and reflected what light there was, in the way of a cat’s eyes. It made them seem to glimmer with shades of gold and green in the base of green-brown hazel.
The effect was utterly enchanting.
She could not kiss him. She dared not. Every inch she let herself be drawn nearer to those impossibly captivating lips was another hook in her heart.
She couldn’t allow herself to forget that if Sloan had told the truth, she was technically still married to Grant Hamilton.
But she became gradually aware that Baz had not moved his hand after lowering her hood. His big palm still rested near her neck, his fingers lightly resting against her poncho-clad shoulder. Now he moved his hand a little, turning it to cup her neck and lace his fingers through her wet hair.
He drew her in gently, pulling her close.
His lips closed on hers.
The world fell away.
There was nothing but him. Nothing but them.
His mouth was hot, seeking, and she fell into it, gasping against his lips like a drowning woman in search of air.
There was no question of stopping once she had begun.
They kissed desperately, wildly, plunging into each other.
Dimly she was aware that her legs had gone weak, and they had both stumbled sideways into a tree that was now holding them up.
Baz still had his hand in her hair, cupped against the side of her head, and his other hand had gone to the small of her back, pressed against her waist, pulling her in.
He let her go only because there was water running down both their faces and they needed to breathe. For a minute they just stood there and gasped, holding on to each other.
“That,” Arden began, breathless. “That was ...”
She had no idea how she wanted to finish that sentence, or how she would have finished it, because a male voice said, “Excuse me?”
Baz whipped around, grasping Arden and planting her firmly behind him. He growled, a deep vibrating growl that seemed to awaken something inside Arden. What she felt wasn’t fear, though it was just as primal. Her toes curled.
Standing there in the rain was one of the forest shifters, his long dark hair and furs streaming in the rain. His fur boots were up to the ankles in roiling, muddy floodwaters.
He was carrying Fern in his arms, her long hair straggling with rainwater as she curled up limply against his chest.