28. Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Kya
W e settled in for the night when we finished with our spar. After I had felt my mate near again, I waited.
Once I knew that Nikan and Malina were asleep, I slipped out of the tent and crouched outside by the fire, the remaining embers still glowing red and crackling.
Odarum had gone, which I found he often did in the night while we slept, leaving no one else out here but me.
My bare feet and hands were firmly planted on the cool ground beneath me.
I could feel exactly where my mate was. Close enough that I could faintly feel his heartbeat through my terbis.
Leaving the warmth of the fire, I pulled up my mask just below my eyes, and walked deep into the shadows of the forest, beyond where anyone would see me.
The forest floor was nearly pitch black, the canopy above too dense to allow the moonslight to shine through.
An advantage for me. While I was able to feel where I was going and didn’t need to see, I doubted my mate could.
Once I was far enough out of earshot, I stopped and I closed my eyes, searching for that comfortable swirling thread inside me.
Grabbing onto it, I called to it, summoning its other half within my mate.
It felt different than when I grasped the tether to Odarum or my magic.
This one felt more natural and welcoming.
It took mere seconds to feel him moving toward me from behind, through the forest. He knew I was here, calling to him and waiting.
One by one, my senses began to fall away again until all I could sense was him and only him.
It was intoxicating. My palms began to sweat, and I rubbed them against my shirt to remove the moisture.
My breath began to shake as he grew closer and closer.
It felt like an eternity as he slowly and silently approached.
My breath caught, and my spine straightened when I felt the heat of his body behind me, his breath on the back of my neck.
His scent consumed me, washing over me in waves.
In the corner of my eye, I could see his large hand braced against the trunk of the tree next to me.
His sleeve was rolled up to his elbow, revealing the Worthy mark on his muscular forearm.
We didn’t speak for several minutes. The only sounds were our heavy breaths and pounding hearts. This had seemed like a good idea before, but now that I was actually here, I started to second guess my decision to confront him. I braced myself and summoned the courage to speak.
“You’ve been following me.” My voice held less bite than I intended and came out as a rasp. My heart was beating so hard against my chest, I was sure he could hear it.
“Hmm,” he rumbled. A shiver ran through me.
“Do you know who I am?” I breathed, my voice trembling slightly with restraint as I forced myself to continue to face away from him.
“No. But I know who you are to me.” There was a softness to his voice that I didn’t expect, mixed with the resonance of power and authority.
My eyes shuttered closed at the sound of his deep soothing voice and I could feel heat building in my core, my body reacting to his proximity.
Every part of me was completely aware and focused solely on him.
He inhaled deeply before exhaling a sigh, likely scenting my instant arousal in his presence.
His own filled my nostrils, clouding my mind from thinking clearly.
“Your name,” he strained through clenched teeth.
My eyes opened, and my brows furrowed, reality coming back to me.
“What?”
“I need to hear your name.” His voice was a desperate plea, and a gentle caress to my soul.
I took a deep breath, attempting to gain some semblance of myself. Slowly, I turned around to finally face him, craning my neck to look up at him.
My mate.
He removed his hand from the tree and stood fully, towering over me.
My breath caught in my throat when my eyes locked with his.
Silver irises, shadowed from underneath his hood, bored into me, seeing my very soul.
His lips parted, and he released a small gasp before slowly removing his hood, allowing me to see his face.
The silver of his eyes glinted through the darkness, as if they contained lights from the stars themselves.
I remembered those eyes from the first time I saw them.
I couldn’t forget. I saw them every time I closed my own.
“You first,” I taunted. “Seeing as you’re the one who’s been stalking me since I left Ilrek.” I willed the bite in my voice to return. My eyes hardened in challenge and looked down my nose at him, regardless that he was over a head taller than me.
But I couldn’t blame him for what he had done. If he hadn’t stayed so close all this time, I most likely would have been driven to find him on my own.
He was the most breathtaking thing I had ever laid my eyes on. He was a vision. A vision made by the Gods just for me. The side of his mouth twitched up into a smirk, eyes narrowing in amusement yet burning with hunger.
“I’d like to think of it more as shadowing rather than stalking.” His voice was rough and husky. I was thankful for having my mask in place to hide my smirk at his smart-ass remark.
After a moment of silence, I crossed my arms and lifted my brows, letting him know that I was still waiting for his answer.
“Fair enough,” he chuckled then lifted his chin slightly. “My name is Ryker.”
“Ryker,” I said slowly, testing his name on my tongue. It felt natural, sweet even. Like honey.
His smirk fell and his pupils widened slightly when I said his name.
He lifted his hand as if to reach for me, but then stopped himself and dropped it back to his side.
Silence sat between us as we studied each other.
We were suspended in time, in our own world, as if nothing else existed in the moment except us.
“You still haven’t told me your name.” His eyes never left my face.
He stopped breathing, waiting for me to speak. I didn’t plan to answer him and make him suffer just a little bit longer for telling me to run and hiding in the shadows, denying me what I desired. But I couldn’t stop my mouth from moving as my name spilled out of it.
“Kya,” I said in a near whisper.
Ryker’s eyes darkened and his lips twitched into a small smile.
“Kya.” He spoke my name is if it was the most precious word to cross his lips. It was as if my name was made to be spoken by him and his voice alone.
My eyes softened as I looked back up to those silver irises.
We stood there, gazing at each other. I didn’t know how much time had passed because it felt as if time stopped.
There was no awkwardness, no anxiety. My soul knew his and was meant to be with him.
The mating bond was gifted to us by the Gods, two halves of a single soul bridged together by the divine.
As difficult as it was, I resisted reaching out to touch him. A deep feeling of doubt washed over me as I thought of our first encounter together in that alley.
He told me to leave, to run. He didn’t want this. He didn’t want me .
Seeming to sense the change in my emotions, he tilted his head and pulled his eyebrows together in a silent question.
I didn’t want to ask. I didn’t want to know for certain. But I needed to. I began to shake, with nerves or fear. I glanced away from him, taking in the calm darkness of the forest around us. I took a deep breath, the scent of damp soil and crisp autumn air mixing with the scent of my mate.
“You told me to run,” I whispered, looking back to him.
“I did.” His lips stretched into a thin, sad line. There was a tenderness in his eyes that opposed his intimidating and dangerous facade.
I looked down at the ground and nodded softly, tears stinging the back of my eyes, and my throat tightened.
“I didn’t know what this was until after seeing you in the alley. That burning inside me… I never understood. I thought maybe it had something to do with Odarum at first. Then I saw you and I just…knew.” I didn’t lift my eyes. Instead, I concentrated on the forest floor.
He didn’t respond, didn’t move. I glanced up at him and saw that he was still watching me, his eyes roaming over my face in search of something.
I lifted my head back up and tightened my arms around myself, chilled from the cool night air.
His eyes flicked down to the motion briefly and his body tensed.
“When did you know?” I prodded, not able to handle his silence.
“During the Trial. I felt it first when your fate was sealed in the Spirit world.”
He’d known that long?
His face looked pained, and he seemed to tense even more and I could see his eyes harden. His chest moved up and down with his quickened breathing. His short answers were starting to piss me off.
Was I so bad that he was in pain to be near me? Was it only the bond forcing him to be here?
“Why did you wait to approach me? Why did you follow me? Why didn’t you come up and tell me?” Anger laced my voice, hiding the hurt behind it. I braced myself for the brunt of my stupid childish dream, of one day having a male that was fated to me by the Gods, to be crushed by the Lord before me.
“I—” he stammered.
“Do you want this? If you don’t… If you don’t want this, then just reject the bond and get it over with.”
He flinched. “What makes you think I don’t want this?
I’ve followed you across the damn continent.
I’ve abandoned my Nation when it needs me.
All so I could be near you because I can’t stand being away from you, even before learning your name.
I can’t get you out of my head. Of course I fucking want this.
I can barely control it. It’s been killing me not to have you. ”
My heart lurched and my stomach fluttered. Hearing him admit to the mating bond after dancing around the term hit me hard and made me shiver.
“But you told me to run,” I breathed.
“Yes.” He huffed in a humorless laugh. “But not for the reason you think.”