The world shrank to nothing but the space between our bodies — The heat, the tension, the electric charge in the air.Nothing existed outside this moment, this bed, this man hovering above me like he was deciding whether to devour me or flee. The bond between us thrummed with such intensity that I could swear I saw sparks dancing in the air around us, could feel the very fabric of reality bending under the weight of whatever power connected us.His chest rose and fell with each labored breath, and I found myself matching his rhythm without conscious thought. We were breathing the same air, existing in the same impossible space where desire and magic and something deeper than either had collided to create this moment of perfect, terrifying suspension.Kael's storm-gray eyes locked onto mine, wild and feral.There was nothing civilized left in his gaze. Whatever careful control he usually maintained had been stripped away, leaving something raw and primal and utterly dangerous. His pupi
My feet moved of their own accord, carrying me across the room despite every rational argument my mind tried to make. The floorboards were cool beneath my bare feet. Each step felt monumental, like I was crossing some invisible threshold from which there would be no return.Drawn like a moth to a flame that would inevitably consume me.The comparison was apt. He was fire—dangerous, beautiful, capable of giving warmth or causing destruction depending on how close you dared to get. And I was helpless to resist the pull, even knowing it would likely burn me alive.The bond hummed louder as the distance between us decreased, like a tuning fork struck against crystal. My skin prickled with electricity, and I could swear I felt sparks dancing along my fingertips. The air itself seemed charged, heavy with potential energy that made my hair stand on end.Without thinking, without permission from my own mind, I crossed the room, closing the distance between us.His scent grew stronger as I app
“The storm outside had nothing on the one breaking inside this room.”Kael didn't move.Not when I ignored the screaming in my head telling me to leave.He stood there, shoulders heaving, his body tense as a drawn bowstring. The silence in the room was deafening, broken only by the sound of our labored breathing and the distant rumble of thunder outside. The storm that had been brewing all evening was finally breaking, and somehow it felt like a reflection of everything happening between us.The air was thick with more than just the approaching rain. Magic crackled invisibly around us, the bond that neither of us had asked for pulsing like a second heartbeat. I could feel it in my bones, in the very marrow of me, pulling me toward him even as every rational thought screamed at me to run.I watched him —Watched the way his hands clenched and unclenched at his sides, fighting some internal battle I couldn't begin to understand. The moonlight streaming through the tall windows cast silv
A low whine escaped him—pure anguish, the sound a wounded animal makes when caught in a trap—and he jerked back suddenly, as if my skin had burned him, as if contact with me had been agony rather than ecstasy.The loss of his heat made me whimper before I could stop myself, my body instinctively trying to follow his, to maintain that precious connection that had felt like coming home.Kael stumbled a few steps away, fists clenched so tightly at his sides that I could see the tendons standing out in his forearms, could see the way his nails bit into his palms hard enough to draw blood.His chest heaved. His jaw locked. His entire body shook with the effort of denying what we both wanted.And he wouldn't look at me.Not because he didn't want to.Because if he did—if he gave in to the need burning in his eyes, if he let himself see the answering desire in mine—We both knew he wouldn't stop.Couldn't stop.Wouldn't want to stop.I lay there for a moment longer, trying to catch my breath
Kael's body trembled with restraint, every muscle in his powerful frame taut as a bowstring as he slowly, carefully, lowered himself further, until the heat of his skin seared the few inches of air separating us and I could feel the whisper of his breath against my lips.I felt him everywhere.The scent of him—earth and pine and something darker, something uniquely him that spoke of midnight hunts and ancient forests and power beyond mortal comprehension—wrapped around me like a second skin, seeping into my pores, marking me with his essence. The heavy weight of his presence crushed down on my lungs, stole the air from my chest, made me dizzy with want and need and something that went beyond both.His eyes traced the curve of my face as if memorizing it, as if he were an artist and I were his masterpiece, lingering on my parted lips, the flush spreading across my cheeks, the rapid pulse beating in my throat. I could feel him in my mind, his consciousness brushing against mine through
“It wasn’t his touch that undid me. It was the space between us—waiting to be filled.”The air crackled around me.Kael's massive wolf form loomed over where I lay sprawled on the cold stone floor, my breath coming in broken, shallow gasps. His fur, a deep black threaded with silver, bristled as he hovered over me, muscles twitching violently under his skin with my mere touch.The room around us seemed to shrink, the stone walls closing in until there was nothing but this moment, this creature, this unbearable tension. Moonlight spilled through the narrow window, casting his enormous shadow across my prone form. I could taste copper in my mouth from where I'd bitten my lip when I fell.And then— With a guttural snarl that wasn't quite human— The shift began.I watched, frozen, as the wolf's form contorted.Bones cracked. Fur receded. The terrifying snarl twisted into something almost human as his body collapsed inward, reshaping with agonizing, shuddering force.I could hear every wet