It doesn’t work.
I try to visualize the door somewhere between my mouth and my chest instead.
A soft breath escapes me when a feeling of openness washes over me.
“Can you stop breathing on me?” Draven huffs. “It’s distracting.”
With my eyes still closed, I keep the mental image of the open door while answering, “No, unfortunately I do need to breathe in order to remain conscious.”
He mutters something under his breath, and every word caresses my lips. It makes my heart flutter. Suddenly, I realize what he meant bydistracting. But I don’t pull back. Instead, I imagine myself holding my magic in my hand inside of me and then unclenching my fingers so that my palm is open.
A sudden feeling of detachment ripples through me.
I grin.
“Would you hurry it up,” Draven complains. “You?—”
I crush my lips against his and breathe out.
Magic pours out of me like a flood.
Draven gasps.
Keeping the gates open, I let my magic flow into Draven’s body. I don’t know how much it will take to heal wounds like that, so I continue to give him more while I move one of my hands from the ground to instead rest on his cheek.
A dark moan comes from deep within his chest.
Then his hands are suddenly in my hair as he abruptly sits up. The sudden move surprises me so much that I break the connection to my magic, but Draven doesn’t appear to notice. With me now straddling his lap instead, he curls his fingers in my hair and tilts my head back while his lips at last respond to mine.
Fire flickers through my veins as Draven kisses me back with such furious desperation that I forget how to breathe. His lips ravage mine. Hungrily. Desperately. As if he’s starving for my touch. For the feeling of my mouth on his.
I roll my hips and slide my hand down to the back of his neck.
Another dark moan rumbles from his throat.
My heart pounds as he dominates my mouth. The desperate, furious passion in every kiss makes me lightheaded, and I hold on to his muscular body as I kiss him back with every ounce of my soul.
And my chestthrums.
No. Not my chest.
The mate bond inside me is thrumming. Vibrating in tune with my pounding heart. And through it, I can feel… him.
I can feel the burning lust. The desperate hunger. The confused craving. And the searing hatred. All of it mixed into a raging inferno.
Draven shoves me back.
Disoriented, I topple to the side as he practically throws me off his lap. The sudden end to the kiss and the loss of his lips against mine and the way our mate bond abruptly cuts off again, which happen all at the same time, are so jarring that I actually gasp. Blinking repeatedly, I try to get my mind to focus again as I push myself up from the ground.
“What the hell are you doing to me?” Draven demands. Panic and desperation lace his voice, and his eyes are wild as he stares me down.
I look up as I get my body into a sitting position. Draven is already on his feet. His powerful body is now completely healed,and his muscles shift as he raises his arms and rakes both hands through his hair while he towers over me.
“I could feel you,” he continues, his voice still edged with panic, as he holds my gaze with wide eyes. “I could feel… what you feel.”
A surge of hope washes through me.
The mate bond.
