My hands find her waist, steadying her movements, thumbs pressing into the hollow of her hip bones through her tactical pants.
"Fen," she gasps against my mouth, my name on her lips like ancient runes carved into stone—permanent, powerful, a marking that will endure long after civilizations crumble to dust.
"I've wanted this since I first saw you," I confess, trailing kisses along her jaw, down the elegant column of her throat where her pulse jumps beneath my lips like a caged bird.
Her head falls back, giving me better access to the sensitive skin of her neck. I taste her pulse point with careful restraint, her racing heartbeat a symphony against my tongue.
My wolf stirs, urging me to bite her, claim her, mark her as mine for all to see, but I hold back. Too soon. She's not ready for that truth yet. She doesn't understand everything it would mean.
Her hands slide beneath my Henley, palms flat against my stomach, fingertips tracing the ridges of muscle there like she's memorizing me by touch. The direct skin contact sends a jolt through me like lightning striking earth, electricity arcing between two points meant to connect. The electrical sensation that's always present around her intensifies tenfold, humming between us like a living thing, binding us together.
I capture her mouth again, hungrier now, one hand sliding up to tangle in her hair. My fingers find the tight elastic of her severe ponytail and pull it free, feeling the weight of her hair cascade around my hand.
The silken strands spill between my fingers like liquid shadow, cool against my burning skin. My other hand slips beneath her tactical shirt, fingertips tracing the warm skin of her lower back, feeling the subtle curve of her spine beneath my touch.
"Gods, you're beautiful," I murmur, pulling back just enough to see her face—pupils blown wide with desire, lips swollen from my kisses, cheeks flushed with want. "Do you have any idea what you do to me?"
She answers by rocking against me deliberately, a smirk playing at the corners of her mouth when I groan in response, the sound torn from somewhere deep and primal. "I'm getting a pretty good idea."
This time when our lips meet, there's no hesitation, no restraint. Her tongue slides against mine, exploring, demanding in a dance as old as time itself. My hands tighten on her hips, guiding her movements against me.
My wolf practically purrs with contentment. For the first time in centuries, man and beast are in perfect alignment. Both wanting the same thing, both recognizing her as ours. The balance I've sought for so long found not in meditation or ambrosia but in her arms.
I slip my hand higher beneath her shirt, fingers tracing the curve of her ribs, thumb brushing the underside of her breast. Her breath hitches, body arching into the touch like she's starving for it, like she's been waiting for this moment as long as I have.
"Fen," she breathes against my lips, voice thick with need, my name becoming a talisman on her tongue.
A sharp, desperate pounding on the window shatters the moment like a stone through glass. My arms tighten around Astrid, my body already positioning to shield her from whatever danger waits beyond the fogged windows.
Astrid reaches for her weapon as she turns toward the sound. I catch her wrist, my enhanced vision cutting through the fog on the windows to the figure outside with crystal clarity.
A man, terrified, eyes wild with panic, hammers his fist against the glass again. "Help!" he cries, voice muffled through the window. "Please help me!"
Blood streaks his face from a cut above his eye, the distinctive copper-sweetness of elvin blood mixing with fear-sweat and desperation. His clothes are torn, dirty. He keeps looking over his shoulder toward the warehouse, his entire body trembling with fear, and his distinctive pointed ears quivering with each panicked breath. Not a human.
My surprise fades quickly. There's no deception in his terror. It's raw, authentic. Pure survival instinct radiates from him like heat from fire.
"Fuck," Astrid mutters, already climbing back to her seat, straightening her clothes, putting her hair back, transforming back into Agent Mathieson before my eyes. The shift is remarkable. From passionate woman to professional hunter in mere seconds, like watching water freeze into ice.
I reach for the door handle, but she grabs my arm, her fingers digging into my flesh with surprising strength. "Wait?—"
Before she can finish, Cormac materializes from the shadows like a nightmare taking form, his glamour dropping as he approaches. The terrified man startles, nearly falling backward before Cormac steadies him with a hand on his shoulder.
I push open my door, stepping out into the night air that feels frigid compared to the heat we generated moments before. Astrid follows, her weapon drawn but held low at her side, her stance a perfect balance of readiness and control.
"It's alright," Cormac says to the man, his voice pitched to soothe like one might calm a frightened animal. "We're here to help."
"They're stealing people," the man blurts, words tumbling out in hysterical bursts like water through a broken dam. "In there—they have cages. Underground. I was taken from my home. I've never even been on this planet."
Fuck. I make eye contact with Cormac and he nods, a silent conversation passing between us in that split second. This. Is. Very. Bad. Not just bad—catastrophic.
"What planet are you talking about?" Astrid demands, her professional mask firmly in place, though I can smell the lingering arousal on her skin, hear the slight elevation in her heartbeat that betrays the passion we shared moments ago. "Who took you?"
"I don't know." The man's eyes dart frantically between us. "I escaped when they moved us. But the others… There are at least twelve more people down there. Maybe more."
Fuck. This is bigger than we thought. Someone's moving beings between worlds without leaving a trace.
"We need to move. Now." Cormac's voice carries the edge of urgency, a blade wrapped in velvet. "The hellhounds are holding back whoever is coming after him for now."
