That’s my cue to slip my tongue between her lips, to explore the beautiful, delicious cavity of her mouth and drink in the moan she makes when our bodies collide, and I’m pulling her closer with my hands on her tiny waist, feeling her softness for the first time against the stark contrast of my firm, defined body.
Goddess! She feels magnificent, extraordinary against me, her curves slotting perfectly into my hands, her lips feeling marvelous against mine. The kiss is passionate, fervent, as if the desire was pent-up for years, and it’s exploding now. It’s hot, feverish, our tongues fighting for dominance between her mouth and mine, and everything about this moment feels…right.
I lose myself to her lips, to the taste of cherries and the scent of jasmine, a concoction of sensations meant to drive me insane. She doesn’t even know the effect she has on me, and it’s working. I’m turning wild, and it’s all thanks to her.
Even my inner wolf feels sated, soothed, calmer than he’s ever been, sighing because for the first time, I’m kissing my fated mate and holding her in my arms. But the feeling of relief is short-lived when Annika suddenly stops, abruptly breaking the kiss and pushing at my shoulders.
I step back, startled by her reaction, but choosing to give her space when I notice the fear in her eyes. They aren’t glowing like embers anymore, and they’ve reverted to the calm, chocolate-brown eyes that don’t have any sign of the magic buried inside her.
“I—I’m sorry,” she apologizes, even though she has nothing to apologize for, before she pushes past me and racestoward the bathroom. There, she throws the door open, then disappears inside and shuts the door behind her.
The thud feels final, thundering in my heart and pulsing there like a lingering beat that leaves me full of disappointment. I hang my head, my lips still tingling from the kiss, body ignited and heated in places that have felt cold and desolate for a long time, but I drag my feet out of her bedroom, knowing that I must give her the space she needs right now.
Even if I’ll never be able to forget that kiss.
Neither will she. I’m sure of it.
Chapter 9 - Annika
“You are the most beautiful woman I have ever encountered, Annika…”
Those words pound in my head, knocking around my skull as if there’s nothing else there, and only those words exist, echoing against the walls of my mind.
I heard those words before, in a space where reality didn’t exist, where Henry Ralph was just my boss who seduced me in the office after a night out at a gala.
But I heard those words again tonight, in the flesh, falling from the lips of a man who calls himself “Heinrich,” and claims to be a werewolf.
Well, he doesn’t just claim it. He demonstrated the ability to shapeshift like it was the most natural thing in the world. For him, yes. But for me, who’s been sheltered all my life from the knowledge of this magnitude, it was a shock.
It’s no wonder I blacked out and woke up back in bed. The mere thought of him carrying me—with his large, distended, sharp canines, maybe—from the forest back to his cabin sends a chill down my spine.
I shudder, but the trembling of my body doesn’t stop, and tingling remains in my fingers as I clutch the sink fiercely. The cold, polished ceramic doesn’t dampen the heat coursing through my veins, pulsing with sensation long after I fled from him.
The pieces of the puzzle I thought I put together have been rearranged, with words like “fate,” “mates,” and “werewolves” distorting a picture I could make sense of before.Now that picture is fuzzy, unclear, even if all the lines align and the pieces fit flush together.
“Fuck…” I breathe, trying and failing to get some semblance of control over the torrent of emotions quaking my body. I flip the switch on the tap, sticking my fingers under the cold running water, but even that doesn’t stop the tingling in my fingers.
If this is another panic attack, there’s not much I can do to stop it from taking over my body. Not deep breaths, nor splashing my face with cold water helps stop the frightful tingling in every nerve ending.
“Breathe, Annika…” I control my breathing by counting down the exhale, then timing my inhales and holding my breath.
Those words won’t stop echoing in my mind, even when I look up and meet my reflection.
The woman staring back at me feels like a stranger, her hair unkempt, cheeks flushed, eyes blown, and lips swollen from his kiss.
That kiss…
Oh, my God…I never imagined that it could be as passionate and heated as that, but it was, completely blowing my mind. And while those words remain echoing in my mind as if they’re trying to tell me something I’d rather ignore—like how I heard them as a prophecy in a dream I had before I knew any of this existed—there’s also the part of me that can’t wrap my head around it all.
I have no reason not to believe him.
Everything he told me was the truth—I saw it in his eyes, that raw honesty—but still, it’s hard to accept. It’simpossibletoaccept, and there’s nothing I can do to go back to a time when I didn’t know all of it existed.
Werewolves.
Demons.
Fated mates.
