But the moment the sun dipped fully behind the horizon, the grass at my knees turned pale with frost, and pool froze, the stars winking out, the colors fading to solid white.
“No!” I leaned over the stones and pressed my hand to the surface again, but my magic flickered out, too.
The connection was broken.
A pang of sadness touched my heart, but it didn’t last. I didn’t need to see the gate to know it was there waiting for me. My magic had led us here for a reason.Thiswas the way home. I knew it.
“The pool will thaw at sunrise,” Liam confirmed. “We’ll camp in the woods tonight, and head out at first light.Immediatelyat first light.”
There was an ominous tone to his words that hadn’t been there before.
“Liam?” I prodded.
“It’s not wise to linger into the late morning,” he said.
“Why? What’s late morning?”
He glanced up at the sky again, and my entire body erupted in goosebumps. “Feeding time.”
Twenty-Nine
Ronan
“If we’re camping, we need a fire.” I glanced at Gray, hoping she’d get the hint. “I’m gonna go, ah, look for some firewood.”
“I’ll come with.” She hopped up immediately, reaching out to take my hand.
That’s my girl.
The forest was thick and silent, and after just a few minutes of walking, we had complete privacy.
“Firewood, huh?” she asked, her eyes glittering.
“Was I that obvious?”
“Only alittleobvious.”
I was still holding her hand, and now I tugged her close, wrapping my arms around her and crushing her against my chest. Even though we’d hugged in the valley, it still felt like it’d been a hundred years since I’d last felt the warmth of her body against mine.
“I was so worried about you,” I whispered into her hair. “When Liam told us you were Jonathan’s prisoner, and then you ended up here…”
A shudder rolled through my body when I thought about what might’ve happened to her in that prison. What could’ve happened to her here, if she hadn’t found the rune gate.
“Jonathan’s dead,” she said, pulling back to look into my eyes. Her own held a steadiness that hadn’t been there before. A certainty. “I stabbed him on the mountaintop, right before Darius found me.”
I blew out a breath, more relieved than I cared to admit. One lone hunter? We should’ve been able to isolate him and take him out on day one. Yet he’d eluded us, besting us at every turn. His capacity for torture and torment had shocked us all.
And we still didn’t know who else might be following in his footsteps. What other horrors awaited us on the other side of all this.
But we’d cross that bridge when we came to it.
I took her face between my palms, my gaze sweeping down to her mouth. I wanted to burn this image into my brain, sear it so deep I’d never forget it, no matter what Sebastian did to me. No matter what our future held.
I lowered my mouth to hers, capturing it in a slow, lingering kiss. I wanted to savor every soft curve of her lips, the warmth of her breath, the velvet-smooth stroke of her tongue as I slid it into her mouth.
A moan rumbled through my chest, and Gray sighed, deepening our kiss. I moved forward, backing her up against a tree, pressing my body to hers and pinning her there.
“I missed you,” she breathed, tangling her hands into my hair. “I hate being away from you, Ronan.”
