A scent has hit me, low and warm and familiar. His arousal. It wraps around me, potent and unmistakable.
“This,” he says. He leans in and kisses my nose. “I can’t seem to get enough of you.”
“I don’t understand.” But I do. I can smell it on him, see it in the darkening of his eyes.
“Remember the janitor’s closet?”
I blush so hard I feel it in my ears, heat flooding my face at the memory. He plants another kiss on my forehead, his lips curving into a smile.
“My magic called to you,” he tells me. “It’s why you left the Lion Shifter Wing and came searching for me. My body wants to breed you. Even when I fought it away with my own magic.”
“So Mother Fate is punishing you for this.” The realization settles over me, bringing with it a strange mix of vindication and concern.
He grins and shrugs, still cupping my face, his expression boyish and unrepentant.
“Something like that.”
“Is this forever?”
“No. All spells run their course. But I don’t know for how long, or when it will end. That’s up to Mother Fate.”
I grin. My tail starts to wag, the movement betraying my lion’s delight at this development.
Aaron glances down at it. He laughs once, soft and warm, and his hands slide off my face and he kisses my lips again. My tail is swaying playfully behind me, and my lion isdelighted, temporarily distracted from her fears by the prospect of Aaron being magically compelled to want me.
He pulls back. “Your lion seems pleased with this info.”
“She is.” Despite everything, I can’t help the smugness that creeps into my voice.
I lean in. I press my mouth to his ear, my whiskers brushing his skin.
“I’ll put it in your face tonight. But that’s it.” The promise is both a tease and a distraction.
“Mara.” The groan in his voice sends a shiver through me.
I turn away from him, my tail brushing across his chest as I start walking back toward our cabin, a deliberate sway in my hips.
“Well damn,” he says behind me, already moving to follow. “Can I at least put my nose in it?”
My tail comes around and smacks him in the face. I make myself giggle and keep walking.
He groans, the sound half-frustrated, half-amused. I walk ahead of him through the trees.
I’m thinking, my mind racing beneath the facade of flirtation.
I don’t trust Eric. He wants something from Aaron. Everything I just saw was a set he built for us. The room, the fire, the white hair, the apology. I grew up in a pride that hunts. I know when I’m being hunted.
He hasn’t gone to the sisters because he doesn’t need them. He needsAaron. But why is the question.
I’m going to find out what he wants, what he’s planning.
I love him more than he understands. So I’m going to do this the wrong way. The lying way. The hunting way. Until I have something he can’t argue with, he won’t hear me.
“Mara!” he calls, half-laughing. “Your tail!”
I let out a laugh and keep walking.
11
