"Waste of time," another voice grumbled. "They're probably halfway to the mountains by now."
"General wants them found. So we search."
Serna and I pressed back into the alcove, barely breathing, as two figures passed within ten feet of our hiding spot. They were armed, alert, sweeping the area with handheld scanners.
We waited, frozen, until their voices faded into the distance.
"That was close," I breathed.
Serna nodded, but her expression was troubled. "They're expanding the search. We're running out of time."
She was right. If they kept pushing outward, they'd eventually find our hiding spot. And once they did, we'd be trapped—outnumbered, outgunned, with nowhere to run.
"We move now," I said. "Before they circle back."
"Agreed."
But as we prepared to leave the alcove, something shifted in the air between us. The danger, the fear, the desperate knowledge that this might be our last chance—it all crystallized into a single, overwhelming need.
I reached for Serna at the same moment she reached for me.
Our mouths met in a kiss that was equal parts desperation and desire. Her hands fisted in my shirt, pulling me closer, and I wrapped my arms around her, holding her like she might disappear if I let go.
"We shouldn't—" she gasped against my mouth. "We need to—"
"I know," I said, but I didn't stop kissing her. Couldn't stop. Because if this was our last moment together, I needed it. Needed her.
She seemed to feel the same way, because instead of pulling back, she deepened the kiss, her body pressing against mine with urgent need. We sank down onto the moss-coveredground, hands fumbling with clothing, desperate to feel skin against skin.
"Cullen," she breathed, and there was so much in that single word—love, fear, need, hope.
"I'm here," I said, kissing her jaw, her throat, anywhere I could reach. "I'm right here."
We made love with desperate, silent intensity. Every sound could betray us—Riuondo's forces were out there, hunting. The danger should have stopped us. Instead, it made everything sharper, more urgent, more unbearably intense.
There was no time to undress. No time for anything but this overwhelming need to be joined, to feel each other, to claim this moment before it was ripped away. My hands found the fastenings of her bodysuit, yanking them open with trembling fingers. The fabric tore—I heard it rip, felt it give way—and I didn't care. She was doing the same to me, pulling my shirt aside, her claws catching on the fabric and shredding it in her desperation.
"Quiet," I breathed against her mouth, even as I pushed the torn bodysuit down over her hips, exposing the velvet softness of her pelt. "We have to stay quiet."
She nodded, her eyes wild and dark, pupils blown wide with desire and fear and need. Her hands fumbled with my belt, my pants, shoving them down just enough. We didn't have time for more. Didn't have the luxury of slow or gentle or careful.
I pushed into her in one hard thrust, and her mouth opened in a silent scream. I clamped my hand over her lips, swallowing the sound before it could escape, and she bit down on my palm—hard enough to draw blood, hard enough that I had to bite my own lip to keep from moaning at the sharp pain mixed with pleasure.
The taste of copper flooded my mouth as my lip split. I could taste her too—salt and something uniquely Serna—as Ikissed her desperately, our mouths meeting in a clash of teeth and tongue and barely suppressed sounds. Her velvet pelt was impossibly soft against my chest where my torn shirt hung open, a stark contrast to the hard muscle beneath, to the way her body gripped me tight and hot and perfect.
In the distance, I heard voices. Guards calling to each other, their words indistinct but close. Too close.
Serna heard them too. Her whole body went rigid beneath me, her inner muscles clenching around me in a way that made stars explode behind my eyes. I pressed my forehead to hers, both of us frozen, barely breathing, as the voices grew louder.
"—check the creek again—"
"—nothing here—"
The voices faded, moving away, and Serna let out a shuddering breath against my neck. When I started to move again—slow, careful thrusts—she dug her nails into my shoulders hard enough to draw blood, her body trembling with the effort of staying silent.
I buried my face in the curve of her neck to muffle my own groan, tasting the salt of her skin, breathing in the scent of her—something wild and earthy mixed with arousal, with the musk of sex, with the green smell of crushed moss beneath us. Her velvet pelt was slick with perspiration now, soft as silk against my lips as I kissed her throat, her collarbone, anywhere I could reach without making noise.
"Cullen," she mouthed against my ear, no sound at all, just the shape of my name formed by her lips. Her hips moved beneath me, meeting my thrusts, and I could feel how close she was already—could feel it in the way her body tensed, in the desperate way she clung to me, in the silent gasps she swallowed back.
