Page 43 of Dark Destiny: A New Thread in the Tapestry

It was not like their first one.

That one had been careful and sweet. This one didn't even pretend to be careful, and the sound she made against his mouth was the kind she had never thought would come out of her.

He wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her into his body.

When she raked her fingers through his hair, he growled and moved his mouth to her jaw, then to the side of her throat.

Sullha tipped her head back against the wall and let him, thinking that this was the part where she was supposed to be afraid.

She wasn't.

Then she felt his fangs against her skin.

Not a bite. Not even close. He had his mouth just under her jaw, and she felt them, long and smooth, resting against her skin without any pressure.

He went completely still.

"Yaaf."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"You did not do anything."

"Not yet." His voice had gone rough, and he didn't lift his head. "Give me a moment."

She gave it to him, standing with her hands in his hair, his forehead against her collarbone, and they said nothing because there was nothing to say. She wasn't afraid of his bite, but neither of them wanted it to happen in an abandoned classroom while their friends waited in the movie theater.

They both knew it, but neither of them said it, and there was a sort of intimacy in that shared but unspoken decision. Then again, nothing they shared was truly their own. It was all shared with seven others.

"Can I ask you something?" she said.

"Anything."

"Right now. Can they feel what's happening between us?"

Yaaf lifted his head.

"They know I am happy and aroused," he said. "That is what leaks through. It is like hearing music through a wall, you know somebody is playing but you cannot make out the individual notes." He pushed a strand of her hair back off her cheek. "They don't know what we are doing. They don't know what you said or how you sounded or where my hands were. I have gotten better at it. So have they."

"Is that true, or are you just saying it to make me feel more comfortable?"

"It's true." He paused. "It also leaks sometimes, and I'll always tell you when it does."

Three weeks ago, Sullha would have needed a great deal more than that to reassure her, but now it was enough.

"All right," she said.

"That's all? All right?"

"All right, I'm done talking." She pulled his head back down. "Five more minutes before we need to get back."

They re-entered the theater to the vultures singing.

She slid into her seat, remembering too late that she hadn't fixed her hair and probably looked a mess.

On the screen, four birds with British accents were arguing over what to do with their afternoon.

Mattie leaned over, winked, then turned back to the film.