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Sable pauses for an infinitesimal moment, then takes several sure steps toward me. Her small hands rise to my cheeks, and her fingertips are cool and steady as she cups my face.
“You know it isn’t your fault, right?” she asks. “You fought with everything you had. You didn’t allow it to happen. You did everything to stop it. And you’re still fighting to this day.”
Her hands on my face have rendered me deaf and mute. I stare down at her sweet, earnest face. She’s an innocent—spent the majority of her life trapped in a house, a prisoner in her own life. Yet somehow, she came out of that nightmare so fucking wise.
I reach up and mimic her grasp. I cup her soft face in my hands, reveling in the softness of her skin, the warmth just beneath the surface.
I don’t know when I make the decision. It isn’t some epiphany or some blast of total clarity. It’s just… Sable.
I kiss her.
Her lips are hot and soft beneath mine, tentative at first. But I press right through her insecurities, parting her lips with my tongue and dipping into her honeyed-sweetness like I own it.
She moans, the sound deep in her chest. It sends a signal straight to my dick, and I return the sound in kind, spinning her around and pressing her back against a nearby tree. I lean into her, deepening the kiss, her breasts crushed to my chest, her thighs slightly spread as I press against her. My hands are everywhere—her face, her neck, her chest, her waist. Heat flashes over me, making it hard for me to think. My wolf growls, urging me to rip her clothes off, to sink into her and claim her.
Fuck caution.
Fuck everything else.
I want to.
But instead, I tilt her head back as our tongues dance. I slide a hand behind her, gripping her supple ass, pulling her against my hard cock so she knows what she’s done to me. This isn’t Sable the witch. This is just Sable, the woman I’ve wanted since the moment I laid eyes on her in the woods. It’s so clear right now where the delineation is, what the difference is between the two aspects of her.
I’m tangled up in Sable, my fingers in her hair, my hand cupped to her ass, our lips bruising with the force of our kiss. I don’t want to move from this spot or think about anything else. I don’t want to ever fucking let her go.
But as my hands roam over her body, sliding up under her shirt to tease her bare skin, the hairs on the back of my neck prickle.
Even though they move as silently as the predators they are, I can still sense them behind me.
Archer, Trystan, and Ridge have arrived.
Goddammit.
It takes every bit of willpower to tear my lips away from Sable’s, and she yelps in surprise when she sees the three men behind me. I don’t think she felt them approach like I did.
“Um… We were just, uh, talking.” She shifts awkwardly, her cheeks turning pink, and I hate that she feels embarrassed about being caught kissing me. As if it’s something she shouldn’t be doing, instead of the most perfect, most right thing in the world.
It’s my fucking fault. I know that. I’ve pushed her away even as my wolf begs me to get closer to her. I’ve run so damn hot and cold it’s a miracle she hasn’t given up on me completely.
If I don’t get my fucking head on straight and keep it that way, I’m gonna wreck things between us badly enough that at some point, they won’t be fixable.
“Right. Well, I think we can call it on the training session for today,” Archer says, smiling at her as she slips away from the tree I had her pressed against. “You had a big breakthrough, and I don’t want to push too hard. We’ll pick up tomorrow where we left off.”
&nbs
p; “Sounds good.”
Her gaze flicks to me, her expression softening for a moment. Then she ducks her head, following after the other three shifters as they head back toward the village. I stare after her for a moment before finally forcing my feet into motion.
Wait for me, Sable. Please fucking wait for me. I’m doing my best to come back to you. I promise.
17
Sable
I wouldn’t say I ever look forward to practicing my magic, but over the next few days, my training sessions get a bit easier. It still doesn’t respond every time I try to call it up, and I live in terror of drawing a sigil wrong or accidentally unleashing a blast of raw magic.
But my control is increasing. Slow and steady, as Archer reminds me over and over. That’s the way I’m going to make this work.
