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His forehead furrowed, but he didn’t scoff or make my question seem stupid. If anything, his intensity added weight that I didn’t like. “No.” He dropped to his haunches and draped one hand between his legs, hiding his maleness, all while the other held his balance on the ground. His smoky eyes darkened as if secrets swam within him. “Sometimes...if I’m there when the pack hunts, I sense...” He clenched his jaw.
“Sometimes...” I prompted. “Sometimes what?”
He sighed. “Sometimes I feel the prey at the moment of their death. I feel a gust of ice as they die. I feel the fangs that killed it.” He shrugged. “I swear they pass through me before they’re gone.”
“Pass through you?”
He glanced at the fawn, avoiding my eyes. “I can’t explain it better than that.”
“And do you sense their final thoughts. See their life?”
“I sense them letting go. Leaving this world and going to another.”
“There’s another?”
“There has to be.” His gaze caught mine. “Doesn’t there? Otherwise, where do all the spirits go that lose their lives? Where do ours go when we pass?”
I shivered and looked back at the fawn. It remained huddled and terrified. “I don’t have answers to those questions.”
“Neither do I.” He fell quiet for a moment before murmuring, “When I was sick with fevers...and Salak brought me back here, I had strange dreams.”
My attention snapped back to him. “Dreams?”
He nodded, his smoky eyes hazy with recollection. “I dreamed I was darkness itself, but within that darkness danced silver orbs of life. Life that was misplaced. Life that seemed to be waiting for a second chance.”
He exhaled heavily, dispelling the tension that’d woven between us. “I’m sure it was just nonsense dreams delivered by sickness. Nothing more. But...I wanted to answer you truthfully. I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t hold anything back. You’re leaving tomorrow and whatever you want to know about me, I’ll tell you.” His lips pulled into a wolfish smile. “Perhaps, if I make you like me, then you’ll stay.”
My heart thudded. “I do like you.” My cheeks heated. “I mean...we’re friends.”
“Friends?” His black eyebrows knitted together. “I hate to tell you, Runa, but friendship isn’t what I want.”
I swallowed hard. “W-What do you want?”
Leaning forward, he reached up and tucked a strand of muddy hair behind my ear. “Everything.”
Air was hard to come by.
I couldn’t look away.
He saved me from awkward silence by dropping his attention to the fawn who still hadn’t moved. “Do you remember the way back to the den?”
His change of topic made me stumble a little. “Y-Yes. Why?”
Standing on powerful legs, he kept his hands clasped in front of him, almost as if hiding the part of his body that was so different from mine. “I’m going to leave you and the fawn alone. I’ll take the wolves and go.”
Wait.
He couldn’t leave after saying such things. After making my heart pound with hope.
Almost as if he sensed my reluctance to let him go, he smiled. “You need to be alone with the fawn.” He shrugged with patience I didn’t share, his hands still blocking between his legs. “We can talk again later. We have all night, after all.”
My mouth parted. “You’re not worried I’ll try to return to the Nhil camp?”
Bending at the waist, he caught my cheeks and held me tight. The hum of his touch soaked into my blood, spreading delicious, newly awoken heat into my bones. “You could, but I’d find you. I think I’ll always find you, Runa. That’s why we keep being drawn to one another.” His gaze dropped to my mouth, and every thought flew out of my head.
Time stopped as he ran his thumb exquisitely gently over my bottom lip. His touch trembled a little, and he sucked in a shallow breath. “You know what I want, Runa.” With a soft groan, he tore his eyes from my mouth. “Eventually, you’ll have to make the choice of what you want in return.”
Letting me go, I caught a glimpse of what he’d been hiding just before his hands cupped himself again.
He was hard.
My heart kicked, remembering the river and how his body had swelled that night. He’d not been self-conscious, merely said his body was showing me the truth.
He wanted me.
Giving me a tense half smile, he cleared his throat. “Come back to me. You promised me the night. Give me more time to remember, and perhaps, I can help you remember in return.” Stepping toward the three wolves that’d sprawled in the final sliver of sunlight, he said softly, “I’ll be waiting for you.”
With a growl at the wolves, he broke into a run.
The three predators shot after him, slipping into the shadowy forest, leaving me alone with the fawn.
My breath came feathery; my heart winged.
I wanted to run after him.
But my legs were weak, and my chest rose and fell as I ran slightly shaky fingers along my bottom lip, tracing where his roughened-warm touch had been.
