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I looked toward Kinley’s window and frowned. I could have sworn I’d heard her voice.
“Did you hear that?” I asked.
“What?”
I glanced around. We were alone out here. The night was quiet—so quiet that the silence had a sound of its own, and it was deafening. The only thing interrupting the silence was Dagger’s breathing, so quiet it could hardly be heard at all. If something really was out there, I would have heard it. A twig snapping, leaves crunching,something.
Braxton.
There it was again. I glanced toward her window, but the cabin was drenched in utter darkness. With the pure lack of light from the moon, and everything else in the mountains wild and without human intervention, I could only make out the outline of the cabin.
I frowned. I was a lion shifter, which meant my eyesight was keener than that of a human, and night vision should have helped me, letting me see more, even if there was nothing to see.
Out here, the darkness was complete, and I could barely see Dagger, who stood only two feet away from me.
“There it is again,” I said softly.
“There’s nothing out there,” Dagger said. “I can’t hear anything. What is it?”
I shook my head. “Nothing.”
She wasn’t talking to me. I was starting to feel like I was losing my mind. Thinking about her all the time was one thing, but hearing her now was another.
I ran my fingers through my beard, and Dagger swiveled his head at the light scraping sound before he looked away again. He was as hyper-aware of everything around us as I was.
Did I hear her voice because of what was happening between us? I’d touched her, kissed her,felther. I’d wanted to fuck her, but I hadn’t let it go that far. I couldn’t afford to. The bond, the magic Uma had warned me about, had to wait until I knew if that was what I wanted from her. And if that was what she wanted from me.
But what if our time in the forest counted as sex? She did have an orgasm, and thinking about that made my cock grow with desire. With rabbit shifters being such an enigma, there really was no definitive answer about what would awaken Kinley’s magic.
We weren’t mates, though. The feeling would be undeniable, and that hadn’t happened. At least not yet.
Why could I hear her in my mind, then? The night was strange, the magic thick, almost lulling me into a trance of some kind, and I—
Braxton!
I shook my head again, like I could shake off what I was hearing. The voice was inside my head, echoing. Why could I hear her? What was going on? She had anguish in her voice.
The darkness grew thicker. My vision went from being limited to not being able to see anything at all.
Dagger moved next to me, but I couldn’t even see him.
“Braxton?!”
This time, Kinley’s voice was loud and clear, and the next moment, something dark and ugly tackled me to the ground. It was big and black and monstrous, with red eyes and long fangs dripping with menace.
I shifted before I hit the ground.
The monster was on me, snarling, snapping its jaws at me, and I slapped a large, clawed paw to its head. It emanated a scream that made my blood curdle, but fell back.
Blood poured from the slashes my nails had created on its cheek.
Blood.
If it was alive, it could be killed. If it existed in this world, I could take it out of it.
I could suddenly see again. I roared loudly and attacked, throwing myself onto the monster. It was humanoid, but something about it was off. As if it didn’t know exactly what it wanted to be.
I didn’t care. My large lion body writhed on top of the monster and scratched and clawed, biting where I could. I tasted blood, and it was tinged with darkness.
