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The low, rasping voice is Valerian’s—yet different. Primordial. Almost . . . bestial.
Something about it scrapes down my spine.
I shiver, drowning the urge to face my protector as my instincts warn me into absolute stillness. My belly lurches as we dive beneath the falls.
The curtain of water gives way to darkness. We’re inside a cave of sorts. The air damp and cold.
Despite Valerian’s warning, as soon as my bare feet feel slippery ground beneath them, I pivot, jerking away from him and—
“Valerian?” I whisper, startled by his face.
“Don’t look at me,” he growls.
My body tenses, but I refuse his plea. He hasn’t provided any magic to chase away the shadows, but the moonlight filtering through the watery curtain illuminates just enough of his features to make me gasp.
Somehow he’s even more beautiful than I recall, but in a dark, unnerving way that sends my adrenaline through the roof. His normally cliffed cheekbones are inhumanly jagged, his peaked eyebrows sharper, and his eyes . . . oh, God.
His eyes are wild. Feral. Brimming with ancient, unfathomable power. His pupils are perhaps the most terrifying of all. Huge black pits anchored inside a sea of molten silver.
It’s like it’s him—but not.
A low rumble starts in his chest. “Back away slowly, as far away as you can from me.”
The breath catches in my throat as I obey, inching backward. My focus snags on the black tee pasted to his body. The muscles of his torso shiver and jerk, his chest heaving, hands clenched at his sides. Water drips from his messy midnight blue hair, the moisture drawing out the waviness.
A few strands have already started to freeze.
That’s when I notice the gash in his side. The silver blood dripping from it.
“What happened?” I whisper, struggling to keep the worry from my tone. Afraid any emotion at all will send him over the edge. “Are you hurt?”
His gaze slowly travels down to his side, back up to me, as if he was unaware of his injury. A muscle in his neck jerks. “I heard you call out, I could feel your fear. They tried to stop me but—”
My foot snags on a rock, and I stumble backward.
I don’t even see him move, but before I know what’s happening, he’s pinned me to the cave wall. His arms post on either side of my head, caging me in.
“Val—”
His hands slip under my wet dress and—
Oh, boy. The moment his fingers touch the bare flesh of my stomach, I know I’m lost. Utterly destroyed. Heat surges in waves through my core as he slides his hands behind my back to cup my ass.
Growling, he lifts me up, using the wall as leverage, and hell if I can’t do anything but wrap my legs around his waist and circle my arms around his neck.
Dark excitement flickers inside his eyes. There are no words between us as he holds my stare. Daring me to look at him. To finally accept this thing between us.
I gasp as he slides his hand through my tangled hair, capturing the strands, and tilts my head back slightly.
With his other hand, he brushes the rough pad of his thumb over my lower lip. “When I heard you calling for me, everything faded away but you, and I knew in that moment that I would burn down the entire fucking Everwilde to protect you.”
His lips crush mine, his tongue claiming my mouth, making it clear this time is different than the last. There is no gentleness, no holding back. A rush of dizziness overwhelms me.
I melt into him. Wanting more, more, more—
His attention moves on to my throat. I arch my back as his teeth scrape up my neck, nipping, and then when his mouth finds my ear—
The sigh I make is a cross between a moan and a plea. For him to stop or continue, I don’t know.
