Lord of the Wolfyn - By Jessica Andersen Page 0,32

had nailed it. They had used each other, and each been content with the deal. Now, though, with the wolfsbene running in his veins and Reda in the picture, the arrangement echoed cold and bloodless.

He didn’t have the luxury of time to pull her aside, though, or even try to reason through the sudden change inside him. They needed to move now, talk later.

To Keely, he said, “Be careful, okay? And be happy.”

“Go.” Her amber eyes went from him to Reda and back. “And hey…you be happy, too, okay?”

He didn’t know how to answer that, so he just nodded. “Thanks for everything. Business deal or not, you helped make the past twenty years bearable.” He didn’t kiss her goodbye, just as he had rarely kissed her hello. Theirs had never been that sort of a relationship. Instead, he nudged Reda toward where a low line of trees hid the edge of the canyon. “Come on. Keely will buy us as much time as she can, but we need to get across the bridge and drop it from the other side before the pack gets here.”

She didn’t say a word as they jogged toward the trees, but he didn’t know for certain if that was because she was shell-shocked by the wolfyn attack, upset over the Keely thing, or something else. Or all of the above.

But he did know for certain that his arrangement with Keely had nothing to do with his feelings for Reda. One had been business and practicality, while the other was entirely impractical and ill-advised. Yet even knowing that, he couldn’t keep his eyes off Reda. Part of it was the wolfsbene, yes. But most of it was her.

He wanted to crowd her, nip her, hurry her along. Instead, he stayed by her side, pacing her and guarding her flank as they reached the chasm’s edge and headed for the bridge. There were enough trees that they didn’t get a clear look at the spindly structure until they were nearly on top of it.

Reda stopped dead, her face going stark in the moonlight as she said, “Oh, hell, no.”

“It’s safe, I promise.” But, admittedly, it wasn’t the most inspiring sight. Four long ropes were strung from one side to the other: two suspending a sparse walk-way of wooden planks that glowed nearly white in the moonlight, and two more lines at shoulder height for balance. Shorter lengths tied at gallop-stride intervals supported the fluid structure, which moved and rippled in the air currents that convected up from the depths. He nudged her forward. “You can do this. I’ll be right behind you.”

“No.” She backed up until she bumped into him, her back to his front, stirring heat and echoes of the earlier kiss he was trying to keep at the edges of his mind. “There’s got to be another way.”

“There isn’t.”

“What if—”

Hearing the first ominous hunting howl behind them, he came around in front of her and cupped her face in her hands. “We need to keep going forward, Reda. It’s the only way.”

He had meant only to take her attention off the bridge, but when he touched the soft skin of her jaw, heat washed through him, and something deep inside said, Mine. And when her eyes came up to meet his, need tightened to a fist in his chest, and that same something said, Now. He didn’t fight the urges, though maybe he should have. Instead, he crushed his lips to hers, swallowed her gasp and took them both under in a kiss that shouldn’t have been pure perfection. But was.

One second Reda was terror-stricken, and the next she was on fire.

There was no transition, no warning, nothing but the sudden press of a hard male body and the demanding shape of his lips and tongue against hers. She should have yanked away, but couldn’t find those synapses amid the heat and needy, greedy desire that flared instantly through her.

Oh, she thought, as fear melted beneath the onslaught. Oh, yes. Was it from the wolfsbene, whose power she could feel floating in her veins? Possibly. Probably. But she suddenly didn’t care.

He slanted his mouth across hers, taking the kiss deeper, and fire kindled in her blood. Something fierce and possessive welled up in her—a sharp-edged need to dig into him and leave a mark—and that had her pouring herself into the kiss, into the moment and the man. He jerked against her, his fingers at her nape and hip, hers fisted in his shirt. And