“What do you feel?”
Again, each word came out of my mouth breathy and filled with longing. In the back of my mind, the voice of reason murmured something about responsibilities, but I shoved away the thought. We had a few minutes to spare, right?
“You,” he breathed, slipping his hands under my shirt, “in my soul.”
His skin was warm and his hands callused. I arched my back, panting as he slid his palms across my bare skin. He nipped and sucked his way down my neck, letting his teeth graze against the more sensitive area at the swell of my breast.
“Rage,” I gasped, straightening.
He growled, a low possessive sound that set my heart racing. Then, he crushed his mouth to mine. His kisses were fierce and demanding, but I was just as hungry for him as he was for me. Each passing hour made the inferno build between us.
I sucked his lower lip between my teeth, letting them graze his sensitive flesh, and was rewarded with another growl. Our tongues tangled and teeth clashed, and I met him kiss for kiss, stroke for stroke.
He slid his hands up over my ribs, skimming the base of my breasts, and I gasped. Holding me firmly, he rotated his hips, grinding into me—
Whoa.
Desire rocked through me so strong it was need. My lips parted, and I moaned. “Rage…” I panted his name. “Rage…”
In response, he growled again and slid his hands lower, over the arch of my hip bones, pushing beneath the waistband of my borrowed sweats, pressing his palms flush against my butt, the pressure of his fingertips coaxing me to move with him.
Rage pressed kisses across my jaw, whispering against my skin, “I love you, Nai Crescent—”
I gasped at his declaration, ready to tell him the same thing, when a twig snapped beside us.
“I found him!” a man cried out.
The sound of the voice doused our passion, and Rage tensed against me.
Crap!
“If you’re going to bang her, Rage, you might want to get a room,” the jerk called from beside us. I peered over Rage’s shoulder to see a guard not ten feet away down the narrow path. I didn’t recognize him, but he was probably a Midnight Pack wolf and clearly knew Rage.
Frick. Think.
Rage growled, a low threatening sound so different than seconds before, but we didn’t have time for him to shift and fight. In one fluid movement, I grabbed the dagger tucked in my belt, pushed Rage behind me, and turned toward the intruder.
“Get hi—!” The man’s sentence cut off with a wet thwack as my dagger sank into the dude’s neck.
Rage spun toward me, his eyes wide but focused. “We need to go.”
I leaned to look past him, but Rage stepped between me and the body. “Don’t look.”
I killed the guy, but now I was too delicate to look at the body? I was about to press him on it except … killing out of self-defense and staring at the consequences of the action were two different things, especially since these were members of Rage’s pack.
He spun, leaned over, and pulled my knife from the body, cleaning it on his pants. Then, he handed it to me to tuck back in my waistbelt. Before I knew it, he grabbed my hand, and we stepped forward a few steps to look down at the water.
The world blurred as anxiety washed over me. Gray stone, blue sky, and dark water were all I saw. I swallowed hard, but before I had time to think through what was happening, Rage jumped, pulling me down with him.
Oh. My. Flippin. Ma—
We cleared the edge of the rock, and my stomach rose into my throat, making it impossible to scream as the dark water rushed up to meet us.
Rage yelled—an incoherent bellow—and I sucked in a ragged final breath. Pointing my toes, I slammed my arms tightly against my body as I became a human torpedo into the water.
Please, don’t let me die.
I closed my eyes a split second prior to the icy water rushing in around me. White light exploded behind my eyelids. The pain registered afterward, a deep bone-jarring, crushing sensation, there and then gone. The agony disappeared as fast as it had come.
What the mage?
Understanding slammed into me, worse even than the force of impact. Wherever Noble was, he’d just suffered from my first pathetic attempt at cliff diving because of our shield bond.
Rage’s voice came into my mind: ‘You need to move, Nai, or you’ll end up fifty feet under