“I love nights like this. So...feral.”
She rolled the word off of her tongue and Khost closed his eyes, clamping his jaw shut to stave off a howl. His head tipped back and the muscles in his throat constricted, but Khost held the sound back. Nalla moved closer. Her leather jacket brushed his stomach. Her breath was hot against his neck. Khost automatically went to step away, to put distance between him and her, when she caught him by his shirt and pulled him closer.
She curved a hand around the back of his neck, pressing his head down as she stepped into him. “Khost?” she whispered against his lips, making his name sound like a sigh of the wind. An ancient howl, sounding deep, lost in time. Faint.
He trembled. His throat worked twice before he managed, “Yeah?”
“Sorry about this.” Then she closed the distance between their lips and kissed him.
***
Chapter Two
Nalla felt him tense against her, his breath hissing out between his teeth. His muscles bunched as if he were ready to bolt, and for a second she thought she’d misjudged him. But when her palms slid to cup his face on either side, holding him to her, he broke. A staggered gasp spilled from Khost as his hands found her hips and dragged her flat against him. His whole body shook, but he didn’t run.
There was power in his hands, strength. An answering wildness she hadn’t felt in so long. A keening whine spilled out of her lips. She shouldn’t...this poor man didn’t have a clue. Didn’t stand a chance. She was going to ruin him, for one night, for a chance at revenge, but when she swept a tongue at the seam of his lips and they opened, Nalla couldn’t stop herself from slipping inside. He tasted sweet, like cinnamon and spun clouds, and sweet Herne, like a wild night of running through the sky. It’d been so long since she’d tasted stars and moonlight that she didn’t want to stop.
Nalla stepped into him, shoving him against a tree. Khost gave a low grunt, his arms winding around her hips as she pressed herself tighter to him. Loving the way the muscles in his stomach clenched when her hips touched his, loving the shiver that trailed through his thighs. Nalla broke the kiss and nipped over his jaw. The ache to run pouring out of her. It’d been so long since she’d had anyone else.
Khost sucked in a hard, ragged breath, his head falling back to rest against the tree. He was fighting, shaking and she did the only thing she could think to do. She slipped her hand up his stomach and pressed her lips back against his mouth and whispered, “Catch me.”
Fire flashed in his eyes, a wild blaze that nearly consumed him, then Nalla was gone, sprinting over the ground. She pelted through the woods, the thud-thud of her shoes against the forest floor, the crash of her breaking through heather and thicket. Behind her, she heard Khost give chase.
Nalla sank into the effort of moving, pumping her arms, her breathing suddenly steady. Khost growled behind her, impatient. He was gaining on her. His strides longer, stronger. Unlike her, he hadn’t been grounded for the last four hundred years. His Hound would be filling every vein in his body. It wouldn’t be long before he careened off into the sky, running wild in a way she couldn’t anymore.
And she should let him.
Nalla squeezed her eyes shut, trying to ignore the rip in her heart at the thought of watching him bound into the sky, as the hound-body over took his so he could run for the stars without her. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t watch him Change and leave her standing here on two legs, while he ran through the sky on four. She wasn’t that strong. I’m so sorry, Nalla thought as she turned, staggering backwards and opening her arms to catch him around the waist.
Khost slammed into her and she took him down, leaves dusting up from the impact of their bodies slamming into the dirt. He grunted and flipped her, his body suddenly sprawled out over every inch of her. Nalla surged forward and kissed him again, dragging his bottom lip between her teeth. Khost gasped, his hands fisting in the leaves around her head, his kiss almost frenzied. Control snapping dangerously close to the end of its leash and then suddenly he was gone. One minute Khost was draped over her and the next, he was standing against a tree, staring down at her, shaken.
He swallowed. “I, uh, I can’t do this.”
He shook his head and shoved a hand back through his hair, pausing as his fingers curled into his hair. “Shit. I’m sorry.”
No, no, no, no. Nalla rolled to her feet, trying to keep herself from screaming. She couldn’t stand this anymore. She stepped towards him and Khost jogged away from the tree, away from her. “Wow. Not going to bite you.”
A wince flashed over his face. “I’m sorry.”