What the Heart Haunts(7)

He didn’t have a clue, except... “Why’d you kiss me?”

Pain and longing blazed through her eyes, so fast and hot there was no hiding it, no matter how hard she tried. Finally Nalla jerked her head away and glanced out the windshield, tilting her face so that her hair fell across her shoulder to hide her eyes from him completely.

Khost took two quick steps towards the semi, but stopped just short of touching her. “Why?”

The word came out a harsh, desperate breath. He’d been happy until then. Perfectly happy.

“What difference does it make? You didn’t do anything bad enough that Herne would cut you down.” She turned, swiping back her hair with a hasty jerk of her hand. She’d stuffed all her emotions somewhere else, because they weren’t in her face when she looked at him this time. “That is if you just go home.”

“No.”

Khost reached up, caught her around the waist and hauled her out of the truck. Her eyes widened, but he wrapped a hand around the back of her neck, his fingers threading through the silken strands of her hair. Like a shock, his whole body tensed. Electrified by the startled wonder in her eyes, the sharp blast of fear. All that longing came roaring back and Khost couldn’t help it, he leaned in and pressed his lips to hers. The moment his mouth touched hers, she broke into shivers.

Nalla grabbed his shoulders and held on, as one after the other, he ghosted the lightest touches of kisses against her lips. It was unlike anything he’d ever experienced before. A thrill, an unknown. Kissing her was like running blind and it called to a different part of him. A part he hadn’t even known existed, at least not when he’d made his vows to Herne.

No one or anything but the Hunt and your god. Me. And Khost had nodded and sworn reverently to the hunt-master.

But he hadn’t known there could be this.

Nalla whimpered and shoved him back. “If you do this, you will never go back.”

He opened his mouth to say something flippant, like he didn’t care, but she laid a hand over his mouth and shook her head. The movement wild. Her eyes were stretched so wide he could see the tears shimmering in them perfectly.

“You can never go back. Don’t you understand...that’s an eternity here. Where everyone else dies. Where you can never stay anywhere for too long because someone could realize that you’re not getting older. Where you can never have friends and never have the bliss of the hunt.”

So she was a Hound. Khost stared at her, stunned, then watched as a tear slipped down her cheek. She closed her eyes and turned away.

Khost wiped it away, staring at the streak of moisture on his thumb in awe. A soft breath left him. Sadness. It was like an old memory unfolding inside him. Something his soul knew, but this body had forgotten. He glanced up at her. “How do you bear it?”

He leaned closer and laid the gentlest kiss against her cheek, right where he’d wiped away her tear. Loneliness clawed at his chest, yet another thing he’d forgotten, but somehow, somewhere he’d known it. “Being here. Feeling all of this?”

Nalla took in a shuddering breath before she turned back to him. “I don’t have a choice.”

“But why? How did you end up here?”

“I kissed a man.” She frowned and the depth in the look of her eyes, all that emotion, he couldn’t even begin to understand it all. “I loved another Hound.” Her smile hitched up at one end, almost...bitter? “I broke my vows.”

Nalla let her hands fall to his chest and she shoved at him, trying to move him away but Khost didn’t budge. “And now I’ve tried to break yours. Go.”

“I kissed you.”

Nalla shook her head. “No. I kissed you. Ignore the rest and run back for the stars. Forget this ever—”

“I’m tired of forgetting.” His brows furrowed and he glanced around, the rest stop dead quiet in the middle of the night, and then he glanced back at her. Suddenly, going back to a place where he knew no one else—not really at least—seemed so lonely. He knew several of the other hounds by name, but he couldn’t remember doing much with any of them. Just running. Then Cissy had asked him to do something and it had made sense, so he hadn’t seen why not?

But none of it had meant anything. None of it mattered.

This, right here, Nalla...it mattered. At least to him.

“I want to remember.” Khost caught her head in his hands and leaned forward and kissed her again. But this time, it wasn’t with the faint brushes of a man not sure.

No, this time when his lips settled on hers, it was with the confidence of a man who wanted more...and knew how to take it.