“It is,” he replied, his voice a tad croaky.
We moved closer to the edge and lowered ourselves to the ground. Sitting next to each other, I once again felt the urge to be closer to him. To feel his touch. Why do I keep wanting that?
I resisted the urge to rest my head against his shoulder again this time, however, and instead said quietly, “I’m glad I’m not leaving so soon, Bastien.”
His gray irises reflected the starlight as he looked deep into my eyes. He didn’t need to answer for me to see just how glad he was too.
Bastien
A war was raging within me. A war I was losing with each moment that I stayed immersed in Victoria’s blue eyes.
It had crept up on me like a thief in the night, this feeling in my chest. This pull toward her. This desire.
Was this what I should be feeling for Rona?
Was this what my father had felt for my mother?
But this could not be. Not now, not ever. It was wrong on every level. More than wrong. It was fatal.
As eager as I had been to steal some time alone with Victoria this evening, now I was terrified. And yet, as I beheld her beautiful face, it was a terror I could not pull myself away from. I was losing myself to something. And it was swallowing me fast.
I drank in her appearance like a dying man. Her sparkling eyes, her rounded nose, her soft cheeks, her full lips. I had always found her lips beautiful but now… I wanted to touch them. I wanted to feel them. I wanted to know what they tasted like. I wanted to delve my fingers into her dark hair, explore every curve of her body.
An uncontrollable surge of longing coursed through me. I barely even heard her as she spoke to me. Her words were like echoes in my head, distant, far away. It felt like the world around me could disappear and I wouldn’t notice.
“Bastien,” I vaguely heard her whisper. “What are you thinking?”
That was my problem. I was not thinking. I’d lost my mental faculties. All I could do was feel.
But feeling wasn’t enough. I needed to reach out and pluck those cherry lips. I needed to…
The next thing I knew, my hands had moved to her face and my lips were on hers. Her breath hitched, but then her arms were sliding around my neck, closing the gap between our chests. Passion already burned through my veins, and her gesture set me alight. She wanted this, needed this, just as much as I did. All I was aware of was the blood pounding in my ears, Victoria’s soft ivory skin beneath my fingertips, her scent and taste beguiling my senses, the way her bosom heaved with uneven breathing. I wanted to possess her. Every part of her. Kiss every inch of skin that I could reach between her clothes…
I was not sure how we would have ever stopped kissing, or how deep I might have lost myself in her on that mountaintop, had the howling of two wolves not pierced the night.
Victoria
I supposed, deep down, Bastien and I had sensed all along that we were on a collision course. Others like Brucella had just seen the end before we had.
Bastien had known the fatality of that kiss. And yet, as he crushed his lips against mine with hooded eyes, he barely seemed cognizant. He kissed me slowly at first, his lips taking time to explore the contours of mine before his breathing became heavier, his caress more demanding. He claimed my mouth fully, marking his territory.
My mind had gone long past reasoning, too. My vision was still blurry when Bastien’s lips unclasped from mine, my mouth tingling from the force of his kiss.
Was that howling we just heard? I wondered, trying to piece the fragments of my intoxicated mind together. It sounded like it had come from the cluster of boulders above us.
Everything after that was a blur of confusion to me.
For the first time, Bastien swore. He grabbed me and flung me over his shoulder, and then he was heading for the portal.
“Wait!” I gasped. “Bastien!”
What’s he doing? Is he going to drop me through the portal?
If that had been his intention, he never got the chance. Two wolves bounded down from the boulders—a large light brown wolf, Brucella, and a muscular darker brown wolf, Dane. A part of me was hardly even surprised to see them here. We had already had reason to believe Bastien was being stalked at every opportunity. They had just been waiting for us to slip up.
I guessed they had followed him out here from the mountain. Bastien should have noticed, and perhaps he would have, had we not been so wrapped up in each other.
Brucella and Dane positioned themselves directly in front of the portal, blocking our way.
“You have gone too far with this wench, Bastien,” Brucella hissed. “I will not have you make a mockery of my daughter and our family!”