"We shouldn't," he said, but he didn't pull away.
"Probably not," Lyra agreed, rising up on her toes to close the distance between them.
Their lips were maybe an inch apart when her magic decided to express its opinion.
Power flared around her hands like a miniature sun, bright enough to turn night into day for a split second. The surge of energy was so sudden and so intense that it singed the ends of Cade's hair and left him blinking spots from his vision.
"Son of a hex!" Lyra yelped, jumping backward and nearly tripping over her own feet.
Cade stood frozen for a moment, one hand raised to touch his now-noticeably shorter eyebrows, before he started laughing. Not the polite chuckle she might have expected, but a full-bodied laugh that made his eyes crinkle at the corners.
"Did I just—" Lyra began, mortified.
"Singe my eyebrows? Yeah, you did." Cade was still laughing, apparently finding the situation hilarious instead of embarrassing.
"Oh my god, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to?—"
"Lyra," Cade interrupted, his laughter subsiding but his smile remaining. "It's fine. They'll grow back."
"But I nearly set you on fire!"
"Nearly being the operative phrase." Cade moved closer again, seemingly unbothered by the prospect of further magical singeing. "Besides, it's good to know your magic has strong opinions about timing."
"This isn't funny," Lyra protested, though she could feel her own lips twitching with suppressed laughter.
"It's a little funny."
"It's embarrassing."
"It's perfect," Cade said, and there was something in his voice that made her look up at him sharply. "Perfectly, chaotically you."
Before Lyra could figure out how to respond to that, Cade's expression changed. His head tilted slightly, and she could see his entire body tense in the way that meant his wolf was alerting to something.
"What is it?" she asked.
"We're not alone," Cade said quietly, a new tension crept into his voice and a commanding tone that meant alpha business. "Someone's watching from the treeline."
Lyra followed his gaze but saw nothing except darkness between the trees. "Are you sure?"
"Positive. And whoever it is, they've been there for a while."
The romantic atmosphere of the clearing evaporated, replaced by tension and the awareness that their private moment had been anything but private. Lyra's magic, still running high from the near-kiss, began to crackle around her fingers again.
"Should we leave?" she asked.
"Not yet," Cade said, though his posture remained alert. "But lesson's over for tonight."
As they gathered their things and prepared to leave the clearing, she couldn’t shake the unease that clung to her, whispering that something significant had just been interrupted. The magic lesson had been a success, and the almost-kiss had been... well, it had been something she definitely wanted to try again, preferably without the risk of accidental combustion.
But as they walked back through the forest, both of them hyperaware of the other's presence and the sexual tension that seemed to crackle between them like visible electricity, Lyra couldn't help wondering who had been watching them.
And more importantly, what they'd seen.
8
LYRA
The whispers started the night after the forest clearing, soft and insistent, like voices carried on wind that wasn't there.
