Joy's hand stilled on his chest. She pushed up on one elbow to look at him, her eyes wide and vulnerable in the dim light. For a moment that stretched like eternity, she just stared at him.
"I love you too." Her voice came out whisper-soft, but the words hit him like thunder. "God, Andre, I love you so much it scares me sometimes."
He pulled her down for a kiss that was different from all the others. Tender. Reverent. A promise sealed between their lips. When they broke apart, both of them were breathing shakily.
"I've never said that to anyone before," Andre admitted, his thumb tracing her cheekbone. "Never felt it. Not like this."
"I know." Joy pressed her forehead to his, their breath mingling in the small space between them. "Me either. This is... everything."
But even without the claiming bite, he felt claimed. Marked by her pleasure, by her trust, by the way she'd demanded all of him and then given herself just as completely. Sleep pulled at them both, their bodies exhausted from the intensity. Andre's last conscious thought was wonder at this woman who could command him so completely, then demand he command her in return. His mate. His match in every way.
The pride of making her come apart so thoroughly, of reading her body's signals and giving her exactly what she needed, settled warm in his chest. He'd never felt so necessary, so perfectly suited to another person.
Chapter
Seventeen
Joy dozedagainst Andre's shoulder, her body still humming with satisfaction from the night before. His arm wrapped around her, holding her close as he navigated the familiar mountain road in the predawn darkness.
The words floated between them like a gift.I love you.They'd both said it. Meant it. Her mountain lion purred with contentment, for once perfectly aligned with her human heart.
Then the scent hit.
Smoke. Not wood smoke from a chimney or the clean burn of a campfire. This was different. Acrid. Wrong.
Joy's eyes snapped open as her mountain lion surged to alertness. "Do you smell?—"
"Yes." Andre's arm tightened around her as his foot pressed harder on the accelerator. The truck's engine growled with the increased speed.
The smell intensified as they drew closer to her property. Joy straightened, hands gripping the door handle. Her hearthammered against her ribs. They crested the final hill, and Joy's world shattered.
Columns of smoke rose against the lightening sky, thick and black. Orange flames danced where her hives should be sleeping. The careful rows she'd tended for years were transformed into pillars of fire.
"No!" The word tore from her throat.
Andre barely had the truck in park before Joy wrenched open the door and ran. Her boots slipped on the dew-wet grass. The heat hit her face twenty feet away, but she kept running.
Twenty-four hives. Years of work. Generations of bees she'd raised from packages and splits. Burning.
The sound was the worst part. Not just the crack of wood splitting in the heat or the whoosh of flames consuming wax. Beneath it all, desperate buzzing. Thousands of bees trying to escape through entrances blocked by flame and warped wood.
Joy grabbed her work jacket from where she'd left it hanging on a fence post. The nearest hive hadn't fully caught yet—flames licked at the back but hadn't reached the entrance. She wrapped the jacket around her hands and wrenched at the entrance reducer. It came free, and bees poured out in a frantic cloud.
"Get out! Go!" She moved to the next hive where flames hadn't fully engulfed the front.
Andre appeared beside her with a shovel from her tool shed. "Tell me what to do!"
"The entrance reducers—pull them out!" She pointed to the small wooden pieces. "Give them room to escape!"
They worked in desperate tandem. Andre used the shovel to knock entrance reducers free from hives she couldn't safely reach. Joy cleared the ones she could, ignoring the heat that made her eyes water. Clouds of bees erupted from each opened entrance, confused and smoke-drunk but alive.
A hive in the middle row suddenly collapsed inward with a horrible crash. The buzzing from that one stopped instantly. They were running out of time.
"Three more in the back row!" Joy's voice cracked. But as they rounded the corner, those hives were already fully engulfed, flames shooting from every opening.
Andre caught her arm as she stepped forward anyway. "Joy, those are gone. There's nothing more we can do."
She sagged against him, the jacket falling from her numb fingers. They'd saved maybe a few thousand from tens of thousands. Clouds of confused bees circled overhead, homeless and disoriented, while their sisters died trapped inside burning boxes.
