“They are called sea tigers. See, he longs for your touch, Telya,” Kael murmurs and crouches beside me.
“Yeah? Is he the only one?” I ask boldly.
“Hardly,” he says, and I feel my body respond.
But the creature in my lap objects,
It makes a sound like a seal laughing and then looks up at Kael as if to ask,Who is she?
He answers only with a look—soft, possessive, like the way he watches the tide—and my chest squeezes so hard I can barely breathe.
There’s hunger in that look, yes, but there’s something else too.
Awe maybe?
And promise.
That’s what really moves me.
“Thank you,” I tell him sincerely.
“For what?”
“For this. The animals. I love them.”
“You are a softhearted thing, aren’t you, Telya?”
“I never thought so, but maybe.”
“You’ll have to be carful here. Nightfall is never what it seems,” he warns me, and I receive it like something tragic.
“Will Nightfall hurt me, Kael?”
Thewill you?goes unasked.
“I’ll keep you safe, Telya. No one touches you. No one.”
And for some reason, I think he means it.
He watches me after that, and I know without a doubt I’m getting in over my head.
The hunger inside me is constant and stupid and beautiful.
It’s a low ache that lives in the soft place between my legs and a lighter, more dangerous hunger that wants nothing more than to press my face into the small hollow of his throat and breathe him in.
Kael walks beside me back to the bonfire. He is polite to the people, Lordly in his measured generosity, and yet every time he thinks I’m not watching he slides his hand to my back, to my waist, to the place where his tail loops and squeezes as if to remind me I belong to him.
The squeeze sends hot bright pinpricks through me—reminders that undo me all over again.
Chapter 19
Kael
Second Shore—TheTidal Lands, Nightfall
Alaric’s words before he parted earlier this evening echo inside my head.
“The zareth needs no explanation, Kael. Either you feel it, or you don’t. But you’ll know. Either way, you will know. Trust me on this.”
