Page 39 of Their Fated Magic

Before I can respond, he slips into the cave, disappearing from sight. I wait, feeling nervous. I wonder if it’s safe for him to go in if he thought to leave me out here while he checked it out.

More time passes. I don’t know how long it takes to search a cave, but it’s starting to feel like too long. I thought he’d be in and out. Maybe I should go in and check on him.

“All clear!” he calls out as he exits the cave opening.

“I was worried about you,” I tell him as I wrap my arms around him.

He laughs. “It’s my job to worry about you. Not the other way around.”

I glance up to tell him just how wrong that is when his lips descend on mine. I let my eyes flutter closed as his warm, firm lips meet mine. His hands slide down my back and grip my waist, pulling me closer to him. His lips leave a trail of fire as they travel along my jawline to my neck.

I gasp at the sensation and push myself closer to him, but he abruptly breaks our kiss, leaving me feeling empty and cold. “Why’d you stop?” I ask, panting softly.

“Because we’re outside of the cave, and the things I want to do to you requires us to be in the cave, safe from predators and the elements.”

“Oh,” I say, my cheeks feeling hot. “Then let’s get in the cave.”

He grabs my ass with both hands and presses me firmly against his erection. “I’ve never wanted anything more.”

TWENTY

Rinan

My fucking chest feels like it’s going to cave in. Every time I try to pull in a breath, it hurts. It burns. It feels like I’m being consumed from the inside out. She’s gone. Gone in the blink of an eye, leaving behind damage she could’ve never imagined.

And she left with him. The speed of my footsteps increase on the winding mountain path, and I feel Arlys and Drogo move to match my pace, even though we’re all exhausted. We have to get to her. We have to reach her.

But I’m dying inside. I’m in more pain than I’ve ever been in in my life. I don’t know what to do with myself, but I’m scared I’m going to lose my mind.

We’ve been trying to track Tara since we discovered her missing in the late hours of the night, and we still haven’t found them. Fuck, we haven’t even found a trace of her, other than the occasional whisper of our scent. A scent I’m beginning to think we’re imagining.

“Where the fuck are they?” Arlys hisses in a low, guttural voice, clenching his fists and breathing hard. His eyes are wild and bloodshot, darting around as he searches for any sign of Tara.

“How did they get so far? I can’t smell her at all,” Drogo says, turning and punching the trunk of a tree, leaving a splintered mess.

Their pain is my pain. I can feel it through our connection, and it only makes the painful hollow feeling inside of me even worse. If we don’t get Tara back, we’ll never be whole again. We’ll never drag in an easy breath again.

And we only have ourselves to blame.

“This is our fault, sticking to that goddamn plan despite how we feel. We hurt her. We made her think we don’t care about her,” I tell them.

We should have given her a chance. A real chance. I knew it from the moment I laid eyes on her, but brotherhood above all clouded my mind. And hatred for the witches and a desire to return things to normal clouded theirs. Now we are paying the ultimate price for our stupidity.

Arlys pauses on the path, and we sit back to look at him. His long hair is tangled. His skin is flushed. And his expression is lost and desperate. “We need to rest. Our minds aren’t right because we’re tired.”

“But if we stop we might not find her,” Drogo says, his words breathless. Exhausted.

“If we keep going, we still might not find her,” Arlys tells us softly.

We reluctantly pause our search. I sit on the ground, my shoulders slumped. My entire body aches. Arlys runs a hand through his disheveled hair, while Drogo paces back and forth like a caged animal. The early morning sun casts a cold light on the scene, shadows stretching our figures like dark tendrils.

My blood hums through my skull. The sound of Drogo’s footsteps beat an uneven rhythm in my mind. I feel something unfamiliar building inside me. I see it on Arlys’ face. He’s about to snap.

Then he does. “Sit the fuck down! You’re making me crazy with that damn pacing!” Arlys yells, hands curling into fists, like he’s ready for a fight.

Drogo responds with a low growl, and I hop up to stand between them, even though dealing with their shit is the last thing I want to do. “There’s no need to fight. We’re all feeling exactly the same, like our hearts are ripped out of our chests. But we’re going to find her. No matter what we have to do.”

To my surprise, Drogo turns to me with desperate eyes. “What if we don't? What if she’s using her magic to throw us off her scent? She has to be! That’s the only reason we wouldn’t be finding her scent. What if they’re going down the mountain and not up?” He looks crazed. Wild. “He’s going to take her away from us and disappear into bear territory. Hell, what if he already has?” He stops moving and quietly asks, “What if we never see her again?”

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