Page 47 of Eternally Yours

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The warm light of a flickering flame woke me from a deep dream. Fractures of blurry faces and muffled sounds dissolved back into my subconscious as I pushed up to my elbows, trying to gather my bearings.

As I sat up straighter, I rubbed my temples, memories of what transpired flooding back like a tsunami. Shit. The Order. The attack. Looking around, all I saw was the roaring fire and the shadows dancing on the walls.

Where was I? Fuck, where the hell was Loren? Pushing to my feet, my world wobbled for a second before I saw her sitting on the opposite side of the firepit.

“You look better,” she said, her eyes sunken. Despite the glow of the flames, she looked pale.

I’d fed from her and almost drained her. “Loren, I’m so sorry about before, I—”

“No need for apologies. You needed blood. I gave it to you.”

Pressing a palm to my bare chest, I noticed my flesh had completely mended. My leg too. With the amount of toxin that had been in my system, I shouldn’t have been this well off. Not to mention I felt as invigorated as if I’d taken blood from a human.

I walked around the fire pit and sat next to her, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear. “Thank you for saving my life. I know I took more than I should have—”

She put a finger to my lips. “It’s okay. You were in bad shape when I dragged you in here.”

Looking around, I asked, “Where are we anyway?”

“What do you remember?”

“After we escaped from the tunnel, not much.”

“You lost consciousness shortly after that,” she started. “But I was able to find this abandoned cave not too far off. Thankfully, it seems to run pretty deep. Doesn’t seem the Order followed us. Or if they have any more wolves, they haven’t caught our scent yet.”

I had zero recollection of making it into cave, but the fact she was able to drag my ass in there was impressive.

“How do you feel?” she asked.

I ran a hand through my hair. “Like I slept for hours,” I said. Which meant it was probably daytime and now we were trapped. Being pinned inside this cave made us extremely vulnerable to an attack. “We should snuff out the fire. The smoke could draw them to us.”

Her gaze dropped. “Well, that sucks. Took me forever to remember how to start a fire with a stick and stone.” Standing up, she kicked dirt onto the firepit.

Unease settled in my gut. That wasn’t what peeved her. When she’d asked how I felt, she’d meant something else. Loren had fed me her blood, and I’d more than accepted it. I’d almost drained her. I had no clue how she was even standing.

Not to mention she’d been bitten by those wolves too and had no side effects to their toxins. Her body had healed at an accelerated pace. And now that her blood was circulating in my system, I could feel the intense power coursing through her. I felt more than healed. I was rejuvenated. My bones and muscles—every fiber of my body felt reinforced, as if melded with titanium.

Unfortunately, feeding from her also meant I wouldn’t be able to hide my desires from her any longer.

As she put out the last of the embers, she said, “It’s a nifty trick. Sensing someone's feelings as if they were your own.”

Heat spread across my chest as my night vision kicked in. “And now I know how it feels when someone prods your brain without permission.”

She turned toward me, her gaze penetrating. “Or your heart.”

I pushed back with my own hard stare. “I let you intomyheart back at the lake.”

Her lips parted, but she quickly silenced her words. There was reservation churning inside her as she tried hard to shield me from her emotions.

No sense in trying, Beastie.

“So, what now?” she asked, looking around, trying to sidestep the conversation she’d started.

Happy not to venture down that path for the moment, I followed her new trail. “We stay put until night falls and then we find a way out of the woods.”

“And then?”

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