Page 40 of Last Ride of the Umbra Fae

He huffed a laugh; his breath, feather-light, fanned across my face. Spearmint. Always spearmint. Never a hint of whiskey or herbed smoke. He was always too clean, deadly without calloused hands, but something snagged my attention.Hewas hiding something.

“Is there something you want to tell me, bird?” I opened up my senses. A copper scent tinged my nose, sending my shadows on full alert.

“There is nothing to be said.” His eyes hardened.

“Lies.” Tendrils of shadow unfurled from the tips of my fingers, curling around my arms until they drifted beneath his shirt, sliding up the hard plains of his abdomen, a second pair of eyes to see something I couldn’t.

“What are you hiding?” I whispered, slightly tilting my head in observation as a wicked smile curved my lips, seeing how my touch easily undid him. It was a void he was so easily drawn to, a place he could never reach. I was his temptation. Whatever he was hiding would be in vain, because the shadows found his lie, tearing his shirt at the sleeves.

My eyes widened at black veins spreading across his shoulders under remnants of dried blood. His body must have been trying to shift while riding into the city.

“You need to shift, Raven.”

“No shit,” he said dryly before stepping back into the bedroom and toward the balcony.

“Then why are you still here?” I yelled, my voice strained as I followed right behind him. His height eclipsed the light. Sure, we were always battling one another, but I still cared for him. He turned quickly, stepping into my space, but I stood my ground despite every fiber of my being wanting to rest.

“You think it’s easy to be me? That being in the form of a male comes naturally? This right here”—he pounded both hands on his chest—“is my second skin. The longer I’m in it, the more I realize how much I hate it. I cannot stand to be in this form.”

“You don’t have to do anyth?—”

“Yes,I do, and that’s what you don’t understand.” Raven combed a hand through his hair and clenched his fists. “You think it’s easy watching other men live a normal life while I’m stuck in this space between two different worlds? And now it’s an even more constant, looming reminder withhimaround.” His breathing deepened. Silence hung in the air as he desperately searched my eyes. My mouth fell open slightly, unable to find the words, but I knew I couldn’t tie myself down to anyone.

“We are not romantically bound, and I belong to no?—”

“No one. It’s what you always say when avoiding your own shit. But you know what I think about that?” His gaze darkened.

I took a step back, but he moved forward until my heels hit the edge of the bed and my ass sank into the mattress. He leaned closer, caging me between his arms as his knuckles pressed against the bed. A few loose strands of his hair hung forward, barely brushing against his thick, dark brows.

“Lies. Because it’s pretty obvious you want to be his. I don’t need this fucking bond to smell your arousal.”

Moments passed, and there was nothing I could say as tears lined our eyes. I wanted to say I was sorry, yet in the same breath, I wasn’t, because we both understood our arrangement. We would always be a fucking mess. He had his life, and I had mine, and somehow, we would always meet in the middle to help each other. It seemed like he had been helping me more than I had been returning the favor. I cupped the side of his face, allowing the faintest thread of power to open the bond so I could feel what sort of pain he was in. A tear fell from his eye the moment he felt it, feltmeslipping in.

This is just the bond, nothing more,I said to myself as we held one another’s stares.

“Is it?” Raven said aloud. I sucked in a deep breath, my pulse heaving itself to a racing speed as his eyes trailed down my face, lingering on the seam of my lips before flicking his gaze back to mine.“We were never given a chance to find out.”

His voice penetrated my mind, my soul, feeling the thick, heavy beat of my heart at the intensity of our bond once it was fully aligned. I quickly closed the connection.

He huffed out a laugh, watching the heat flush across my face while he held me caged between his arms. “All we have is time, Vessa, no matter how fast the world is changing around us.”

Drawn to the truth of his words, I swallowed the lump forming in my throat.

“You always had the choices I didn’t,” he whispered, his nose gently grazing the side of my face.

I opened my mouth to speak, but a knock at the door seized my next words.

Raven chuckled darkly, the sound reverberating against my chest as we remained frozen. I looked back at the door, knowing who stood on the other side of it.

“Be careful who you run to when you’re lost.” Raven’s whisper fanned down the column of my neck.

When I turned to meet his eyes, he was gone. Nothing but a fading shroud of misted shadows left in his wake, and my sight narrowed on the faint silhouette flying off into the city.

For the first time, I didn’t just see a bird, I saw a raven, flying into the night, looking for

his next hunt.

I opened the door to find Ryder in a fresh pair of clothes—a dark gray shirt that clung to his muscular form, matching his pants. His hair was freshly brushed under his cowboy hat, which he removed with a slight wiggle of his brows. A smile quirked those soft lips, ones that I was drawn to. I liked this side of him, the softer side, as he stood in the doorway, leaning into the frame with piercing blue eyes.

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