Page 66 of Moonmarked

I stepped away from the tree, and I only needed to get past another three to get to him. I wasn’t trying to keepquiet. I was trying to grow fucking wings to get to him faster, so I stepped on a twig and the sound echoed in the night, and Rune heard.

He stopped, froze, chest suddenly still, eyes wide open—and right on me.

It was like the world was suddenly mine. He saw me.

I ran.

Without even breathing, I ran with all my remaining strength the fifteen feet it took me to get to him, and Rune didn’t move. He only watched me, eyes wide and a silvery blue, shocked. At the last second before I jumped into his arms, he threw the swords on the ground and caught me.

His arms locked around my body tightly like he wasneverplanning to let go again. Not enough air in the world but I didn’t mind. Rune was there and I was in his arms and everything was okay.

Because I was never planning to let go again, either.

twenty-one

“Where did you come from, Wildcat?”

His whisper in my ear.

That name that I had missed so much more than I was capable of imagining.

It’s Rune, it’s Rune, it’s Rune,went the thoughts in my head, and I no longer even felt my arms from how tightly I had wrapped them around his.

Then we were moving.

I had no idea where he was taking us, but my eyes were closed and I couldn’t have cared less. He could throw us into the ocean, and I wouldn’t mind—as long as he was in there with me.

The air suddenly shifted, and the darkness spread, and a door swung closed. My back was against a wall, and then Rune’s hands were everywhere on my back, my arms, my hair. He pressed himself against me while he made sure I was all in one piece, whispered under his breath things I didn’t understand.

Light exploded behind my closed lids, so close, and iturged me to open my eyes. When I did, my little bird was flying in the middle of whatever room we were in.

A weak cry escaped my lips when I loosened my grip around his neck and allowed him to pull me in front of him. I was smiling and I was crying and I was a fucking mess—but I was happy. I wassoaring.

I was with Rune.

“Let me look at you,” he said, and his hands framed my face. We were touching everywhere, and that was the only reason why I allowed myself to move back a little more. My hands were on his face, too, and in his hair, and I pushed it back, looked at his eyes as my little bird flew over our heads to give us light.

My God, it hurt so beautifully to feel his breath blowing against my lips, the tips of our noses touching, our chests rising and falling in the same rhythm. Nothing else mattered except this. Nothing.

“You’re here,” he whispered, and he sounded surprised at his own words. “You’re here, Wildcat. You’re here.”

There were so many things I could think to say in that moment, but none of it really mattered. So, I crashed my lips to his and kissed him like he was my lifeline—because he was.

Rune didn’t stop me. He pressed me against the wall harder, and I felt all of him against all of me, and we were already one even though we still had our clothes on. My nails dug into the skin of his shoulders and he moaned into my mouth, and every inch of me caught fire. I was burning for him, my body moving against his uncontrollably as he kissed me with the same desperation, the same speed, like we might die in the next moment.

Rune pulled me away from the wall and spun us around, and the bird made of light followed. Two steps andhe leaned down and lowered me onto a hard surface—definitely a table—then let go of me to push something to the sides, get them out of his way—definitely chairs. His chest was against mine, his tongue in my mouth, his hard cock pressing deliciously against my center.

Just like that, the whole world—the whole universe and every realm in it—disappeared.

His hands were around my waist, pulling up my shirt, slipping underneath until he gripped my skin, and I burned anew. His name was on my lips when his teeth sank into the soft flesh of my neck, and his hips thrust against me.

“By the stars, Wildcat.” His face loomed over mine, and I saw his eyes, so alive and so blue, the maps in them silver and perfectly clear. “I was fuckingdying.”

“No, no, don’t die,” I said with barely any voice, shaking my head, as if I really thought he might collapse to the floor right now.

“Oh, I’m not going anywhere.” A deep thrust of his hips as he watched my lips part and a louder moan slip out of me. “And neither are you.”

It was a fucking promise.

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