Page 14 of Fated to the Lone Shifter
“Noah,”she whimpers, and I look up, her eyes glazed with desire. I rise over her, my body hovering above hers, and she reaches for me, her hands guiding me inside her. She’s tight and scorching, and I hiss as she takes me in, our bodies merging in a rush of heat and pleasure. I move slowly at first, savoring the way she feels around me, her walls clenching, her breath catching with each thrust.
But the pace quickens, the fire around us mirroring the inferno inside me. I grip her hips, driving into her harder, faster, the rhythm primal and urgent. She meets me stroke forstroke, her nails digging into my back, her lips seeking mine in desperate kisses. The air is thick with smoke and sweat, the scent of her and the sound of our bodies colliding filling my senses.
And just before I lose myself in her completely—
I wake.
Heart pounding. Sheets damp with sweat. My skin still tingling like I’ve been burned. My cock is hard, throbbing with want.
I press the heels of my hands to my eyes and breathe deep.
It was a dream. Just a dream.
But I can still smell her. I can still feel her. And I know—this isn’t just lust.
It’s something else.
A pull.
I throw off the blanket and get up. The bunkroom’s still dark, the others asleep. But something gnaws at me. A growl under my skin that won’t settle.
I make my way to my office in bare feet, moving silently through the halls. The door is cracked. Just enough to let in the sliver of moonlight.
She’s not here. But her scent lingers—lavender, smoke, and something older. Something underneath it all that tingles at the edge of my awareness—magic.
I cross the room and open the bottom drawer.
The stone is there.
I pick it up and roll it between my fingers.
It’s warm. Humming. Alive.
There’s no denying it now. It carries her imprint. Her magic.
She was here.
She touched it.
And she’s getting close.
Too close.
And it’s not close enough.
Chapter five
Heat of the Hunt
SERA
Ifinally make it back to my bunk for my first official night on duty. I sit cross-legged on the lumpy cot in the bunkroom, burner phone glowing faint blue in my hand. The house is quiet—night-shift quiet—when even the building seems to breathe in its sleep. My fingers tap quick against the cracked screen as I type the encrypted message.
Reporting in. Identity intact. Status: embedded.
I attach the photo I took earlier of the strange, rune-marked stone—the one I found nestled deep in Noah Benson’s desk drawer. Identical to the one I found near the ash remains of the scorched corpse in the woods. Too identical.
“Coincidence?” I whisper, even though I know better.
