Page 18 of Stormbinder King
“He’ll return when he returns,” Jack said.
And on these cryptic words, he moved on, through the forest.
The woods were less frightening in the morning, with Jack leading me. I didn’t feel that sense of hushed expectancy that I had yesterday, or the heated menace of the leaves pooled with humidity.
But the further we traveled, the more my cunt ached, and when he let me down carefully to drink from a sparkling stream, I realized slick wetness was dripping down my legs.
Our fated mate bond made me feel weak and dizzy with need for Jack.
My fingers wandered to the tips of my shoulder, which was burning.
“How long is it going to hurt?” I wondered aloud.
I felt Jack come up behind me, blowing on the protective spellwork with his cool, cinnamon breath.
“I burn for you,” he teased. “Is it so bad to burn for me?”
When he gathered my skirt up in his hands I realized what he meant to do and my heart began to hammer.
“What if someone sees us?” I squeaked.
“Who cares? It is the wolf way to take your mate whenever and wherever you are.”
But he tossed me lightly onto his back again, and I clung on tightly.
Then he made a jump into one of the trees to grasp the branches and he began to climb, sliding up through the wet leaves, my hair beginning to stick to the back of my neck.
My fear mixed with arousal in an intoxicating cocktail as Jack sprang easily from one handhold to the other at dizzying heights.
Up so high I spied the strangest creatures in the mossy nooks and crannies—multicolored salamanders, strange spiders with legs that bent like a nightmare, yellow eyes that blinked at me from deep crevasses.
But they all skittered away as we moved closer.
Jack paused and put me down gently on a high branch, my legs trembling as it bowed in a springy, flexible way underneath our feet.
“I’m going to fall!” I squeaked.
“Never!” he murmured in my ear. “I’d do anything to keep you from getting even the tiniest toe hurt.”
Jack pointed to a bigger tree several feet away and held me tightly by the hand.
“Give me a big jump, baby.”
“A big jump?” I cried, but he was already in the air.
I jumped too, but mine wasn’t nearly strong enough.
It didn’t matter, though.
I looked down as we leaped, my trembling hand clasped tightly in his, looking down through the trees to the sparkling bright stream and earthy brown forest floor far below us.
There was a wild, reckless streak in my mate, because I would never have done something like that.
But it only made me feel more alive.
He landed easily on the opposite branch, pulling my flailing body close beside him.
“Hang onto the tree,” he laughed. “You won’t fall down. I’ve got you.”
