Page 98 of Chaos and Destiny
“You’re going to be the death of me.”
“Probably.” I closed the space between us. His lips were everything I imagined they would be, and as he brought his hands up to gently hold the side of my face, I felt the real contradiction of who he was. There was an invisible line between us, and somehow within our endless kiss, I saw him. Who he pretended to be to the outside world and who he truly was with his friends. His family.
I pulled back, catching my breath and searching his eyes. Had he felt that too? That invisible line.
“Okay?” he asked carefully.
I nodded and kissed him once more. That intense passion had always been there. It might have been masked as hatred, but there wasn’t a single moment between us that wasn’t deeply emotional. His lips massaged mine before he nipped at me as his hands roamed more of my sensitive body. Somewhere along that line, I’d lost the divide between his need and my own.
He planted his hands on my hips and pulled me closer to him, then ran his fingers through my hair and made a guttural sound as I moved against him.
“Shit,” he whispered against my collarbone. “This isn’t how I planned it at all.”
“No, but isn’t it so much better than torture?” I asked, lips still pressed to his.
“It is exactly torture.” His heated gaze stole my breath.
“Wait.” I pulled away. “You aren’t going to tell the others, right?”
“Gods no.” He smiled.
I heard a grunt behind us, and then someone cleared their throat. I pressed my forehead to Fen’s shoulder and squeezed my eyes closed. “If we ignore them, will they go away?”
“What is it?” he bit out.
“I’m sorry to interrupt, Fen,” Greeve said. “I can just wait over here until you’re ready?”
“Absolutely not.” I jumped off Fen, immediately putting five feet between us.
His face was taut, and I knew Greeve was in for a fight later.
“Someone better be dying,” he said.
“There’s something I need to discuss with you. Alone.”
“Hey. I thought I was part of the team now,” I protested.
“You heard her, Greeve. You better tell us both.”
“Right. Sorry, Ara. For interfering with your magic lesson.”
My cheeks reddened, but I absolutely refused to look away.
“Get on with it,” Fen said.
“While we were walking, Kai thought it would be good for me to cleave ahead toward the Western Gap so we could travel in a straight line instead of walking all the way to the mountain range and then going west. I agreed.”
“What happened?” I asked, putting my pack on my back.
“I didn’t get all the way to the Western Gap, but when I got close, something felt off. Dangerous.”
“I think we all assumed there would be danger,” Fen answered.
“We should go around. Head down to the Eastern Gap, cross the range where everyone else does and then come back down. Avoid the Western Gap altogether.”
“For so many reasons, that’s a terrible idea,” I said.
“I’d rather scale a mountain than get that close to the Gap again, Fen. I don’t know what’s there, but even the wind pushed me away.”
