Page 29 of Raven's Instinct
Kendra leaned forward to stir the fire and let him continue at his own pace.
“The elemental I met was old and powerful, and could easily have snuffed me out without a second thought. If I’d gone inmad, or proud, or looking for a fight, it wouldn’t have been a battle, just a slaughter. Instead, we talked. And I listened. Have you ever seen pictures of the polygonal permafrost patterns on the north slope?”
“That sounds like the set up for a joke or the start of a Gilbert and Sullivan number,” Kendra said.
“It’s no joke. Scientists have explanations about how ice wedges form and thaw in the active layer, but not all of the formations are entirely accidental. The drilling company had disturbed some of the glyphs. This elemental was trying to keep them from breaking protections that were in place for a reason. I got the oil executives to move their operations by a mere mile, and the elemental gave me a parting gift.”
“That raven you gave me? No, you said you made that.”
“It gave me the ability tomakethe tokens. I had been carving trinkets since I was a kid, but it took one of them and showed me what to draw on it to make it magic. This symbol meansconnection. I tried making them for other people, but they didn’t do anything for anyone outside of my team. And it has to be on a raven, nothing happened on any other kind of sculpture.”
“That’s weirdly specific,” Kendra observed. “But I guess that if magic didn’t have some pretty strict rules, it would be all kinds of chaotic. And you said it didn’t do the same thing for the rest of your team that it did for me.”
“Maybe you and I had something different from the start.”
Kendra was silent, but she didn’t try to deny the connection that they had.
“I should get to bed,” Kendra said, before Alan could gather his courage to press harder. “I’ve got a packed calendar of appointments tomorrow and slow reflexes mean getting kicked or bitten.”
Alan rose when she did, and put the fire out thoroughly while she folded the chairs and stowed them under the van. She pickedhis empty cup up off the gravel as he smothered the final glowing embers with sand.
“Let me walk you to your door,” he offered chivalrously when he stood.
“I might get lost,” Kendra teased, but she seemed as reluctant to send him away as he was to go.
Alan had pins and prickles of nervousness and hope. He’d never had much use for romance. His few relationships had been short-lived, and the examples around him mostly demonstrated that sex made friendships messy, so he kept things carefully compartmentalized. His raven was companion enough.
Until Kendra.
Bright, clever Kendra with her big heart and cool head. She rose up onto the first step of the van and turned to face him instead of opening the door. “It seems a little unfair that I know how you feel about me and it didn’t go two ways. Just to level the playing field, I think you’re pretty hot.”
“No one wants to drink me cold,” Alan said, only wondering after he said it whether it was terribly inane. “Can I kiss you?”
Kendra was about the same height as he was when she was standing on the bottom step up to her van, and when she tipped her head to him invitingly, he didn’t have to move far to close the distance and press his mouth to hers.
20
KENDRA
Kendra should have known better.
Kissing wasalwaystrouble.
It was kissing a cute guy at a bar after a convention that had landed her in a regrettable relationship with Amy’s dad. Before that, kissing a boy her parents disapproved of had gotten her kicked out of the house. Even earlier, kissing a classmate under the bleachers had gotten her two days of detention.
But kissing Alancouldn’tbe wrong. Instinct was singing encouragement in her ear, and she hadn’t been exaggerating about how hot he was…or about how hot he made her. It felt like she was being irradiated. And when he kissed her…wow, did hekissher.
He gathered her face in both hands, firm but so gentle, and he claimed her passionately, like her lips were the source of water after wandering the desert.
He kissed her softly at first, then desperately, and then more tenderly, like he seemed to realize how rough he’d gotten. Kendra’s lips tingled when he finally backed away and released her. He didn’t get far, because Kendra’s fingers were in his hair.Her other hand still held his teacup, and it was a minor miracle she hadn’t dropped it.
“Kendra,” he breathed, and he smelled like bergamot and campfire.
“This is inconvenient,” Kendra said.
“Kissing?” he asked in confusion.
“I only have the one bed, and it already has a toddler in it. I’m also not sure it has the clearance for what I want to do with you. And I don’t meansecret agencyclearance.”
