Page 125 of A Warrior's Fate

The taste of him was dizzying. The kiss, greedy and claiming—but it wasn’t frantic. It was methodical, unhurried, purposeful. Heavy. And yet still, it felt…restrained. Kai was holding back, but Isla would take what she could get right now. A need, a desperation twined with something charged. A culmination of all the close encounters, all the teasing.

Release, relief—and payback.

Kai ran his tongue over the seam of her lips, and Isla opened for him, circling her arms around his middle and gripping the fabric of his shirt, feeling the hard muscles of his back beneath her fingertips. She tugged him closer. Her towel slipped again, her bare chest one move away from being clearly pressed to his.

As his hand drifted lower—from her waist to her hip, threatening to go further—a groan caught in her throat. She refused to let it out.

There was a fine line here. One that would be obliterated in a second. A moan, a mewl, a coo and he’d lose whatever discipline he was exhibiting, and experiencing whatever that was would dissolve hers too.

But she was better than this—they were. These urges. Their instincts. They’d proven so since the day they’d met.

That stubborn part they shared was still in there, trying to thrive. Coherence was in reach. Somewhere in these seconds that felt like a blissful eternity.

They wouldn’t be bested today. Not like this. Now wasn’t the time.

So, they broke apart. Slow. Breathless. Skin flushed and lips swollen.

Isla retreated a step, adjusted her towel, and tried to settle her heart as she took in her mate’s form—as glorious as she imagined it would be. The taut muscles she’d felt—of his chest, his abdomen, his arms—on display in the uniform he seemed to have obtained from the guard after unshifting. The thin, black open tunic donning the silver insignia tied at his waist with a cloth belt. She could see clearly where his skin was lined with black ink, those tattoos stretching from his elbow all the way up to his shoulder, crossing over his chest and mixing with the lumerosi markings she recognized. She didn’t ponder what they were this time; she was too focused on who they were on. How badly she wanted him against her again.

Her mouth was dry as she met Kai’s stare, as dark as she imagined hers was, before he shot his gaze behind her.

“Oh, please don’t stop on our behalf.”

Isla turned, the female voice, not Davina’s, having come from behind her. Amidst her and Kai’s embrace, Ameera and Rhydian had entered the room. They’d also, thankfully, closed the door behind them. She didn’t need to give any of her squadmates a show.

They stood on either side of Davina, each towering her height and Rhydian with an arm around his mate’s shoulders. Davina had lifted her hand to interlock their fingers. All three of them were wearing some form of astonished and amused expression, and Isla noticed Rhydian and Ameera not only wore similar uniforms to Kai, but they also bore the same form of tattoos.

Heat flooded Isla’s cheeks.

She wasn’t a fan of her family knowing her romantic business, and Kai’s was no exception.

She twisted back to her mate whose lips were pursed. And that smugness—that damn smugness in his eyes. The silence too. It was going to kill her.

“I’m going to put on some clothes,” Isla announced and then refused to make eye contact with anyone as she shuffled past them to grab the garments off the bureau and headed to the bathroom.

Even behind the closed door, she could feel the bond humming between them, a pre-chorus for that symphony it had so desperately wanted to edge them towards.

Isla dropped everything by the sink and ran her hands over her face.

“Okay, what happened to the ‘no touching’ nonsense?” She heard Ameera, just on the edge of trying to be quiet—but not quite.

“They touched at the banquet,” Davina said, a bit more successful in keeping her tone low. After a pause, she added, “Isla told me.”

“You didn’t think to mention that?” Ameera again, her voice raising an octave at the end. “Are you mated?”

“No,” was all Kai answered.

His voice had become hard again, and Isla could sense what was brewing beneath his skin. She’d felt the same as she realized there were specks of dried blood on the tips of her fingers. Not Kai’s from what she could scent.

Nothing could be about them now. There were rogues. People had died.

As Isla moved back to the sink to wash her hands and splash some cold water over her face, she heard their conversation continue. But it had gotten softer, nearly indiscernible over the running water.

“Where’s Jonah?” Davina asked, citing the missing final member of their little family.

“Do you actually think he’d leave the shop unattended while rogues are running around?” Rhydian quipped of his twin.

“When I left, he was posted at his front door with a sword,” Ameera drawled. “Maybe now, he’ll finally put those years in guard training to use.”

---