A Blood-Like Rain

— Kaden —

I took a careful step in her direction.

She didn’t try to stop me this time.

I took another step, then another.

I could see she was hesitant, so I walked cautiously, but I kept walking.

I think she only processed my proximity when I got within arm’s length. She put a foot back, I stopped. She extended her arms to give me back my bandana. I took it and in the process my skin touched hers.

It was like a lightning bolt of shivers. I didn’t take my hand away. I wasn’t sure I could. I heard her breath caught in her throat, her body sway lightly towards mine. I took one step closer. One long step that got our bodies nearly touching. My hand was still on hers, the bandana forgotten and lying on the grass now.

The moon was rising, it was a bright night tonight, but not bright enough to see within that hood. It was just shadows.

I wanted to ask her a million questions. Her name, to see her face, where did she live? But all those questions crumbled in my mind. It was like trying to hold water in your hands, constantly slipping away. I should use restrains but my body didn’t want to listen to me. I lowered my head barely catching myself in time, barely holding back. But in respond she bent hers back, and it was all the invitation I need.

I lowered my head further and pressed my lips on hers.

I’ve kissed a woman before, I’ve done plenty of things with a woman before, but it felt like, all these years, I had no idea what kissing could really be. There was, at this very moment, and entire universe opening before me.

The only way for me to release my hold on her hand was to wrap my arms around her waist.

She mewled and it was the sweetest little sound I’ve ever heard. I pressed her harder against me and her arms went up over my body to give her fingers access to my hair. Her grip was strong but not painful and she tugged at me to deepen the kiss. Which I willingly obliged.

We were taking short breaths in between caresses. Our lips never truly apart. Our breath intermingling. Our heartbeats deafening.

The intensity was such that it took me a little while to realize something was wrong.

— Elaeya —

My heart was becoming painful, my feet faltered. I was starting to think I was about to be sick. I opened my sense to decipher what was happening to me. That’s when a sound got me out of my head and back into reality.

Steps.

Someone was coming. Someone close.

And suddenly my malaise took a whole new dimension. Was someone doing this to me? Was someone hurting me? Attacking me?

senses further do detect this

large figure close by. Too close.

say more than a foot taller than me. He had dark clothes, dark hair. The faint dusk light gave me a glimpse of his face. He had a few days old stubble. He was made of hard lines and square jaw.

looking straight at me with purpose and

a step back in

hardly see his expression, so I couldn’t guess at his intentions,

panicked, raising one hand to tell him to back off. My

to me?” I dared

to one side in confusion.

then get his attention more focused on

him, opening my senses up, but my instincts said nothing. He wrapped the cloth around the pebble, showed it to me and threw it in a

More confused than ever, I caught it.

feel any magic, any energies stirring when he did this. I didn’t sense negative energy from the cloth or the stone.

attention completely off him, but I turned my focus some. And I got a smell.

myself from

I was smelling, only that it changed everything.

eyes back on him. I couldn’t see his eyes, like he probably couldn’t see mine, but I know our gaze

mother wasn’t around, that most wolves valued mates more than anything. Some could go to great lengths to find their mates. That rejections were rarely done. That it had an impact on someone’s

as strong had been to hold me for the first time after I was born. That it’s like the world tilts, the axis changes, and now gravity find a new source. Never did those words make any sense as much as now. I thought I understood him,

I could finally see his

me. I wanted to bolt but I could barely move my feet. But he stopped moving. I could see he was worried. His expression was hard to read, it was guarded, but I could also see that he didn’t want to stop. I didn’t want him too either,

I understood he was himself a poison far deadlier than anything I could have ingested. All of a sudden, the cloth in my hand felt like it was burning.

to give it back to

skin touch, never realizing the lethal potential something

as he grew closer—his heat palpable through my clothes—I could only lean into it in

I had lost my mind, but never so much as when he

it should have been a warning. Something for me to be wary of.

I had never been one to be so reckless, so impulsive. I knew restraint and control. But not tonight, not anymore. And the enchanting attraction

of control, the temptation

drowning in rapids, trying to hold on to the rocks. I needed a rock for my mind.

to know it was that of a sword. And next to it was another weapon, I didn’t need to

I focused on that knowledge harder.

armed and

was just there kissing him.

It took me everything to lower my right hand until it lay on his heart.

gain back