Page 44 of Ravenous

“And we’ll hope matehood visits Thane this Accession.”

“I’ll drink to that.” Lowell lifted his glass, trying to lighten the air. “So tell me more about your studies…”

As the night grew later, talk and laughter replaced strategy. Meera’s wit cut through her prim mask. She was clever, funny, and far too captivating. He poured with a thief’s precision, always keeping her glass just full enough.

Underneath their banter, something even warmer, mysterious, crackled in the air. Like the hum before lightning, it prickled over his skin, flooding him with awareness.

The energy between them…gods, itbit.

She caught him watching her and smiled faintly. “Have you noticed that we keep—”

“—finishing each other’s sentences?”

She sighed, tipsy and amused. “Yes. And we like all the same foods. The same books. The same sights in the Skein. I’m just drunk enough to say that it feels like something pulses between us.” She traced a finger over the rim of her glass, slow and sensual.

He imagined that finger trailing down his chest, circling the head of his cock. His shaft, half hard for an hour now, thickened painfully.

“Am I wrong?” she asked softly.

“Nay, I feel it too.” Whatever flowed between them was a great deal more than the passion he’d shared with other lasses, more than chemistry. He wanted to explore it fully—in bed with her. He leaned closer, flashing the grin that had undone countless females. “Yet another thing we have in common.”

She stared at his lips, and her breaths shallowed.

“You ready for that kiss?” he murmured.

She blinked. “Uh, what kiss?”

“Our inevitable first one.” His tone was teasing, but his voice had gone hoarse. “I’ll say it plain: I want you. Have since the beginning.”

“Seduction for seduction’s sake.” She tilted her head, and her hair loosened to spill over her shoulder, filling him with its mesmerizing scent. “I’m not your mate or anything, right?”

He didn’t believe so, but the energy said otherwise. Over his lifetime, he’d noticed some Lykae impulses inside him were muted. His Instinct didn’t seem to be as loud, his wolvenness not as pronounced. Could his matehood be one of those times when his experience didn’t match up to those of other wolves?

Unfortunately, no.

Even he couldn’t have stayed away from her after their first meeting, not month after month on the nights of the full moon. “Nay, lass. Though I might wish that were different.”

“So every female before ‘the one’ is just practice?” she asked sharply. “A placeholder?” The idea seemed to pique her temper again.

“Some Lykae say that. I’m more pragmatic. I might never find this nameless, faceless female. I doona dwell on it.” Unlike Thane and seemingly every other Lykae, Lowell could take the prospect or leave it.

“You’re surprisingly blasé. Isn’t matehood sacred? The religion of the wolves? That’s what I was taught.”

“Aye, to most. I guess I’m agnostic.”Hewanted to pick his female.Hewanted that right.

Lowell resented the idea that some cosmic force was supposed to intrude so completely in his life—yet another way he differed from other Lykae. He never spoke to friends or his family about these resentments, nor about how he sometimes dreamed of living outside pack dynamics, able to set out entirely on his own and chart his destiny. “I’m more of a free-will kind of bloke.”

She studied him, intrigued. “A fate fighter then?” Meera’s tone said,Let me know how that works out for you. “You don’t crave the children only a mate can bring you?”

He shrugged. “Canna miss what I’ve never had.” At times he imagined he might like bairns, but his parents had produced a litter of boisterous pups after him, siblings who filled any void.

Bringing the subject back around, she said, “I think a kiss is a bad idea. It might lead to more, and I’m not looking for a one-night stand with a male whose mate is waiting in the wings.” Her words grew in volume, her eyes flickering. The air in the cottage seemed to stir, fanning the fire and rippling the curtains.

The hair on the back of his neck stood up.

She pressed trembling fingers to her temples. “Oh, no.”

“What’s happening here?” The witch’s magic brushed against his senses. But he felt it inside his veins. Feltherinside his veins.