Page 8 of Shifters Reckoning

Before his lips brushed mine, I paused to study his eyes. New cobalt shadows danced in his gaze, marring the bright blue of his irises, and pain reverberated through our bond. Something had changed in him, damaged him in a way I couldn’t yet define.

“What happened to you out there?” I whispered.

Had it changed the man I’d bonded? It was as though I could see the wound in him, as though he reached for me from the depths of a chasm I didn’t understand. The pain caused a rush of moisture in my eyes. God, he was drowning, and I didn’t know why.

His mouth tightened.

“Logan?” Please.

“I… I…” His voice cracked, and he growled as if to cover it. “I need you, Emma. Now. Every day. Always. You’re mine.”

CHAPTER THREE

logan

Emma released a whimpering sigh, a surrender of her need to know what had happened to me. Gratitude beat in my heart. We would deal with what I’d done later.

For now, her emerald eyes shone bright with tears, and fuck, every drop felt like a weight in my chest. I hated how close we always came to losing each other. My arms weren’t enough to keep the threat away. Her body against mine wasn’t enough to erase the ache of what might happen tomorrow.

She smelled of blueberries and sage, and I had to be closer, had to fill every inch of her, allow our bodies to melt into each other. I needed to forget what had happened out there, and I needed her to forget what had happened here too.

“Don’t cry, love.”

She sniffed. “Can’t help it. It’s been one of the hardest days of my life, and I didn’t know if you were okay after you siphoned all that energy out of me. It took everything I had to keep from hurting everyone I’d been linked with.”

Instead of explaining what I’d done, what I needed her power for, I crushed her to me. Her nipples brushed against my chest, against the raw place where the blisters had been before I’d healed them by shifting twice. Acheron’s wounds closed slowly, even for a shifter. Dark work always did.

“Nothing, and I mean nothing, is ever going to separate us,” I rasped, then gritted my teeth to keep the determined howl of my wolf inside.

“Fuck, Logan. Don’t make promises neither of us can keep,” Emma whispered, her voice thick with emotion.

“It’s the only promise I intend to keep until my last breath.” I spoke with alpha authority, and it surprised me. Too many factors in our complicated life that were beyond my control.

Still, I knew there wasn’t a force in this entire fucking universe I would allow to take Emma from me. I’d give my scarred soul to keep hers whole. Without hesitation. Whether it went piece by piece or in one final, sacrificial act, it didn’t matter. I’d already died once for her.

And I would do it again.

I’ll die for you as many times as I am allowed, Emma.

My lips pressed hard against hers, devouring her with all my hunger.

She responded with the same fervent need until her tears came again, and her kisses slowed. Her lips left mine, trailing along my jaw, down my neck, and across my shoulder, leaving a trail of fire and water over my skin.

“Never leave me,” she demanded.

“Never,” I growled in confirmation. “Never willingly.”

Her hands slipped up my chest, up my neck, until her thumb brushed against my cheek like she was memorizing every angle, every flaw.

“Never willingly,” she repeated. “Show me, Logan. Show me that you’ll always be here. That we’re here. We’re us. Today. Now. And this is the only real thing that matters.”

“This. Is. Real,” I said. I dropped a kiss on the furrow between her eyebrows before pressing my forehead to hers. “We’ll bend the whole shifter universe to our will.”

How well I understood the depth of desperation in her heart. The agony rippled from mine to hers and back again. Whatever had happened to her must have been as brutal as my using her wholesome power to destroy. God, we’d almost lost it all a hundred times over.

The air radiated between us, warming the space. Maybe our bodies hadn’t fully caught up to the reality of our safety. Emma’s breath was hot and unsteady. With my fingertips, I traced the line where her ribs met, slow enough to make her shiver and ground herself in this moment.

We are real. This is real.