Page 281 of Pucking Feral: Part Two

I'm going to fucking die.

Then whatever or whoever the fuck just grabbed me hits the ground, twisting mid-fall with his arms locked around me so that when we land it's his back that takes it, his shoulders absorbing the full impact with a sound that punches the air out of both of us.

We hit the slope hard and slide.

Several feet of loose ground rush up beneath us before we catch on gnarled tree roots, my duffel bag hitting my hip with a thump, and then we're still. My face is pressed against a warm throat. My knees are on either side of a torso so broad my thighs can barely span it. My hands have found the fabric of a shirt and twisted it up in fistfuls.

A shirt that smells like dark mountain forest.

I push back to look and my heart starts pounding for an entirely different reason.

"Misha?"

His growl hitches.

The brightness in his eyes is feral-hot and he's vibrating everywhere our bodies touch. And we're touching everywhere. He's completely wrapped around me.

"I… I thought I told you to stay in the loft," I manage to croak.

He just stares at me, pupils pinpricks in the white beam from my flashlight.

The hysterical laughter that bubbles out of me is definitely not appropriate. I know that. But I can't stop because it feels like my giant terrifying puppy followed me into the woods and I just reminded him I told him to stay. Both hands are pressed over my mouth while my shoulders shake, and the sound that comes out through my fingers is kind of embarrassing.

The blazing eyes blink.

"Misha. Wraith." I get one hand free from my mouth and press it against his chest. "Hey. Hey. Look at me."

The growl shifts, softening slightly, and the too-bright gaze drags to my face.

I pry his huge scarred hands loose from the fabric of my jacket and press them flat against my sternum. My heartbeat is hammering. He'll feel it immediately.

"I'm right here," I say. "You followed me." I squeeze his hands tighter against my chest. "That's okay. You're okay. Feel that?"

His fingers spread against my sternum, feeling the thud of my pulse.

The growl continues, but the absolute rigid tension in the cables of his forearms softens the slightest amount.

I wait.

The blazing brightness in his eyes dims by degrees and his pupils expand slightly. His teeth part, then close again, and the recognition floods back into his face all at once.

He lets out an utterly distressed growl.

"Don't," I say before he can pull his hands away.

He goes still.

"Don't apologize to me right now. I'm serious." I adjust my position, still sitting squarely on him, and fix him with the flattest look I can manage while I'm still fighting leftover laughter. "You saved me from eating dirt on that slope. I was gone, Wraith. My heel went and I was about to somersault down a hillside."

His eyes slide back to mine, uncertain.

"I would have fallen even if you hadn't popped up out of the shadows and scared the shit out of me," I promise him, even though I'm not actually sure about that. "So… thank you."

He breathes a nervous huff of air through his nose.

I settle more comfortably on his chest, pulling my knees tighter against his rock-hard abdomen, and he lets me arrange myself without fighting it. His hands drift up from where I pressed them to my sternum and settle at my hips instead, a gentle, present weight.

"You were never going to stay at the house," I tell him.