Barnabas and Fallon had used a portal key to travel back to the capital. Both lived there and needed to grab a change of clothes and some supplies before joining us again. Since Kaillen and I had packed lightly, we had what we needed for the time being.
“This sucks.” I leaned back onto the bed and draped a hand over my head.
Kaillen inched closer to me, a wicked smile curving his lips. “I know what we can do while we’re waiting.”
A laugh escaped me despite all that had happened. “Oh, I can only imagine what you have in mind.” Just the thought of the hunter settled between my thighs made tingles begin in my belly.
His nostrils flared, and he threw me a devilish smile. “While my ability to arouse you at any time of the day makes me disturbingly happy, that’s not what I had in mind.”
I pushed up onto my elbows and unbuttoned the top of my shirt. “Really? Then what did you have in mind?”
He watched my fingers before he locked his jaw. “I was thinking we should train. You detonated an incredible amount of power on that ship, but it was uncoordinated. You need to learn how to control it better.”
“True.” I undid another button.
A musky scent rose from him, then a muscle flexed in his jaw. “What are you doing?”
“What does it look like?”
“That you’re trying to seduce me.”
“Such a wicked mind. I’m merely changing in preparation for training.”
He chuckled. “Doubtful.”
“Fine. Maybe changing isn’t what I had in mind.”
“We should train,” he said hoarsely when my shirt parted, exposing my abdomen and the swells of my breasts.
I leaned up and nipped his lip. “We’ll make this one quick. Promise,” I said, purposefully using words and actions that he’d used on me in his man cave.
With a groan, his arms were around me and he had me flat on the mattress.
That insatiable need for him rose up inside me again. My mate. Mine.
Apparently, Kaillen felt the same, because in a blurred movement, my clothes were off, and then he was sliding inside me. He started slow, his strokes long and grinding. I grasped him to me, giving in to the erotic feel of him until we were both panting, our need growing. His thrusts became faster and more frantic. I moaned, my body coiling around him.
We came together, our climaxes vibrating so strongly that I felt his through the bond and I knew he felt mine too. I had no idea sex could be like this, but I knew as we lay spent and panting in one another’s arms that there could never be another. Kaillen was my mate. I was his. And even though so much else was chaotic in my life, for the first time since meeting the hunter, I was beginning to make peace with where we were, even if the manufacturing part still bugged me.
I may never know if a relationship between us would have been possible before, but that was then, and this was now. It was time I let it go.
He smacked my ass as I spread like jelly on top of him. “Up, woman. It’s time to train.”
I rolled to the side, as he slid out from beneath me to stand naked in the room while hunting for his clothes. Unabashedly, I admired the view. “Why are you so insistent on training now?”
He hiked his pants up. “Because magic leaves residue. Jakub’s proven capable enough that he may be able to sense your magic and find you again. If he does, you need to be ready to defend yourself.”
“You mean, like the way you were able to sense him after coming into contact with him?”
“Yes.”
I pushed to sitting, and the hunter’s attention dropped to my bare breasts and parted thighs. I lazily picked up my shirt and lifted it over my head. Taking a cue from my sister, I did it languidly, giving him a thorough show of my back arching, my stomach tensing, and my breasts straining against the material until it settled.
When I finished, I peered up at him. Fire and gold danced in his eyes.
“You were saying?” I asked innocently.
Musk poured from the hunter, and with a curse beneath his breath, he turned so he no longer faced me, but I still caught the bulge that had grown in his pants, and I knew that he suffered from the inevitable pull and need that came with the bond.
“I’ll meet you downstairs,” he said striding toward the door.
“Really?” I asked, not believing that he was actually leaving.
“Really,” he replied dryly. “If I don’t leave, I already know that I’m going to spend the rest of the afternoon fucking you.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
His nostrils flared as he stood at our room’s threshold. “Train first. Fuck second.”
The door slammed behind him, and a thrill ran through me. Well, if my hunter wanted to spend an afternoon training in which his magic entered my body and stroked my power from the inside out, then I supposed I could appease him.
After all, it was delicious foreplay.
∞ ∞ ∞
Kaillen found a quiet area in the inn’s courtyard, so we settled ourselves on the grass. Similar to earth, the grass was green. Well, mostly. Blades of sapphire, marigold, and pink also intermixed with the emerald stalks, so when the sun hit it, the grass turned into a dancing array of subtle rainbow colors.
I’d just connected my forbidden power to Kaillen, readying for a new training session, when the feel of the hunter inching along our bond caressed my insides. The tantalizing way we bonded birthed a sudden idea in me.
I sucked my magic back inside me, my wolf growling her displeasure. Yep, Mrs. Wolfy had perked right up at the feel of her mate’s energy strumming toward her.
Kaillen opened his eyes and cocked an eyebrow.
I closed the distance between us, placing my hands on his thighs. “What if I suck magic from you and Barnabas and Fallon?”
“Why would you do that?”
“You said that Jakub may be able to track me if he has a hold of my energy, and we know that if I activate the curse, he’ll definitely be able to find me. So what if I enhance my magical footprint by feeding off all of your powers? That will not only increase my magical footprint—perhaps making him come for me—but I might also be able to see past his cloaking spell by using your powers.”
His eyebrows drew together. “But you couldn’t see through his cloaking spell on the ship, and you were feeding off fifteen supernaturals.”
“True, but that was during battle when I was a bit frantic. I’d lost my cool, and I wasn’t controlling it or corralling it. It was wreaking havoc on my insides, which I think is why it blasted from me. But if I could corral it and wield it, perhaps then I’d be able to see him.”
His hand curved around my waist, almost absentmindedly as he considered my idea. “But if you were to increase your magical footprint to attract him to you, then Jakub wouldn’t be running from us, he’d be hunting you again.”
“I know, but if we’re prepared for it—”
A low growl rumbled in his chest. “That would put you at risk by making you the prey.”
“I’d be the bait, not the prey. I have no intention of being prey ever again.”
Golden light flared in his eyes. “That’s taking a substantial risk. We wouldn’t know when Jakub would show or how many supernaturals would be joining him.”
“Doesn’t magical residue fade with time?” He nodded, so I added, “In that case, most likely, he’ll act soon. So if I lure him to me by increasing my footprint, there’s a good chance he’ll show when we want him to.”