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Chapter Six

One moment, a rush of relaxation came over her.

The next, a rush of burning delight when Alistair cupped her face and kissed her.

Stunned beyond motion, beyond words, thought, or meaning, she listened to what her body whispered, and kissed him back.

There was no explanation for what brewed and bubbled between them. No sensible or logical reason for the attraction that each heartbeat spent together stirred more awake.

The kiss. A forbidden gesture she couldn’t refuse. A craving and hunger she couldn’t understand.

His lips were warm, his kiss gentle and slow. Tension rolled along his fingers, that unspoken urge to turn this into something wild.

Neither relented, but both indulged in this delicacy.

Disappointment welled up from the edges of her spirit when Alistair ended their kiss. He drew back enough that she could focus on his face, the brush of rose over his angular cheeks, the shimmer of indigo eyes mixed with an unusual silvery tint locked on her. She heard his audible swallow, sensed his fight to keep the miniscule distance between them.

She understood.

She sensed it all the time.

One-hundred times, to be exact.

“Oh gods, no,” she whispered, scrambling away from this touch, kicking up sand as she tried to put distance between them. “No.”

“I-I’m sorry.” Alistair’s hands dropped to his sides, a look of hopelessness and confusion coming over his handsome face. Strands of ash-blond hair fluttered over his forehead. “That was…I hadn’t meant...I don’t know what…”

She was at a similar loss for words. Only, she knew thewhatof that kiss. She felt it the instant his lips touched hers. Felt it shoot like a molten bolt to the core of her soul as it melted her marrow and worked its way out.

Reluctant to confirm what she already suspected beyond a reasonable doubt, she sought the familiar warp and weave of the astral world. The unseen plane of energy lines and carefully laid pathways.

If she was wrong, she’d leave tonight. Cat’s Paw Cove was nothing more than a trap that would lead her to the door of a cursed existence.

What if you’re right? What will you do then?

Her stomach knotted.

The first of thousands of lines flickered into view, drawing her into the astral plane. She left Alistair fumbling for words, apparently not realizing she wasn’t listening. One eye in the living realm, one in the astral, she sought the flickering light that spread along the link, a link that began in the center of her chest. It ran through knots and tangles, a true web of living essences and spiritual elements, twisting and turning, up and down, coiling and stretching—

Somewhere, within the dense knot of energy lines, her essence connected with a second line. A second strand.

Please, no.

She was the Mystical Matchmaker with one last match to make, and she couldn’t perform her job if…if…

The combined lines jerked.

A bright explosion of golden light made her gasp.

The astral plane vanished, leaving her to stare at the source of her entwined life essence.

Alistair.

She clambered to her feet. The startled man followed suit, his obvious confusion dimming behind a mask of concern. And…shame?

“Niera, I swear—”

“I hate the ocean,” she blurted, jabbing the hand with her shoes toward the endless expanse of dark water. She didn’t doubt those sea fae were watching, waiting, plotting an attack against her as she stood on the edge of their territory. She’d lose. She’d suffer at their hands. She just knew it. Gods, were those heads bobbing in the surf? Or was that a game played by the moonlight? “I can’t bear to be here.”