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My sounds grew more clipped, my breathing faster, eachnoise a little higher than the last. “I love the way you fuck me.” The words were a desperate confession that made Grae pump into me faster, the slick sounds of our bodies filling the night air.

“Oh Gods, oh Gods,” I moaned louder as he thrust deeper, hitting that perfect spot within me that set me ablaze. And I knew then that there would never be enough of this, never enough of him. We were one soul, one body, one deliciously sweet pleasure growing between us.

White-hot yearning consumed me as I rocked my hips, riding him as he thrust into me. His mouth dropped back to my breast, sucking and swirling around my tight nipple, making me arch. The sensations were too much, my body vibrating like a plucked string. His teeth tested my nipple right as he thrust into me hard. My sounds turned to screams as I called out, “Grae!” so loud the Moon surely heard and my climax tore through me, so massive, so world-bending, so much more consuming than I ever knew was possible.

I had no name, no body, no history beyond this moment. I was a symphony of pure pleasure.

My vision clouded to nothing but stars, my muscles clenching and releasing around him, working him to his own release. With two more frenzied pumps, Grae barked out a cry and followed me, tumbling over the edge, coming inside of me. His body twitched against me as the sounds of our release intertwined, his slick torso collapsing on top of mine as our muscles continued to echo where we joined.

His chest rose and fell against me as mist pricked against our skin. He rolled to his side and pulled me against him, his arms folding around me. I rested my burning cheek against his chest. His hand swept slowly up and down my back as I closed my eyes. We weren’t two separate beings anymore. I felt it shift into place with the same certainty I shifted into my Wolf. We were two notes in the same song, two destinies of the same fate, two bodies with the same soul.

Thirty-Six

His soft lips traced my temple. Songbirds chorused in the early-morning light. The roiling ocean waves had settled into a hushed melody, slowly sweeping over the rocks and back again.

“We need to get going,” Grae murmured into my hair.

“No,” I rasped, my voice scratchy with sleep. I stubbornly curled further into him, slinging my leg and arm around him as if that would hold him in place.

My cheek bounced against his chest as he laughed. It was a beautiful sound, one that filled me with pride because I knew it was hard won. Seldom did I get to hear his genuine laughter, not since we were young. A chuckle, a snicker, perhaps, but that gorgeously open timbre of his laughter filled me with golden light.

“We’ve got to find Galen den’ Mora in the city,” Grae said with another kiss to my head. “Destiny awaits, little fox.”

“Destiny can wait one more hour,” I grumbled.

We’d barely slept. The night had stretched on oscillating between running in our Wolf forms and stopping for unbounded bursts of passion. We got closer and closer to the city through the night, but every time I thought it was sated, my desire would surge in me anew. Every time I shifted I wanted to be marked with Grae’s scent, claimed by him again. Grae learned every inch of my body just as I learned his—along with all the ways wecould make each other come undone. We collapsed outside the city just before the dawn, the need for sleep finally demanding to be heard. I wasn’t sure if it was the newness or the excitement that my deepest wish had come to pass, but I seemed endlessly ready for him, even now in the quiet of the morning.

My hand traced idly up his bare thigh and his arm tightened around me.

“Calla,” he warned. “Hector will start looking for us soon.”

I let out a frustrated sigh and stayed my wandering hand. “Hector is probably all the way in the capital. He’d have a lot of woods to scour before finding us.”

Nothing held me back now—my fingers found Grae’s skin whenever they felt called to touch him. I hadn’t realized how much I needed to be touched, to feel his warm skin and soft kisses and whispered breaths, that buzzing sensation of skin against skin that slowed my pulse and calmed my mind.

“When will we be able to do this again?” My lips skimmed over the dusting of black hair on his chest.

“I don’t know,” he murmured as his hands circled my back. “But if it’s more than a day, I may combust.”

“Agreed,” I said with a breathy chuckle.

Grae gathered me to him, kissing the top of my head one more time. “It feels wrong to let you go.”

I tipped my head up and kissed him. “Then don’t let me go.”

Grae twisted to his side and my leg hitched higher over his hip. He let out a frustrated groan. “You are making it very hard to do the sensible thing right now, little fox.”

I brushed a lock of his black hair behind his ear. “Where are we going to find clothes?”

Our clothes from the day before were shredded to pieces and reeked of juvleck. We wouldn’t be turning back for them.

“Clearly you didn’t spend much time gallivanting off in your youth.” Grae’s cheeks dimpled. “Maez, Hector, Sadie, and I used to nick them from humans’ clotheslines. I’d send a bag of silver to whoever we stole from, but, yeah, we were wolflings then.”

“I’ve done that once,” I protested. “When I was running...”

The words died on my lips.When I was running from you.

“Ah yes.” Grae’s hand slowed its sweeping circles down my back. “We found your discarded clothes in the woods. When I realized you’d doubled back to lose us”—his hand stopped—“something broke in me. I knew then you weren’t just trying to get to Maez, you were trying to leave us behind, too.”