And I’d missed him. I could admit that much to myself if not to anyone else.
I grabbed his face and pressed my mouth hard against his, angling my head, inviting him in closer, opening myself to him. He paused as if he wasn’t sure and then a low groan slid from him into me and he kissed me back, his body pressing down on me, the pull of the standing stones forgotten in the heat between us.
There was no hesitation, then his arms wrapped around me, curling me close to him. The heat that had been there before igniting within us on a dark, snow-filled night, seemed to have grown in the absence. The world around me faded to the points of contact where our skin touched, where our mouths touched, to the taste of him. He felt like home, like he embodied the desert and the fire deep in the sands that I loved. He fit in ways I couldn’t fully grasp, in ways that no one else in my life ever had.
There was zero excuse to hide the heat between us this time, no alcohol to say it was an accident. That we didn’t remember, that we hadn’t meant to touch each other, to get lost in each other’s kiss.
Someone cleared their throat, then a wing smacked against my forehead, startling me. I pulled back a little, breathing hard.
Lila tapped me on the shoulder, whacking me a second time. “They’re gone. So if you’re going to mate right here on the ground, I’m going to sit with the horses and try not to hear.”
I stared up at her. I was still flat on my back, Maks on top of me, and we were pressed hard into the mud.
His blue eyes stared at me like he was seeing a ghost. “I thought I was dying back there, Zam. I thought. . . I thought you were the last thing I would see.”
“Well, you were dying, to be fair.” I pushed on his chest. Now was the time to act casual. Like I hadn’t just kissed his face off, or he hadn’t just had his hands under my shirt branding the skin of my torso with his fingers.
Yup, act casual. That was the plan.
Thank the desert gods for the black of the night that hid the growing heat in my face. Then again, maybe I was lighting the place up like a fucking torch. A giddy noise tried to escape me, and I clamped on it, turning it into a coughing snort that was anything but attractive. Maks stood and slapped me on the back.
“You okay?”
I waved him off, keeping my back to him. I needed to pull my shit together. What the hell was wrong with me? Idiot, I was being an idiot. My body was exhausted, and my emotions were spiking all over the damn place like a ping pong ball in a match with two octopi.
“What happened with the stones? What did you hear?” Lila swept around us. “You wanted to go into the stones, and I really don’t recommend that after what I saw.”
I turned to her. “What did you see?”
“Well, you’d know if you hadn’t been so busy sucking his face off--” She grinned at me, her glimmering teeth glinting. I drew a slow breath and smiled up at her.
“I was not sucking his face off. He was under a spell, Lila. I had to distract him.”
“Well, you distracted him so long that neither of you saw what happened. And the danger was long past when you finally stopped with the kissy face business.” Her grin widened impossibly.
Damn it, she wasn’t going to just let this go. “What happened, Lila? And I don’t need anything but the facts,” I asked as nicely as I could.
“They lit up from inside, their bones and muscle showing through their skin as if electrified, then they were slowly pulled apart, limb by limb, all the while unable to speak,” Maks said softly, surprising me. “You did save me, Zam. I would have walked into that without question.”
I knew it. There was no surprise for me there. I’d felt the pull myself, though it had been milder for sure. I’d at least been able to shake it off. “You’ve seen it before then?”
“Yes, and I’m going to suggest we move away from here. The call is still there under the edges of my skin. The Emperor, if he realizes I’m standing here, will try to drag me in like he did those two.”
Two. Only two. I stumbled away from the stones in time to see a spark whipping across the open plain. “That’s the last Jinn, and he’s headed for Kiara.” I knew without question.
Maks stepped up beside me but didn’t touch me. Maybe that kiss had been nothing more than a passing fancy to him, like the one before. Just a mistake.
Nope, I was not following that line of thought. This was not the time to get all worried about Maks’s feelings, or the lack of, that he might’ve had for me.
“We have to get to Kiara,” I said.
Maks shook his head. “We’re too late already.”
“How does he even know where she is?” Lila landed on my shoulder. “Like how?”
Maks closed his eyes and slumped where he stood. I grabbed him by the arm and helped him to Batman, all but shoving him onto the big horse. Mind you, it meant I got to put my hands on his ass. A small bonus I couldn’t help but notice despite the situation.
Lila snickered as I shoved Maks up. Of course, she’d taken note of just where my hands were. “Convenient,” she muttered.
“Maks, how can he know?” I repeated the question as he slumped in the saddle. Whatever injuries he had were showing themselves now that the worst of the danger had passed.
“He can smell her on you, so he’s following your trail right back to her,” he mumbled.
I leapt onto Balder’s back and spun him around the way we’d come. Lila clutched my shoulder, and I gave a long low hiss to my horse, driving into a mad gallop through the darkness.
Batman bolted after us, but I didn’t look back. Maks was out of danger. But I’d put Kiara right into its path. Kiara, pregnant, the first lioness to be pregnant since the massacre.
I leaned low over Balder’s neck, urging him faster than was smart for the pitch-dark night, but I trusted him and his footing. He picked up on my panic and let loose, leaving the partially lame Batman well behind us. We had to get there. I had to stop the Jinn from taking Kiara.
Otherwise. . . this was all my fault. Fuck my life. If I lost Kiara, everyone would think I’d done it on purpose, that I’d done it to get back at Steve and her for my broken heart. When the truth was. . . I would never put her in danger no matter what happened in the past. She would always be that little cub stuck in the mud with the gorc coming for her and I would always fight to protect her. It was in those heart-pounding moments as we raced along that I realized in my own way I’d tried to protect her from Steve too. That was why I’d been so angry. Because I knew he would hurt her.
And I’d been trying to stop that from happening ever since that moment I’d first rescued her.
Because she was part of my pride, and I was an alpha and protector, despite my size.
I gritted my teeth against the emotions that swelled, knowing they would do me no good.
In the distance, I saw the flames long before I saw the hut and I knew I was too late, but I didn’t slow Balder, not for a second. There was still a chance. I had to believe it was possible to save her.
We came to a sliding, mud-flinging stop twenty feet out from the hut.
Marcel and Stella were flat out on the ground, but no Kiara.
“Kiara!” I screamed her name, already knowing she would be gone, feeling her absence more than anything else. She’d been taken by the Jinn.
I jumped from the saddle and ran to Marcel, dragging him farther away from the flames, then went back for Stella. Though she was three times as heavy, I hardly noticed.
The flames around the hut burned bright gold, red, and green, the flames of a Jinn. Even if I’d had a river at my feet and buckets in hand, I’d be useless against the flames. Magic was the only way to deal with a Jinn’s fire, and magic was something I didn’t have in my arsenal.
I stepped backward and went to Marcel. I dropped to one knee and patted his face.
“Marcel, wake up. What happened?”
He groaned and leaned into me. “Oh, man, that was too rough. This is why we don’t flounce our own women.”
My eyebrows shot up. “You were flouncing Stella?”
“Giving her comfort in her grief.” He slowly sat up and put a hand to his head. “Damn, I’ve got another nub for my efforts.”