Chapter Twenty-Six

 

Tabitha always had been a quick study, she smiled to herself. The nano-device was nothing short of miraculous. She accessed the internet, found out how to use the device, and triggered a locator. Now all she had to do was travel toward him.

Night fell, but she was too keyed up to make camp. Lipton had disappointed her, more than she wanted to admit. Some people’s prejudices were too ingrained.

She continued until the moon rose high and full above her head, shining through the thick branches of the lodgepole pines. The pungent aroma of fir trees surrounded her. The chill air pricked at her skin.

The device made her a warm coat and gloves. The backpack had granola bars and toilet paper. She felt like a rich woman, hiking through the Kwadacha, headed to find her love. It didn’t take a genius to figure it out. She was willing to die for Savich. She must love him. And he loved her.

She walked until dawn, anxious to be in his arms.

She didn’t know what the future was going to hold for them. If he were banished again, she would go with him. If he was to be executed, she would demand they kill her as well. It was simple really. She found the person she wanted to be with forever. Dead or alive, it made no difference to her. She’d been at death’s door, and the beautiful glowing lights had called her home. And then there was Savich, leading her into darkness. They belonged together.

Tabby smelled blood. A lot of it. In spite of the pungent coppery tang in the air, she wasn’t worried about Savich. She thought she would be, but the closer she got to him, the more excited she was to see him again. She had missed his solid presence and his steady demeanor. She couldn’t understand why the Krinar race had turned him away for so long. He hunted scary dinosaurs. So what? And it’s not like he was supposed to bake his own bread on Kavelt, right?

She picked her way through the wilderness, easily marking the game trail she had chosen. The device she took from Savich was intuitive, and she had figured out how to make it perform like a compass, only making Savich her true north.

She heard his breathing before she saw him, and then parted the branches that obscured her view.

He stood over a mangled body. His long black hair whipped in a breeze the mountain kicked up. Red covered his lower jaw and chin, and his amber eyes flashed upon meeting her gaze. His muscles rippled through the tears in his shirt, and he heaved from his exertions. His hands hung down by his sides, and they dripped with more blood.

Even though she had already had him, a flare of want sparked deep within her.

“Hey,” she said. Her voice sounded husky to her own ears. The wind seemed to still at the sound of her speech. “Are you okay?”

His smile could only be described as feral, and the zing of desire she spied in his eyes made her knees weak.

“I am now.”

“They’ll banish you for what you’ve done.”

Savich looked at her. “How do you know what I’ve done?”

She felt her face warm. “You don’t have that haunted look in your eyes anymore.” She swallowed. “You killed them all.”

“I did.”

“They were Krinar,” she whispered as a tear fell from her eye.

“I knew it when I killed them.”

And that told her all she needed to know about how he felt about her. That, and the unholy gleam in his eyes.

She felt like a deer caught in headlights.

He looked so raw. Like he’d opened the cage and let something wild out.

“Savich,” she said in a low voice, using her hands to make a calming gesture. I have no weapons. I’m helpless against you. “I’m here now.”

He nodded slowly and advanced toward her, his steps treading silently on the forest floor. Stalking her.

“They’re gone, aren’t they?” Her voice was a squeak. So many emotions tumbled in her heart. Elation. Jubilation. Freedom. Breathless anticipation bordering on anxiety. He kept approaching her. She took a step back, even though her heart urged her forward.

He nodded.

“Thank you,” she whispered so quietly only a predator could hear it. He stepped again, and her heart beat triple time. She noticed he wasn’t using that one gesture on her. True—he had no weapons, but he was a weapon. She couldn’t understand it, but she wanted to run. She wanted him to catch her. “Savich.” She said his name on a slim breath, then turned and ran into the brush.

Visions of their interludes blurred her eyesight as she leaped over logs and ducked under low-hanging branches. Her own breath drowned out the sound of her pounding heart. She couldn’t hear him; he was as silent as an owl. But she knew he was behind her.

She dodged another branch and took a sharp left, then darted right, mimicking the evasive maneuvers of a snowshoe hare. Excitement tore through her belly, the tension of the chase contracting the distance between them.

And then he fell upon her with a roar.

He pulled her into a turn, and she prayed he was making one of those magic mattresses because they were going down now, his powerful body swooping over her like a raptor on a coney.

She landed on something soft, but her attention bored onto the harsh planes of his face. She should be disgusted by the blood on him, by the animalistic nature of his growls, but she knew Savich. She knew his heart, and beastly as he looked in this moment, she knew he would never harm her.

His eyes closed, and his mouth descended on hers in a ferocious kiss. His fangs nicked her lip, and she tasted her own blood. She whimpered beneath him, feeling his every muscle shift. Something tickled along the length of their bodies, and she realized he’d manipulated a nano-device to run over them, removing dirt, but also clothing.

He pulled away from their kiss, and the stains cleared away from his jaw and lips right before her eyes. She stared at his dear face, memorizing his expression.

He no longer looked haunted by her demons. Or his own.

She traced his cheek with a delicate hand. “You’ve sacrificed your freedom with the Krinar for me.”

“Yes.”

He took her mouth again and was not gentle. She yipped when he used his teeth to pull on her tender lips, but it only spurred him on.

“Savich,” she said into his ear, “I think I love you.” He licked the skin below her ear lobe, but then she felt a double sting at her throat, and then a pull, as if he had discovered her soul hiding behind her heart and was now tugging it out to join his. It pulled and pulled, and then an ecstasy she couldn’t name shattered her chest. “Oh god!” She screamed afresh as waves of orgasms rolled over her entire body.

He growled and sheathed his dick inside her, joining their physical bodies where their souls already danced among the energy swirling between them.

Tabitha felt whole and bright, like the northern lights were bursting from her breasts and loins and his darkness filled up all the empty spaces.

He rocked in her, whispering pleading words in her ear while letting his groin rub her deliciously at her center. Her arousal spiked, and her pleasure crashed against him once more like a wave over the shore. She came and fell more in love. She stared at his face, squeezing his ass with her desperate fingers and crooning at him to come for her.

His amber eyes seemed to glow with that night-shine she saw when he rescued her. How did she not know he was a Krinar then?

His mouth turned down as he speared her repeatedly, searching her face for something, and when she smiled at him, he exploded and stilled, letting his orgasm pulse like a supernova. He groaned long and deep until his satisfaction rumbled in the ground beneath them. He slowed to a stop, and for a split second, he looked so vulnerable. Tabitha’s heart ached for him, and she licked her lips.

He saw the action and kissed her, brows furrowing in earnest. These kisses were beseeching and tender. He licked her lips too, tracing the bow of her mouth. He rested his forehead against her own.

“Thank you, Tabby.”

She chuckled and kissed him back. “For what? Letting you catch me?”

He grinned, his wicked white teeth sending chills all the way down to her toes. “Letting me?” He nipped her neck in several places. “I can find you anywhere you go now.” He sucked the skin on her collarbone. “You’re mine. Be my charl.”

“What’s charl?”

“My human mate. You’ll stay with me for as long as I live.”

Tabitha closed her eyes and hugged him to her, wrapping him with her arms and pressing his sweaty naked chest to hers. “You didn’t even have to ask.”

She didn’t address the question of how long that might be. The Krinar Council of Elders could very well demand his execution. She stood by her feelings of before. She would request to be executed by his side. Life without him might as well be death. And if that made her a bit of a savage too, then so be it. Let their savagery speak for ages to come, of a love that withstood civilized society.