Page 83 of Lifebound

The next second, Rune crashed his lips to mine and kissed me.

The entire world hung on that very spot. It made zero sense where we were and what was happening around us, how we were stillslidingon the surface of shadows, butthis…

This made more sense than waking up in the morning. Than breathing.

And it consumed me so quickly.

Rune took my bottom lip between his and kissed it gently, and the heat in my chest, the one that could destroy me from the inside, disappeared. In its place came another, and this one burned differently. I stood still, felt the softness of his lips, held onto his face the same way he held onto mine.

Then his tongue came out and slipped between my lips, and my mind exploded in flames that came in the same colors as the leaves of these trees. I lost control of my body when I sucked it in my mouth and tasted him for the first time.

Dark. Sweet.Perfect.

**Everybody, put your hands together for a warm welcome to my new addiction**

My tongue slid against his and he let out a moan, soft and low, which spilled even more of that delicious heat all over me. Within seconds, we picked up the rhythm, sucking onto each other’s lips and tongues, exploring each other’s mouths like we’d been desperate to do so our whole lives.

My arms were around his neck, and his around my waist, and I wasn’t going anywhere now. Our rhythm was perfect, and I didn’t need to think about the kiss at all—our bodies knew what to do, how to complement each movement and each turn of our heads. All I thought about wasmore,pressing my body harder onto his, deepening the kiss, moving faster and slower and every speed in between until I knew for a fact that I fit him in every way and every angle.

Until our mouths knew one another thoroughly.

But suddenly Rune moved back, and it was like he’d cut all my life-strings at once. The music—or whatever it was that had been playing in my head while we kissed—stopped abruptly, and my eyes were wide open, and so were his.

Indigo and silver and—again—perfect.

“Shit,”Rune said.

The surface of whatever he was sitting onburstlike a goddamn balloon, and then we were falling again.

twenty-two

Trees,leaves, branches underneath us. I instinctively let go of Rune, and he let go of me because it seemed like something waspullingus down—not gravity, but some kind of a goddamn magnet.

We hit the ground at the same time, and we fell on bushes, which made the impact hurt a bit less, I figured, since none of my bones broke. I’d also fallen on my backpack before it slipped off my arm, so that must have helped, too.

I thought the fall was going to be longer. The shadows Rune had held us in had been at the very top of these trees, and now we were under them. On the ground. Alive, as far as I could tell.

I rolled a few times to the side of the bush until there was nothing but grass underneath me, and Rune was right beside me. I sat up as fast as I could, my instincts taking charge, my eyes blinking fast as I tried to take in my surroundings.

Trees, but not too many. The sunlight pierced through the canopy everywhere. Colorful leaves around us.

The smell of smoke was in the air—and a woman was standing there ten feet away from us, smiling.

My heart all but stopped beating the second I saw her. I moved back, searched for Rune to find that he’d sat up, too, just to my side, and his eyes were on that same woman.

I wasn’t imagining her—she was really there.

“Oh, hello, hello! Welcome—it’s so good to see you!”

Her voice was loud. Cheerful.

It freaked me the hell out.

“Rune,” I said because I was trying to stand up, but I couldn’t. That same fucking magnet that had pulled us down from the trees was making sure I couldn’t get my ass off the ground at all—and Rune was the same.

“Calm down,” he whispered. “It’s just a noxin. Calm down.”

“I can’t move,” I said through gritted teeth as the woman came closer, and she was holding something in her hands—a stick that was burning, and the grey smoke was curling up all around her. That must be where the smell was coming from.

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