Page 28 of Luna's Forgotten Vow

I let go of his pelt only to feel the wind with my fingers and lean low enough to run my hands through the high crops, raise myhands up to try to touch the trees whose branches join to reach the canopies. My smile is wide enough to hurt my cheeks.

We come to a stop at the edge of a cliff and I gasp at the view. The world stretches out before me, raw and untouched, bathed in golden hues of the rising sun. The cliff towers over a valley carved by time, where a river of molten silver winds through lush emerald fields, speckled with wildflowers in every shade of gold and crimson. Mist and snow cling to distant peaks that touch the stormy skies that seem closer to the earth here.

It feels like standing at the edge of the world. Infinite. And if I reached higher, perhaps I could feel the clouds on my fingers.

I get off Soren, spinning around in a circle. "It's beautiful."

"It is."

I turn left and instantly wish I didn't. Soren's...well, he's not in his wolf form anymore. Gloriously naked. Beautiful. I try to keep my eyes from traveling lower but my curiosity gets the best of me. They stray for a second and linger too long on his lower half before I jerk them up forcefully.

But it's too late.

It takes me more tries than I'll ever admit to get my speech right and even then, my brain is mush. His eyes are dark as tar, intense as he watches me watch him. Since that night on the couch, we have avoided toeing this line—whatever this is.

Glances are often exchanged over breakfast and dinner, our fingers might accidentally brush against each other's as we try to pass the salt, or reach for something else, and I let him tuck me in every night, while he lets me sleep on his shoulder. But it's never been more than that.

No kisses. No suggestive touches. Nothing.

It was like going from flying to crawling, but I was grateful for it, because I wasn't sure I was ready to face any of it, ready to understand why my entire world seemed to gravitate towards him and yearn for him to disrespect my wishes and kiss me one more time.

And it is so much harder because I can never tell what he's thinking, neither do I know if he feels the way I do.

Soren's gaze shimmers with a sharp spike of heat and the only reason I do not take a step back when he moves is because we're on the very edge of the cliff. "I don't know what to do when you look at me like that, Sera."

His pupils seem dilated. His high cheekbones slightly flushed. He's so beautiful, so perfectly, horribly, inhumanly beautiful that I can barely breathe as he wraps a long, big arm around my waist and pulls me closer, away from the danger of falling. "Do you bring every woman you're with here, hold her over a cliff with the choice of jumping off or kissing you?"

He laughs, eyes crinkling softly. "No, but it's an interesting idea." He tucks my hair behind my ear and traces my jawline with his thumb, stopping on my chin.

I hold my breath, heart racing as his thumb rises, brushing against my bottom lip. "And what would you have picked?"

"Jumping off," I lie.

He loosens a breath, tilting slightly, just the perfect angle as he leans in, obliterating whatever distance there is between us. I start to shut my eyes when I suddenly...it's like my bladder loosens.

I look down, watching my sweats turn a darker red as it turns wet. Wide-eyed, I drag my gaze back to Soren. "I think my water just broke."

CHAPTER 10

SOREN

The smell of blood clings to the air.Hers.

She is strong and beautiful and perfect. Pushing. And she's losing so much blood. It's soaked into the sheets, into the towels and tissues, my hands.

Olga, the nurse, has a tragic look about her as she stares down helplessly at a pale Seraphina, who looks barely to be breathing at all. "The dystocia is causing a hemorrhage and the baby is having difficulty coming out by himself when the mother is in a coma. Her condition is not suitable for a normal c-section birth now. We could cut the baby out?—"

"Say that again," I snarl, my voice dropping to something lethal. The wolf inside me thrashes, struggling for control, to fix this, to protect her. But there is nothing to fight, nothing to kill. She is slipping away through my fingers and I can't lose her. I won't.

Olga swallows, shifting uncomfortably. "She's lost blood, too much of it. If we do not cut the baby out, her condition will only worsen. We do this and the child might yet live?—"

"And my wife?" My fingers tighten around Seraphina's. I turn my gaze on the doctor standing at the edge of the bed, keeping her legs open.

She pales but purses her lips. "It is common practice with difficult deliveries. There will be little complications with the babe."

Again, with the depraved insinuation that all I care about is the baby in Seraphina's womb. My mouth twists with rage and in the blink of an eye, I have the front of the woman's scrub in my fist, pulling her up so close, I see the tiny hairs on her cheek. "She dies, you die. Do you understand me?"

She trembles. "She's already?—"

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