Page 26 of Make Me
And everything stills.
He doesn’t speak or move.
He just looks at me—really looks at me—and I feel it.
The bond.
It slams into me like a crashing tide, like the earth itself is shifting beneath my paws. My soul stretches out and finds his. A tether. A call. A belonging so fierce it could tear down kingdoms.
I step closer to him.
He raises his hands slowly, no fear in his expression, only wonder, awe, and love.
“Kasha,” he breathes. “You’re perfection. All of you.”
The rage drains from me like water over a cliff.
My wolf steps toward his outstretched hand, resting her head against his chest as he strokes our fur.
“My turn,” I tell her.“Please.”
I expect hesitation after all I put her through, but she takes one more breath in this form then the shift reverses.
Bones crunch and fur recedes. My human form returns slowly, though not as painfully as moments ago. As I rise to my knees, bare and gasping, Talon’s already there, wrapping me in his arms, in his warmth, and in us.
I no longer feel like I’m breaking.
I’m whole.
Chapter 9
TALON
There’s a small part of me that wants to unleash my ire on that witch, but as I cradle Kasha in my arms, her trembling form pressed to my chest, any lingering fury for Natalia dissolves like mist beneath the rising sun.
My mate’s heart is beating and our bond is still thrumming between us as she breathes the same air I do. Most importantly, I can sense her wolf. They’re both here and that’s all that matters.
“Are you okay?” I ask, tilting her face toward mine. My hands move over her, searching for injuries.
Kasha nods, her eyes glazed with residual shock. “It wasn’t pleasant by any means,” she murmurs. “But it worked.”
Behind us, Natalia lets out a long sigh, the sound entirely too casual for what just happened. “Definitely interesting,” she says. “Watching someone’s spirit leave their body like that? A first for me. I might have to try that again.”
A low growl tears through my throat, and the air ripples with the force of my wolf pressing closer to the surface. “You killed her?”
“Technically, yes,” Natalia replies with a dismissive shrug. “But her body was still viable. I just had to give her spirit the boot long enough to invite the other one home. And for the record, that wasn’t easy. The witch who bound her? She might even rival me, but tricks like hers usually have a way of catching up with even the trickiest of casters.”
Kasha trembles in my arms, and while I’m sure it’s not from the cold, I still pull my dress shirt over my head with one hand to slip it over her bare body, helping get her hands through the right holes.
“Do you think she’ll know what we did?” Kasha asks, her voice quieter than I like as she leans closer to me, her palms covering my stomach.
Natalia shakes her head. “That’s why I killed you first. She’ll think you died, and without you still kicking and screaming out in the universe, your wolf spirit naturally would have left this world with you. At least that’s what the witch should believe. I just wouldn’t recommend going anywhere you might run into her.”
“Fine with me,” Kasha breathes, then tilts her head back to look at me. Her eyes burn with a new kind of light, feral and bright and alive as her nails scratch lightly over my exposed chest.
My wolf lets out a deep rumble, vibrating through my bones and into hers.Ours.
“I feel it now,” she says, her chest rising and fallingwith each quickened breath. “The bond. It’s real. It’s,” she licks her lips, “it’s getting stronger every second.”
