Page 126 of Hunted in the Shadows
“And what if they’re right?” I plunged on. I gestured up, though the real stars were a universe away. “What if this is wrong? Likecosmicallywrong, us being together?”
The wind Jon had conjured became a gentle breeze around us, playfully tousling his hair to frame his dark, tender expression. Jon cupped my cheek in his palm, eyes electric. He brushed a thumb over my lips, delicately tracing. I suppressed a shiver. Where he had once been resistant and cautious, a new steadiness had taken over.
“Then I will gladly spend ages being horrible and wicked with you,” he said.
He ducked and kissed me hard, and I lost all resistance because I knew his promises were not made lightly. Just before my eyes fell shut, I saw the spectral plane surge with fresh color—ourcolors—mixing and flourishing into new ones. Radiance with the power to blossom and annihilate all at once. His mouth moved against mine, perfect and drugging. Jon’s hands moved slowly from my shoulders to my waist.
Hands that had slammed that fucking cage over me.
I broke the kiss, gripping his square jaw in my hand. I surfaced from my daze to fix him with a blazing look. Tension radiated through my palm as he froze obediently.
“All my life, I’ve felt trapped. You can’t be another person confining me. Notyou. If you ever turn iron or cages against me again,” I said, low and ground-out, “you will never see me again. I won’t forgive you a second time.”
Wavering pain filled his stare. I was suddenly reminded of the pieces of his past I didn’t know. The six years between us felt gaping—years he had spent becoming more lethal while I was cloistered under the willow. I gripped him tighter, fingernails digging into skin as my pleading gaze bore into his.
“Swear you won’t ever do that again.” I had never heard the commanding growl come out of my own lips, like a vengeful noble.
Finally, Jon nodded in resolute understanding. “On my father’s grave.”
It was the heaviest whisper I had ever heard. Breaking this promise would shatter the very foundation of who he was—and part of me still wondered if that was enough. I exhaled, uncertain if there was any point in us trying to resist our true natures—a fairy who didn’t know when to stop, and a hunter who would do unspeakable things to protect her.
The inches between us suddenly burned, unbearable. I slid my hand down to his chest, savoring the way his eyes hooded. How touch-starved he looked, lips parted and waiting as I lifted onto my tiptoes to crush my mouth to his once more.
Jon’s kiss was bruising—like the world was ending and the taste of my lips would be the one thing he could take with him to the afterlife. The weightless feeling was replaced with a sensation of soaring that even my fastest flights couldn’t grant me. All our visits to this private sanctuary, and he had never kissed me likethis. So absolutely. So fiercely.
There was no room for doubt—he loved me.
He felt like a storm learning to be still, maybe just so he could better hold onto me.
And I was not alone.
I took hold of his button-up shirt and urged it off, peeling it down his broad shoulders and letting it fall over his toned arms.Closer. I needed to be closer.
I felt the bare skin of his arms as they crushed around me again, circling beneath my fanning wings. My fingers slipped over his right shoulder beneath the short sleeve of his tee, seeking the rune-shaped scar I had put there. My mark.It did not exist in this realm, my fingers ghosting over smooth skin. Jon knew what I was looking for, lust building behind his soft smirk as he watched me.
He glanced around us contemplatively as though finally noticing the conjured breeze—noticing how it bowed to his emotions. As he breathed me in, his racing pulse slowed—though mine quickened as Jon lifted a cautious hand. He flexed his fingers—cautiously at first, then turning his palm up like he was ruddering an invisible force.The gusts slowed even more, until they were mere whispers of movement circling us.
Tenderness glittered in his gaze as he turned back to me, looking as breathless as I felt. He moved his open palm between us. After a moment of concentration, sparks of light flickered to life at his fingertips—golden, like soft embers.
It was so close to magic, I nearly stopped breathing. My vicious hunter, holdingmagicin his hand.
My awestruck gasp caught in my throat as Jon pressed his hand to my chest, his strong fingers purposefully tracing a pattern over my exposed collarbone.Golden lines were left like scrolling vinework all over the delicate base of my neck, my shoulders. It was a crude recreation of the Fae runes I had left onhimso many times during our trysts here. Although the mark held no translation, he took evident care to match my style. I let my head tip back as Jon bent down to kiss the places he had marked, leaving golden streaks everywhere his hand roamed.
He roughly spun me around to face the vastness of the special realm before us.
“I want to try something,” came his coarse voice in my ear.
One arm wrapped around me from behind, pinning me against his front. The other stretched out, his palm turning upward, beckoning. The whirls of slate-gray and crimson that painted every direction began to brighten and blur. Slowly, shapes took form—walls, windows, and lush fir trees.
“Jon…” I whispered.
Dizziness swept over me as a dwelling slowly took shape before us. It was strikingly similar to how I had created my childhood home from my mind’s eye, everything moving and shaping into place without regard for gravity.
Astonished, I observed Jon. The slight furrow between his brows. The determined gleam in his eyes. The set to his perfect jaw. Sohuman.He was as intimidating as he was angelic in that moment, with the light of the building shapes and light dancing over us.
Finally, a room paneled in dark wood faced us, sunlight spilling in from a vast floor-to-ceiling window behind a living room. Candles were still lit, like someone had only just left this cozy space. Jon’s grip on me slackened when his creation fully solidified before us— spent from the effort. I broke free of him, stepping into the illusion. Though the wall wavered into smoke, the view set in front of us was as crisp as the memory I had conjured of Elysia days before.
Soft carpet sank under my feet. Shelves of books lined a towering wall, with framed photos and personal items littering the spaces in between. I drifted toward the shelves, aware of Jon trailing behind me with soft steps, a matching expression of awe on his face. One of the framed photos bore an image of a family in the snow—smiling parents holding the hands of a scrawny boy with wavy locks and dark eyes. I drifted toward the vast window next, transfixed by the view framed outside.
