A Love Untamed (Feral Warriors #7)(60)

He raced over the snow, thanking the goddess that he’d followed her from that world to this. As he neared the beastie, he shifted to human form and pulled his blade, then leaped onto the beast’s back and stabbed it through the neck.

But the creature didn’t slow. It was almost upon her. Leaning low, he cut hard through the monster’s thigh muscle. The beastie went down, tossing Fox over its head into the snow, but as Fox leaped up again, Melisande took his place on the struggling animal’s back, stabbing it in the neck over and over.

“It keeps healing,” she called to him, annoyance in her voice. “Want to give me a hand with his head?” She asked the question as calmly as if she were asking for help with an unwieldy suitcase.

He grinned, his relief at finding her whole and alive bursting from his throat on a deep chuckle.

“Aye, pet. I’ll give you a hand.” He strolled to the pair of them and with a pair of hard hacks, cut off the beast’s head. A moment after Melisande leaped clear of the carcass, the creature disappeared.

He sheathed his blade and turned to Melisande, barely opening his arms in time as she threw herself at him.

“I thought they’d caught you,” she cried, throwing her arms around his neck, wrapping her legs around his waist, clinging to him tight.

He hauled her against him, burying his nose in her hair, shaking from relief and joy and an emotion he was afraid to name. “I thought I’d lost you,” he breathed. “I wasn’t even sure you’d survived.” How had she come to mean so much?

Finally, she pulled back to where she could see him. “I feared the labyrinth had separated us.”

“Apparently there’s only one path through the gauntlet. Escape the trap, and it propels you into the next world, offering you another chance to fail.”

“I need to kiss you,” she said softly, fervently.

“Oh, pet . . .” They came together in a blaze of need and thanksgiving, her lips cold, their kiss hot enough to scorch the flesh from his bones. He devoured her, drinking in her taste, her sweetness. The need to keep her with him, safe and protected, trembled through his muscles. As badly as he needed to be inside her again, he longed even more to tuck her within his heart, where no one could ever threaten her or hurt her again.

Snow began to fall as their mouths melded, their tongues twining in a fierce yet gentle dance. She smelled of wild heather and crisp mountain air, and tasted of honey. So sweet, so incredibly precious.

Snowflakes landed on his cheeks, his hands, melting in the heat of their passion. But as he slanted his head to deepen the kiss, their noses brushed and he felt hers, ice-cold. He pulled back. “We need to find shelter, angel.” The wind was beginning to whip and the sky to darken.

She gave her head a little shake as if trying to reclaim her equilibrium. “Yes. Shelter.” But her mating scent wrapped around him, sinking into his blood, and it was all he could do not to take her mouth again.

“The rocks,” he said. “Maybe we can find a windbreak, if nothing else.”

She nodded, and he set her on the ground, then took her small, cold hand firmly in his. Together, they climbed into the crags, searching for a cave, or any kind of shelter as the snow fell harder and visibility became so poor Fox could no longer see the snowy plain below the rocks. An army could be approaching, and they’d have little warning.

He didn’t like this, not at all. The beast had been sent to kill Melisande, nothing more. But at some point, in some way, the labyrinth would try to corral him into a trap.

“I see something,” Melisande said, pulling away from him.

Fox followed her gaze to a low split in the rock, much too small for him to fit through, and watched as she bent low and stuck her arm into it with ease.

He might not fit, but his fox would. “I’ll shift and scope it out. I can see in the dark.”

Pulling on the power of his animal, he shifted too big, of course, but quickly downsized until he was the size of a small fox. With ease, he trotted through the hole and into a cave about the size of the war room at Feral House, the ceiling high enough for him to stand up in with ease, once he’d shifted back. But as he looked around, he saw something in the corner that made his hackles rise—a large pile of firewood. And a box of wooden matches.

“Fox?” Melisande called softly.

“Come in, pet.” He shifted back into a man, and the cave went dark for a moment as his human vision slowly adjusted to the minimal light allowed in through the cave’s small mouth. Light temporarily doused by Melisande’s arrival.

She’d had to do little more than bend over to squeeze inside. Rising, she looked around, blinking to adjust her sight. “This is perfect. Unless they’re my size, or can shift into something smaller, no one else will be able to get in. Certainly, no more than one at a time, and then with difficulty.”

“Let’s hope we don’t have to get out in a hurry.” Her mating scent perfumed the air in the small space, igniting the fire in his blood all over again.

“It’s better than standing out in the snow. Especially for those of us without fur or coats.”

He nodded toward the firewood. “It’s a little too perfect. All it’s missing is gingerbread walls and candy light fixtures.”

Melisande shrugged. “We’re not going to escape whatever this place has in store for us, you know that. It won’t let us go until we’ve evaded its traps.”