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Will I ever stop being stupid! Rayen shook her head in disgust.
Maybe that’s why her family sent her into a time traveling tornado. They didn’t want to risk her reproducing.
Who could blame them?
Fallen branches crackled beneath the slam of her pounding footsteps. She had no idea where she was going, just away from Callan.
She didn’t want to go back to the village to face someone like Zilya who would see emotions she couldn’t hide right now. She hated this yearning for Callan. It made her miserable. Worrying about him dying tomorrow was hard enough but watching him and Becka so close together was almost as bad.
She should be the better person and support his future with Becka. A part of her wanted to because it showed she was honorable, but her heart cared nothing for honor. It screamed and stomped around in her chest, refusing to give up Callan to anyone regardless of how absurd it was to want him.
Kaz had explained how Callan was committed to Becka.
No matter how hard Rayen tried, she couldn’t make herself think about the future when what she wanted was so far from her grasp.
“We do require privacy,” she mimicked in Becka’s irritating voice. “Thank you for making my kamara, Callan. Our parents would want this for us.”
The word princess came to mind.
Had her memory just tossed her another nugget, or had she known of a princess while growing up? She didn’t know, but that haughty image that raised fit Becka.
The prim girl had stood there with her ivory skin and shining blonde hair falling to her waist. Those pretty hands had never been abused.
Rayen lifted her hands, thankfully it was too dark to see them. But rubbing her fingers together, she could feel the rough skin and callouses that hadn’t happened only in the last few days. Whoever she’d once been, wherever she’d grown up, she’d spent time with weapons and tending the earth.
Her hair hung limp around her shoulders. Certainly not the vision of perfection that had clung to Callan. What was wrong with her? That was Callan’s world, and it didn’t include her, never would. Get over him and let this go.
Swallowing was difficult and her eyes burned, but she refused to let a tear fall.
Not for someone who didn’t want her.
As she stepped forward, a branch hit her in the face. She attacked it, beating the thing away from her until the limb was shredded.
Someone grabbed her from behind and she tensed, ready to fight. But then he wrapped his arms around her to trap her body against his. He lifted her away from the branch she’d defeated.
Callan.
She knew the feel of his arms and the musk that floated from his warm skin. He hugged her to him, laughing.
He dared to laugh at her?
“You must have a death wish,” she muttered. “Put me down before I grant it.”
“We won’t have a tree left if I turn you loose.”
Her heart was pounding viciously from anger. That was all.
And now she was lying to herself?
The emotions she suffered were not just anger. Her heart was holding a party because Callan was here and wrapped around her. She stopped fighting to see if he’d put her down.
No, and he showed no sign of tiring.
He nudged his face into her hair, inhaling. “You smell good.”
She could swear her heart grinned at that.
Stupid organ had no sense whatsoever. It would follow Callan around just to hear his voice, but she had pride. She’d gone looking for him to hear him out but found Becka hanging all over his beautiful body.
Now was not the time to think about Callan’s muscular chest and arms. He’d chosen someone other than her and she didn’t want to hear anything else from him. “Are you through sniffing me?”
“No.” His arms tightened. Not uncomfortably, but to send a message that she was good and caught.
Of all the reactions to choose from, contentment over being so close to him was clearly the wrong one.
“Put me down, Callan. Did you build a kamara that quickly?”
“No.”
“So Becka is waiting on you to get back.” An ugly feeling clawed through Rayen at the thought of those two together tonight.
“No.”
She growled. “Is that all you can say?”
He chuckled and started walking, still holding her in front of him. “Why are you angry with me?”
“Because you’re still holding me when I said to put me down.”
“You were angry with me back when you found me with Becka. Why?”
Her muddled mind floundered for an answer.
Why was she upset with him? Because he was going to create a kamara for Becka. That sounded ridiculous in her head. She needed somewhere to sleep. He’d made her one when she’d had no sleeping quarters, but then he’d stayed inside it with her that night.
And that was the reason she was angry.
She did not want him sleeping in a kamara with anyone else and she did not want to admit that, because it sounded ... jealous.
She had no right to be jealous. Callan wasn’t hers. Never could be.
“Rayen?”
“Yes.”
“Are you going to tell me why you’re angry?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“Because talking about it will change nothing.”
He stopped walking and lowered her to the ground, then turned her in the circle of his arms. He held her lightly and let a soft glow emit from his hands. “You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Talk to me.”
“No. I don’t like this feeling.”
A tender thought softened his gaze. “You don’t like how you feel about me?”
“No, I mean yes. I mean I don’t like it.”
“Explain what you don’t like.”
She snapped, “You won’t let this go, will you? Fine. I don’t like seeing you with Becka. Now I feel even more stupid for admitting it out loud.”
He smiled at her.
Maybe if she called up her power and sent him flying into a tree it would knock some sense into him. “Laughing at me is dangerous.”
“I’m smiling. Not laughing.”
She pushed a handful of hair off her face in a frustrated move. “I don’t see the difference.”
Lowering his face to her, he said, “Laughing at you would mean that I find something you did funny. Smiling at you means ... you make me happy.”
“Nice that one of us is happy,” she grumbled.
His hands came up from her shoulders and cupped her face. “I want to make you happy, too.”
“That’s not possible.” Could she sound any more morose?
“You haven’t given me a chance.”
She took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to find the right words. “You can’t fix how I feel. It’s my own problem. Go back to Becka and let me work this out by myself.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because that’s not what I want.”
There were a lot of things she wanted, starting with him, but she wasn’t getting what she wanted so why should he? “Then it’s nice to know I won’t be suffering alone.”
“Why are you suffering?”
His thumbs swept over her cheeks, soothing her, and breaking her heart. She wanted to have this forever, but that was not to be. Her patience was long gone. She was tired of playing twenty questions. “What do you want Callan?”
“You. And you want me.”
Arrogant warrior. “Don’t be so sure.”
“I wasn’t until now.” He pinned her with that relentless gaze of his. “Admit the truth, Rayen. You care for me.”
Admitting that would only make walking away from him that much more difficult tomorrow. Why was he doing this to her? Callan had never struck her as insensitive but making her admit her feelings when they’d never see each other again after tomorrow was inconsiderate. He’d have someone and she’d be alone again.
She circled back to the real issue at hand. “What about Becka?”
He dropped his forehead to hers. “Kaz was wrong to share so much.”
“But it was right for you to keep the truth from me?”
“No. That’s what I wanted to tell you when we got back here today. Kaz knew nothing more than speculation that had been going on between my and Becka’s Houses. The truth is that no formal agreement has happened. Before I was captured, I told my father I would do whatever was required of me to take Jornn’s place, but I could not commit to a woman I had no feelings for, and I have none for Becka. If I had, I would have to find a way to break the start of my bond with you.”
Her crazy heart started beating out of control and she couldn’t chastise the fickle thing because she was just as excited. The bonding had started when they were fighting for their lives. Callan had broken through the veil in her mind as a last-ditch effort to save her from a bloodthirsty plant.
They’d had a connection since then, but they hadn’t actually fully bonded, based on what he’d explained.
She didn’t realize until that very moment how much she wanted to bond with him, but to do so would be beyond wrong on her part. How could she bind him to her, which would prevent him from having a life when he returned home? He should have a full life with a family of his own some day even if she had no future waiting on her.
But he was right.
She did care about him. So much it hurt. Was caring for someone supposed to be this painful? Her stomach churned. Seeing Becka’s hands on him had stoked a rage she was surprised to find within herself.
But she still didn’t understand something. “If you feel that way, why were you building Becka a kamara?”
Lifting his head, he said, “That bothered you, didn’t it?”
His smug tone got under her skin. “No. I’m only curious.”
“Liar.”
“Just forget I asked.”
“But I like that you asked.” He was grinning again.
“You find the most irritating things funny. Are you laughing, or have I made you happy again? I just want to know before I call up my power and blast that smile off your face.”
He gave up a booming laugh that rumbled deep in his chest.
She’d had enough of being made fun of and pushed to back out of his grasp.
He let go of her face, but grabbed an arm, pulling her back to him in a fast move that ended with his arms locked behind her back. “You are prickly as a cactus sometimes. I’m smiling because you’re adorable when you’re jealous.”
“I am not jealous,” she lied. Just because he was right didn’t mean she had to admit it and feed his ego.
He kissed her hair then her forehead. “It’s okay, because I was jealous, too.”
That was news. “When?”
“On the ride back from the TecKnati camp. I spent part of the time trying to contact Kaz telepathically. When he wouldn’t communicate, I spent the rest of the time considering how many bones I could break without killing him.”
“Callan!” She was appalled that he would consider harming his best friend. “Kaz did nothing wrong.”
“He was touching you,” Callan argued in a dark voice that held no humor. “No one touches you ... but me.”
His heated voice claimed her as surely as what he’d declared. She had no defense against the way her heart jumped around at his words, even when she knew there was no hope for anything more than being here with him.
Maybe it was weariness from the past two days that allowed him to knock down her barriers, but she knew it was more. She would never care for another the way she did for Callan, and she was selfish enough to want what little time they had left.
The warmth from his body slowly drained the fight from her. She yawned and dropped her face against his chest to cover it. He smelled warm and male.
“You’re exhausted, sweetheart, and I haven’t slept since you left to return to the past the last time. Let’s get some rest,” he suggested in a voice that was gruff with gentleness.
“Where will we sleep?”
“In my kamara.”
“But Kaz said—”
“I don’t care what anyone says. Time is short in this place. I spent two long days without you, thinking about how I’ve done everything I had to do and gave it my best.” His lips grazed her hair. “But with what little time I have left, I’m doing what I want to do and that’s to be with you.”
Time.
All the worry and fear over him dying exploded in her chest. She pushed them apart enough to face him. “Kaz let me believe your birthday was today and that you had survived the wraiths, but you’re turning eighteen tomorrow. What are we going to do? We have to get you out of here.”
Callan hid his emotions better than anyone here, but in that one moment she saw how much being here and knowing what was coming soon had beaten him down. He was seventeen, a mere day from eighteen. Adulthood in his world. He’d fought and bled for this village, and still had to bury children. He’d watched his friend Mathias be dragged away by wraiths with no way to help him and Callan knew that was his fate at this point.
When he spoke, his words were gentle like the wind. “I don’t want to spend tonight thinking about tomorrow. I want to forget about everything else and just be with you.”
She reached up and cupped his face, kissing him with all the feeling in her heart. When she stepped back, he stood perfectly still, clearly waiting on her decision.
Was there any doubt? “Take me to your kamara.”
