Page 82 of Revealing Fate

Kal stood several paces away, an empty bucket tucked under one arm and an infuriating smirk playing across his lips. Any semblance of peace she felt was instantly shattered.

“You beast,” she seethed. “I will kill you!”

Kal’s unimpressed look dared her to try.

Felíne swiped Daybreak’s handle off the ground, gripped it with both hands overhead, and, without pausing to consider her actions, sent it arcing through the air. The blade would have cleaved Kal’s skull. He dodged at the last moment, and the hatchet bit into the wooden dummy behind him with a resounding thud.

Felíne wasn’t done. She plucked a set of throwing knives off the rack to her right and flung them, wrists whipping faster than she thought possible. The first one missed Kal’s torso by less than an inch. The second flew wider, slipping from her wet grasp, her accuracy impacted by emotion.

He grinned. Felíne grabbed for a broadsword. Gods, it was heavy. But she was infuriated. She swung the blade overhead and nearly toppled backward. Felíne forced her momentum forward, aiming for Kal. He stepped close to her and, with a deft move, stole the hilt from her grasp. He twirled the hefty blade with one hand as easily as if it were a quill feather before tossing it away.

Felíne growled. She fisted her hand and threw it forward with more force than she believed herself capable of. To her astonishment, it collided with Kal’s jaw.

Something popped. Pain lanced up Felíne’s hand, into her wrist.

The shock in Kal’s expression morphed to outrage. “You idiot woman,” he hissed. “Are you trying to break yourself?”

“No,” she snarled. “I’m trying to break you.”

He grabbed her forearm, yanking her into his body. “With a weak-wristed punch like that?”

Felíne wrenched away from him with little success. The taunting in his voice fueled her anger, her recklessness. “I’ll show you a weak-wristed punch, you fucking brute.”

He only held her tighter, closing the distance between their faces. “Call me a brute one more time and I’ll show you how brutal I can be.”

“You bru⁠—”

Kal closed his mouth over hers. The kiss seared her.

Felíne didn’t know what possessed her, but all of her anger, fear, anxiety, and want poured into Kal as she kissed him back. Her lips became a conduit for a lifetime of emotion, fusing with Kal’s, unbridling her burdens and discharging them onto him. It wasn’t the least bit fair. She should have felt guilty.

But Kal absorbed all of her pent-up energy like a drowning man starving for breath. He didn’t shy from her onslaught; he welcomed it.

Felíne hadn’t been able to beat him with a blade and only succeeded in injuring herself with her fist. She couldn’t fight him and win. On the field of battle, they would never be equals.

Instead, she punished him with her mouth, sentenced him with her passion. She bit his lip, eliciting a low growl from Kal’s throat. His arms wound around her waist, hands roving erratically over her back, shoulders, and butt, desperate to feel her. His tongue thrust into her open mouth, and he grabbed her under either thigh, hoisting her into the air.

Felíne gripped his neck and fisted her fingers in his hair, tugging his head back. Her injured wrist twinged, but the pain was distant, drowned by her fervor. Kal’s eyes were wild. Gold bands shot through the black of his irises, saturating their inky depths with bursts of heat. With need.

Felíne was entranced. After everything, all of her lying, all the secrets she’d kept, every attempt to deceive and run off, he still looked at her like that. Like everything that made him a man was saturated with wanting her.

Felíne kissed him again, moaning into his mouth.

Kal carried her to an untouched section of the meadow, and her back settled into soft grass. He knelt between her legs, eyes sliding over her. Felíne’s skin rippled with gooseflesh. Her tunic was soaked. She shivered, but not from the cold.

Kal bent forward, folding his warrior’s body over hers, bracing himself on his palms. His tongue darted out and touched her bottom lip. Felíne reached up and gripped his nape, pulling his mouth down onto hers again. Gods, he tasted divine. Like that morning’s coffee and male yearning.

A gale swept through the meadow, and the little hairs along Felíne’s forearms stood on end. Her wet clothes clung. “I’m soaked,” she breathed into Kal’s mouth.

“I bet you are,” he growled.

Something firm pressed into the delicate juncture between Felíne’s legs as Kal lowered himself, fusing their torsos, and a whimper escaped her. Oh, divine Goddess. The sensation spread through her belly, obfuscating her thoughts.

“Kal…” Dear gods, was she panting? “Kal, my clothes are soaked.”

He broke the kiss, pushing up onto muscled forearms. “Shall we remove them?”

Heat blossomed. One of his hands played at the hem of her sodden tunic. The thought of those strong fingers and that sinful mouth on her bare flesh rewired her brainwork. She squirmed. Why were her clothes wet again?