Chapter 1: A Shared Cigarette at Dawn
The tent held his scent long after he’d gone. Spiced cologne and the ghost of tobacco clung to the embroidered silks lining the walls, threads Jennie had pulled taut during the empty hours. She sat on the sleeping pallet, knees drawn up, a thin shift the only barrier between her skin and the cool night air seeping through the canvas. The lantern guttered, painting long, leaping shadows that did nothing to calm the itch beneath her skin.Waiting was a form of madness. She’d counted the stitches on the nearest hanging twice.Three hundred and seventeen. Each one a promise she’d stitched while thinking of his hands.Now, the silence was a physical weight. It pressed down, amplifying the whisper of the woods outside, the distant call of an owl that wasn’t an owl. He was out there, a shadow among shadows.Hunting alone.Always alone, even though he had a pack. Even though he had her.
She let her head drop back, baring the pale column of her throat and the stark, silvered scar there—his claim.Her fingers traced the raised bite mark. The action was a sacrament, a reinforcement.He is mine.I am his. The thought was a balm and a irritant. If he was hers, why did he leave her here in this perfumed tomb?A rustle outside, no louder than a fox brushing through ferns. But the air changed.The pressure in the tent shifted, charged with a sudden, familiar electricity. She didn’t move, just let her eyes slide toward the closed flap.
He entered without sound.A surge of darkness and night-cooled air. Leonid filled the space, his height forcing him to dip his head. He shrugged off his jacket, the muscles in his shoulders and back playing beneath his shirt.He moved with a contained power, a lethality held in check. The hunt was still on him—a sharp, clean smell of pine and cold earth and something coppery.
He didn’t look at her, not directly. His dark brown eyes swept the tent, taking inventory.Her.The guttering light.The emptiness. Only then did his gaze settle on her, a glance like a touch.
“You’re cold,” he said, his voice a low rumble.She hadn’t shivered, but he saw it anyway.Saw everything. “The fire died.”
He nodded, taking a battered silver case from his pocket. He tapped out a cigarette, placed it between his lips, and lit it with a quick strike of a match. The flame illuminated the stark planes of his face, the black curls falling over his forehead. He took a long drag, the ember flaring, then held it out to her.Wordless, she took it. Their fingers brushed.A spark, predictable and everlasting, shot up her arm. She brought the filter to her lips, tasted him on it, and inhaled the smoke deep into her lungs, letting it mix with the scent of him in the air.It was a ritual.A sharing. A tether.“Get anything?” she asked, her voice barely above the crackle of burning paper.
“A rabbit. Left it with Cypress.” He finally sat, his weight making the pallet dip toward him.She let herself slide a fraction into the space his body commanded. He leaned back on one elbow, studying her as she smoked. His eyes drifted over the line of her throat, down to where the shift clung to her small breasts, further to the shadow between her thighs.
She knew what he saw.The fabric was thin, almost transparent in the low light. She made no move to cover herself, to adjust the shift.She knew he liked the soft, dark thatch of hair there. His preference was unspoken, a secret she kept for him, a piece of his desire she cultivated like a poisonous flower.It made her feel powerful and utterly vulnerable all at once.
“You’re in your head,” he stated.
“I’m always in my head.”
“It’s loud in there.” He reached over, took the cigarette back from her fingers.His touch lingered. “What’s it saying?”
That you’ll leave one night and not come back. That you find more peace in the silence of the woods than in the noise of me. That I would paint these canvas walls with the blood of anyone who looked at you wrong. She didn’t say any of that. “It’s saying I missed you.”
A corner of his mouth twitched.Not quite a smile.An acknowledgment. He finished the cigarette, crushed the ember against the sole of his boot. The tent went darker, the lantern flame the only remaining source of light, throwing his face into sharp relief.In the new half-light, he moved. It wasn’t a pounce; it was an inevitable convergence. He closed the distance, his hand coming up to cradle the back of her neck, his thumb rubbing just below her mate mark. A low hum started in her chest.“Jennie,” he murmured, her name a soft exhalation against her lips.
That was all it took. The world narrowed to the pressure of his thumb, the heat of his body, the scent of smoke and spice and him. The psychotic static in her mind faded, replaced by a single, focused frequency: Leonid.He kissed her.It wasn’t gentle. It was claiming, a reconfirmation. She responded in kind, her teeth nipping at his lower lip, her hands fisting in his shirt. She needed to erase the space, the time he’d been gone. He peeled the shift from her, the cool air quickly replaced by the searing heat of his palms on her skin. He kissed her throat, her collarbone, his mouth hot and demanding on her small breasts.
He pushed her back onto the furs, his body settling over hers, a welcome weight.His erection pressed against her thigh, hard and insistent through his jeans. She arched against him, a silent plea. He made a sound, deep in his chest, almost a growl, and sat back on his heels to undo his belt. His eyes never left her, dark and consuming.
When he entered her, it was with a single, slow thrust that stole her breath.Her legs wrapped around his waist, pulling him deeper. Here, there was no psychosis, no restless love, no fear.There was only this perfect, brutal alignment. He moved with a rhythm that was both fierce and tender, his face buried in the crook of her neck, his lips against her mark.She clawed at his back, each thrust winding the coiled spring inside her tighter.
“Look at me,” he grunted, his voice thick.
She forced her eyes open, meeting his heavy gaze.In this, he demanded her presence, her absolute attention. She was unraveling, and he was watching, ensuring he was the only thing she saw as she fell apart. The tension snapped. Her climax ripped through her, a silent scream tightening her throat, her body convulsing around his. He followed moments after, a sharp, shuddering release, his own groan muffled against her skin.
For a long time, there was only the sound of their breathing, slowing in the dim tent.The smell of sex and sweat joined the cologne and smoke. He stayed inside her, his weight partially on her, one hand idly stroking the damp hair at her temple.
The emptiness of the waiting hours was gone, filled now with a viscous, contented silence. But lurking at the edges, she could feel it—the chaotic, possessive thoughts beginning to stir again now that the intensity had ebbed.She pressed her face into his neck, inhaling him.
“Don’t go out alone tomorrow,” she whispered into his skin.He didn’t promise. He never did. He just turned his head, his lips brushing her forehead, a gesture so tender it made her chest ache.It was answer enough, and it wasn’t. The hunt called to him, a solitary song. And she would be here, in the tent lined with her silken whispers, waiting for him to choose to return. The lantern flame flickered once, twice, and went out, plunging them into a darkness that felt, for now, like shelter.