Eternal Moon

Chapter 33: The Unsaid Things

"So is this one of your hiding spots?"

Jamie felt a shiver course through her entire body at the look Kane gave her as she walked out of the dense copse of trees.

Walking forward, she kept her gaze on him as his eyes devoured her from head to toe.

His voice was deep and low when he answered, "Apparently, not a good one."

The small grin on his full lips told her he was grateful for that.

"I saw you from the castle," she said, gesturing with her head behind them. "I was up with Emma when I spotted you from the window. Figured I'd come down."

Kane's face darkened ever so slightly as he asked, "How is she?"

Jamie admitted, "Better than I would have expected. I don't know if it will really hit her until she's back home, though."

He nodded but she noted the tense way his hands clenched in his trouser pockets; the hard set of his shoulders and the tic in his jaw.

"Whenever she or... you both want to leave, Malcolm will be happy to take you back to Inverness."

As polite as the offer was, Jamie couldn't ignore the disappointment that sunk in her gut. I already made it pretty clear to him that I intend on leaving. "You want us out of your hair as soon as possible?"

Kane's eyes lit with an emotion that stripped her bare. "You know that's not true."

Every fiber vibrated with awareness as he stepped closer, looming larger and darker in the pitch black of the forest where even the night animals seemed to have gone silent in his presence. The moon was the only illumination when he moved, highlighting the rugged, handsome planes of his face. The muscles that rippled underneath his clothes. The blue fire that irradiated from his eyes.

Sometimes she forgot that he was a werewolf, a literal monster by all accounts. It was easy to disregard when she saw him in the daylight walking and talking as the Laird Murdock.

But moments like these reminded her of what he was - what was beneath the human visage. Kane was a man but he was also a predator.

And right now, that excited her beyond belief.

His voice rumbled in the darkness, "You know that I've wanted you from the moment I saw you."

Yes, she'd known that. She could feel it just standing here with his attention lasered on her, like a lion waiting, stalking patiently for its prey.

She wanted him just as badly.

But she'd also fucked up.

"I-I know I disappointed you that... morning after." Her throat felt dry and she shifted on her feet. "You were right, I was a coward."

Something like relief suffused her, taking away some of the weight that she hadn't realized she was carrying. Weight packed into a wall that she had erected to keep him and others out.

Emma had been right. Jamie had pushed away real opportunities at love ever since their dad had left, all in some effort to protect herself from getting hurt again.

Her breath trembled ever so slightly. "I know I came here with a big chip on my shoulder. I-I think maybe that I've been that way a long time... in order to protect myself."

The heat still remained in his blue eyes but his face had softened just a fraction.

"And you," she continued, "you've posed the biggest threat I've ever faced."

His brow lowered. "Threat?"

She prayed to God that Kane couldn't see the way her hands shook. "To-to my heart."