"Is there somewhere we can go?"
A pleased smile split his features, and he bounded to his feet, grabbing her hands to pull her with him. "How tired are you?" He led her away from the house, not in the direction from which they'd come that morning, but back behind the outbuilding, toward a swell in the distance. "It's not far, but I usually fly so my estimations can be a little off."
"I'm not. Where are we going?"
His eyes twinkled. "Think of it as a surprise."
Avi stopped talking in favor of speeding up his pace, practically running over the soft earth. Iris had no choice but to try and keep up, and by the time they crested the small hill, her skin glistened with a fine layer of sweat. He angled them toward a copse of saplings, their leaves fluttering in the night breeze. It wasn't until they were nearly on top of them that she saw the mouth of another cave in the hill behind it.
She tugged free and stopped. "No offense, but you're not taking me to another cave, are you?"
Some of his delight faded with the reluctance in her voice. "It's not the same as the other. I promise."
"But it's a cave."
"Think of it as a doorway." He held out his hand. "Trust me, Iris. You'll love this."
Hesitant, Iris took his offering, but she walked slower this time, forcing Avi to stay with her. "Is this another of your hiding places from your family?"
"No, I used to train here. It's a ... special place for me. The other cave is more about convenience than anything else. Keeping my family safe by being far enough away. This ... is just mine."
They reached the opening, and she had to follow Avi's example and duck in order step inside. The earthen walls didn't swallow the light like she expected. Flecks of something pale managed to capture what little illumination reached inside and scattered across the floor, lighting the way. Avi went first, keeping their fingers entwined, and helped her manage the decline that led deeper into the low-ceilinged passageway. It was easier in her bare feet, she realized. If she'd been wearing shoes, she had a feeling the loose dirt would have had her slipping and sliding all the way down. As it was, Avi's firm hold kept their steps steady.
Soon enough, it opened into a wide open cavern, stalagmites breaking the smooth ground to stretch to a ceiling high overhead. It was cooler here, the air damp. The hollow sound of dripping water echoed against the far walls, and pools of it filled random spaces between the irregular stone emerging from the earth. It painted hints of color against the ochre walls, yellows and blues and spots of scarlet that made it seem completely otherworldly.
Her breathless, "Whoa," was the only response she could muster. It was by far the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. Other than Avi.
Avi's attention was locked on her, gauging her reaction. "I used to practice my shifting in here. Flying, and climbing, and anything else I could manage."
He let her go as she stepped forward. The colors shifted every time her angle changed, and when she reached the edge of one of the pools, she crouched down to dip her fingers in the water.
The crystal in her necklace flared a brilliant blue.
Iris yanked her hand back, staring at the water clinging to her fingertips. When she wiped them off on her jeans, the glow in the pendant faded away, gone completely by the time her hand was dry again.
"Okay, that was weird," she commented, then laughed. "And I really can't believe I picked that out of everything to call weird."
Avi appeared at her side. "It's just the connection between you and the crystal and Varana. It's probably going to do that whenever you come into contact with natural elements here."
She fingered the delicate chain. "It didn't do it with the grass. It doesn't come more natural than that."
"Then I don't know." He took her hands from it and gently eased it over her head. Setting it on the ground beside her, he led her back to the pool, encouraging her to touch it again.
The necklace remained dormant.
"But see?" His smile was contagious. "It needs you."
"To complete the circuit, so to speak."
"Yes."
He seemed satisfied with the explanation, though questions still niggled in the back of Iris' mind. Those were banished as he lifted her wet fingers to his mouth.
"Nobody comes here but me," Avi said.
His tongue traced over the back of her hand, but the second it touched her scarred fingertips, a jolt shot through her veins. Iris gasped. Her flesh prickled in heat, and the further his mouth advanced, the stronger the charge became. It reminded her of touching his paw when he'd been in panther shape, but this was far more intense. This was the difference of going through her normal life wearing gloves, and then taking the gloves off to sink her hands into the hottest water she could stand.
"Do you feel that?" Her eyes flew to his face, waiting until he lifted his thick lashes to regard her. "Is that just me?
Avi shook his head. "Not just you," he assured.
"Can I..." She reached out and stroked his chest, testing to see if she could reproduce the electricity without his mouth. It was milder, his skin like satin, but it was the thud of his heartbeat radiating through her that made her breath quicken. She felt it. Not in her head or imagination, but in her muscles, a secondary pulse that compounded her own.
His body lured her closer, and she bent her head to run her mouth over the prominent line of his collarbone. A sound that could have been a whimper echoed from his throat. It encouraged her to explore further, licking and nibbling downward, over the sculpted muscles until she reached a dusky flat nipple. She circled it once with the tip of her tongue, then felt it tighten when she licked across its surface.
"I should be doing this to you," Avi rasped.
Her hand skimmed over the other side of his chest, her fingers mimicking what her mouth was still doing. She had been dying to touch him like this ever since she'd first seen him in the exam room at the clinic. The perfection of his body was sinful, and the fact that he'd allow her to indulge like this--and more, that he wanted her to--made her feel like a teenager on a first date. The knowledge that they'd practically snuck out of the house only added to the feeling.
Avi shuddered when her teeth caught the hard tip of his nipple. "Enough," he muttered.
Powerful hands gripped her shoulders, and the world raked around her, the earth hard at her back instead of beneath her bottom. Avi loomed above her, his long body covering hers, and his mouth crashed down, taking hers in a ferocious kiss that contradicted his earlier gentleness. Iris responded immediately to his desire, lust coursing through her blood as she wrapped her arms around his broad back. She couldn't deny their hunger any longer.
His teeth caught her lower lip, and his normally careful hands pushed at her shirt. "I need to feel you," he said.
She needed it, too. Tearing away from his mouth, she grabbed the hem of her tee and yanked it over her head. Her nipples hardened even more at the first touch of the cool air, but Avi swiftly lowered his head, catching the nearest between his teeth. Fire arced through her as she tossed aside her shirt, and she scrambled to hold onto him as he sucked it hard against the roof of his mouth.
The muscles danced beneath her palms. Her skin felt paper-thin, ready to combust with heat as she smoothed her hands over his back. Iris didn't know which sensations were strongest--the hard pull of his mouth at her breast, the flames skittering through her scars, or the pressure of his weight as it bore her into the earth. She fought to breathe, but her lungs had long ago stopped working right. She had to settle for short gasps that only managed to fuel the fire.
Avi lifted his head. His eyes had darkened, pupils so expanded that only a corona of green ringed the black. Sliding his hand up her arm, he grasped her wrist and guided it downward, saying, "Touch me."
)
They followed their destiny and discovered love. Orphaned at a young age, Iris Bridge carries scars on the palms of her hands from the fire that killed her parents. Now a top-notch trauma nurse in the Alaskan wilderness, it's her job to respond if disaster strikes. When a helicopter crash brings a strange man named Avi into her care, she knows what to do--until his wounds mysteriously heal and Iris discovers the reason he's come to town. He wants to take her back to the land he calls home--Varana. Avi's quest to find Iris has led him across planes and taken half of his lifetime. Iris is a Sentry and as her Guardian, it's Avi's duty to protect her. It matters not that Iris, taken from his world, doesn't understand who or what she is; the strikingly handsome shapeshifter is honor bound to protect her. When strange creatures start attacking Iris and her friends, she has no choice but to trust in Avi and hope he'll lead her to the truth. What she finds, however, is so much more. Iris discovers her own power and, in the arms of her fated lover, her destiny to possess A Sentry's Touch.
