For a second she simply stared at him. Then she laughed.
Not softly. Not kindly. A sharp, mocking sound that cut cleanly through the night air.
"You?" she said, shooting him a glare. "I wasn't invited here by you. I was invited by Byra." She took a step closer, refusing to yield even an inch of ground. "So unless she personally asks me to leave, I'm staying. Not because I enjoy your company in particular, but because I feel like it." Her voice hardened slightly. "Your pack still needs me and you know it. So it would be really nice if you could stop being such a rude—"
"Careful now." The interruption was quiet, but the warning behind it was unmistakable. Kidd's posture had shifted. "I might forget you're a guest here."
Ithilien's temper sparked immediately.
"And do what exactly?"
For a moment neither of them moved.
"Step away," he said. "Ithilien. I don't like your smell."
"I don't like yours either," she shot back immediately. "And you step away. I was here first. I didn't ask you to follow me like a lost puppy."
The words left her mouth before she could stop them.
Dear God in heaven, she thought with sudden clarity, please forgive me, because I'm about to rip his tongue off so he can never speak to me again… And then take my soul too, the darker part of her mind added bitterly, because he will absolutely tear me apart after that.
Kidd's expression darkened.
"You naive little—"
"Oh, shut up!" The interruption burst out of her before he could finish. Whatever restraint she had promised herself was already gone. "You've got a problem with me? Fine. But I don't owe you anything. It's the other way around!" Her eyes flashed. "How quickly you forgot that I helped tame two of your wolves. And because of what? Because my bond bothers you? Because your wolf doesn't like it?"
She took a step closer, anger pushing past every last scrap of caution.
"That's none of your business, damn it. I'm not—"
He moved before she finished the sentence.
Kidd's hand came up and caught her face, his fingers firm against her jaw as he pulled her toward him and then he kissed her.
Hard.
There was nothing hesitant about it, nothing gentle. It was sudden, overwhelming, fueled by the anger that had been simmering between them for the last week. His mouth crashed against hers with enough force to steal the breath from her lungs.
For a split second Ithilien froze.
Shock tore through her body like a bolt of electricity. Every nerve lit up at once, the sensation racing under her skin before she could even process what was happening.
A shiver ran down her spine as realization hit.
He's kissing me.
The thought landed like thunder. Her heart slammed violently against her ribs.
Kidd felt it too.
The moment their mouths touched, something electric surged through him, raw and undeniable. The scent of jasmine filled his lungs, stronger now, dizzying in its closeness. Heat shot through his body so quickly it was almost disorienting.
But beneath that—beneath the anger, the impulse, the reckless moment of losing control—another sensation crashed in with brutal clarity.
The ground under his feet felt as if it had suddenly shifted. And in that instant Kidd understood something with terrifying certainty.
For a heartbeat the world seemed to hold its breath.
Kidd did not immediately pull away. Some stubborn, reckless part of him refused to admit what his instincts were already screaming. Ithilien's lips were still beneath his, warm and shockingly soft, and the scent of jasmine wrapped around his senses so completely that for a moment he almost forgot how to think.
Then the rest of it hit him.
Not the desire—that had already been there.
Something else.
Adrahil surged forward inside him, not with the triumphant dominance of a wolf claiming territory, but with a sharp, startled awareness that rattled every instinct Kidd possessed. The sensation ran through him like the sudden cracking of ice beneath his feet.
Wrong.
Not wrong in the way a mistake was wrong. Wrong in the way stepping onto unstable ground was wrong—when you realized, a second too late, that the surface beneath you might not hold.
Kidd broke the kiss abruptly.
He stepped back as if something had burned him, his hand dropping from her face with a sharp, controlled motion.
For a second neither of them spoke.
Ithilien stared at him, stunned.
The shock of the kiss still lingered in her body, humming through her nerves in uneven waves. Her breath came faster than she liked, and the cold night air suddenly felt too thin in her lungs.
Her mind struggled to catch up with what had just happened.
He had kissed her.
Kidd.
The thought alone felt absurd.
"You—" Her voice broke off as she shoved him hard in the chest. "What the hell is wrong with you?!"
Kidd barely moved under the impact. His body absorbed the push easily, though the force behind it would have staggered most men.
His eyes were fixed on her.
Not angry.
Not mocking.
Something flickered there for a moment before it vanished behind his usual controlled expression.
"You started it," he said quietly.
Ithilien's eyes widened in disbelief.
"I started—?" Her voice climbed dangerously. "You grabbed my face!"
"You were about to say something you couldn't take back."
"Oh, and your solution was to—what?" she demanded. "Shut me up with your mouth?"
The outrage in her voice might have been almost impressive if the situation had not already spiraled so far out of control.
Kidd dragged a hand through his hair, irritation flashing briefly across his face.
"Yes."
The blunt answer stunned her into silence for half a second. Then her expression darkened.
"You arrogant—"
"Stop."
The word came out sharper than he intended. For a moment they simply stood there in the cold darkness, breathing harder than either of them cared to admit.
Kidd's mind was racing now, replaying the last ten seconds with brutal clarity.
The impulse.
The kiss.
The reaction from Adrahil.
His jaw tightened.
Damn it.
He had let his temper get the better of him, and now the wolf inside him was still restless, unsettled in a way Kidd did not like at all. Across from him, Ithilien had not moved.
Her hand had drifted to her lips without her noticing, as if her body were still trying to process what had just happened. The sensation of that kiss had not faded yet and that realization made her even angrier.
"You don't get to do that," she said finally, her voice lower now but no less dangerous. "You don't get to cross a line like that and pretend it's nothing."
Kidd's gaze hardened slightly.
"Trust me," he muttered, "I'm not pretending anything."
His eyes flicked away from her for a brief second, toward the dark line of trees beyond the clearing.
"I told you to step away."
She scoffed.
"And I told you to stop acting like you own the ground I walk on."
The tension between them stretched tight again, though the shape of it had changed. It was no longer just anger. Something heavier lingered beneath it now.
Kidd looked back at her.
"You should go back inside," he said.
The words sounded almost like an order.
Ithilien laughed bitterly.
"Oh, now you're done with the conversation?"
"Go," Kidd said hoarsely, his voice rougher than he intended. "Before I do something I'll hate myself for."
For a moment she didn't move. She just stared at him with open fury, her chest rising and falling quickly as she tried to steady her breathing. The anger in her eyes burned bright, sharp enough to cut—but beneath it there was something colder, something far more merciless.
He had forced that. He hadn't asked. He hadn't even hesitated.
He had simply taken what he wanted, as if he had every right to it.
Selfish, arrogant bastard.
The thought rang through her mind with brutal clarity.
She hated him.
Without another word she turned sharply and walked back toward the house, her steps quick and stiff with restrained rage. She didn't look back, didn't slow down, and within seconds the warm light spilling from the windows swallowed her silhouette as she pushed the door open and disappeared inside.
Kidd remained where he was. For several long seconds he did not move, then the breath left his lungs in a slow, unsteady rush.
Something was wrong.
His heart was pounding so violently it felt as though it might crack his ribs from the inside. Each beat landed heavy and uneven, echoing loudly in his ears until it drowned out almost every other sound around him.
The cold air should have helped.
Instead it barely touched him. Heat was spreading through his body in waves, sharp and unfamiliar, like a fever climbing steadily beneath his skin. His head throbbed, a dull pressure building behind his temples as if his instincts were trying to force something through the walls of his control.
"What the hell…"
The words barely left his mouth. He dragged a hand over his face, trying to focus, trying to force his breathing to slow, but the moment he closed his eyes the sensation came rushing back again.
The taste of jasmine.
The warmth of her mouth.
The feel of her body beneath his hand.
His jaw tightened hard enough to ache.
Adrahil stirred again, restless and alert in a way that set every instinct on edge.
Kidd did not understand what was happening to his body. But somewhere beneath the confusion, beneath the pounding of his pulse and the growing heat spreading through his chest, one brutal, undeniable certainty surfaced with frightening clarity.
He wanted her.
Not tomorrow.
Not eventually.
Now.