Ghost Towns

Eighteen

"No," he corrected himself, clearing his throat. His cheeks were flaming, but Rye squeezed his fingers in hopes that he would go on, "no, I don't think that. I know it. It has to be true,"

He leaned back, still clutching her hand, and opened his eyes. "Of course...of course you probably don't believe me or anything but... fate is important to my kind and...and fate dictates that there is a place and partner for everyone and..."

Rye stopped him with the press of her free fingers to his lips. She could not stop herself from grinning. The second his words came out, something aligned in her, like the last piece of a puzzle being put in its place.

"Jax," she smiled, her palm coming around to his slightly rough cheek. He leaned into her touch, an it sent Rye's stomach fluttering, "when I was sixteen I found myself alone in the yard during my birthday party. The entire town went into a frenzy, and they found me deep in the forest, not remembering why I had gone there. For months after that, my parents kept watch over me whenever I was outdoors, because sometimes I'd step too close to the treeline without realizing it." She paused, remembering, "at eighteen I woke up from what was nearly a trance, again in the woods, again going north. After that the pull was impossible to ignore. All I could think about was what lay beyond - what I was being led to."

She smiled. Jax's eyes were focused solely on her, but she had no desire to cower away from that attention, heavy as it was, "I always thought that it was the forest calling me. But the minute I walked out of Goldcrest after Scarrow chased me out, the pull led me straight to you."

Rye laughed gently at the incredulity in his face. The realization had been stunning for her too. But in hindsight, it seemed like it should have been so obvious. The yearning and restlessness that had plagued her on Goldcrest disappared only when she was at his side. Every path in the wood led to him.

"Remember what my answer was when you asked me about soulmates?" Rye said, "there was no grand coincidence in meeting you. I believe you, Jax," he let out such a sigh of relief that rye had to laugh again.

He pulled her closer to him, and she didn't object. Though she was flushing like an idiot and her heartbeat was going haywire, rye refused to look away from him, refuse to let embarrassment slip it's way between them again. Of course she had been falling as a fast as a boulder launched off a cliff. They were destined for each other, or something close to that.

He freed her hand and instead cupped her face with both of his palms, "no grand coincidence at all..." he whispered, close enough that his breath fanned over her cheek. His eyes were bright and completely silver, the exact colour of his wolf's coat, "I knew who I would find when I heard the Onyx howling and felt the bond as it pulled me towards it,"

Rye thought her heart might stop in her chest. Where his hands touched her skin, she was hyperaware of the sparks that fizzled through her, warming her insides to a gentle burn.

His lips were inches from hers, and there was only one thought flowing through her mind. His eyes had darkened, and his face had morphed into a look she had seen on him in flashes before. The difference now was that he was not trying to hide it. His expression was bared to her; all of his longing and hunger written across his face.

It was that, more than anything, that made Rye give in to her own secret longing. The one she had run from ever since she met him. The one she tried to deny, and the one that had persevered over and over, even when she did not know who she was to him

She braced a hand against his shoulder, pulled herself upwards, and closed the gap between then completely.

The Jax she knew was a gentle soul, but Rye quickly realized that he was full of fire too, yearning to be consumed. She could taste it off his tongue, the greed of a beast too long held down, finally allowed to run loose. The feel of his desperate lips, his fingers fluttering down her neck, his nose when it gently brushed her cheek burned. If she had thought the sparks between them intense before, this was incredulous - it was fireworks, it was the ignition of a hundred hidden and unknown things at once. Rye drew Jax nearer, relishing the feel of his hair finally between her fingers. she hadn't even realized how long she had wanted to run her fingers through his hair until she was actually doing it.