JEOPARDY: The Cursed Soldier.

36. The quick Fix.

Caiden jumped after her instantly, not even bothering to turn the car off.

But she was hella faster than he had anticipated and already a long way from him.

"Kayla!" He called, wishing he could just whiz to her with his vampire speed. But he couldn't risk her finding out the truth. So, he ran after her through the greenish-orange, dry, noisy bushes. His heart drumming against his ribs at what could be happening to her.

He chased her for a while and when he was almost on her, he reached for her hand and pulled her to his chest.

"Kayla, what's wrong?" He asked frantically the moment her body trembled against his. Not in attraction, but by whatever had shaken her so badly.

For 10 seconds, he just held her, tightly against his body. Hoping the physical contact would calm her as he also waited for an answer. But neither happened, so he gently shifted his hands from around her to her shoulders and put enough distance between them to enable him to get his answer from her body.

Kayla's eyes were closed but shaking. Her lips were trembling. And her chest was heaving. But every other part of her was rigid and stiff-like there was something within her stretching her thin.

The wind blew violently all around them, making Caiden roam his eyes over the sky and the surrounding area.

Something was happening.

Something big, but he couldn't wrap his mind around it.

"Kayla, darling, talk to me. What's wrong?" Caiden chose to coerce softly. But his mind was already working overtime, and a hypothesis had risen to his mind. A horrid hypothesis, that if proven true, he'd help Kayla through it, and then storm into Lunarheart and burn the whole damn place to the ground.

But first, he had to test his hypothesis, while hoping with all he was that he was absolutely wrong.

With a practiced delicacy, he moved his hands from Kayla's quaking shoulders to her cheeks, cradling her face. She was still a wreck, but his focus was on feeling her body for himself. Her body temperature, her heartbeats, the tautness of her skin, the ruggedness of her breathing, and finally the softness of her skin--over her face, her ears, and hands.

Her skin was still soft and tantalizing. Her eyes were still round and adorable. Her temperature and heartbeats weren't werewolf-high.

She wasn't shifting.

They hadn't bitten her... yet.

Kayla was still a human, and maybe, she was just having a panic attack.

"Kayla, darling, can you hear me?" Kayla responded with more heaving, trembling, and a grimace. It was like she was in physical pain. Caiden bit down a curse and went on. "I need you to try to follow my lead, okay?" Again, she just shivered harder. "I need you to try to take a deep breath. Can you try that?"

There was no sign that she had heard him, instead, she was now pushing him away. Caiden cursed in his head again and did the last thing he should do. The ultimate, quick fix for all panic attacks and the only thing that would probably break him.

He shifted one of his hands to the small of her waist and kept the other one on her cheek, and then he took her lower lip into his mouth. He was going to make it quick. 30 seconds, just to calm her down, and then he would stop it.

He sucked on her soft, full lip and it felt like sighing. Actually, he might have sighed on her lip. But she was still shaking, so he opened his mouth wider and took both her lips in. The wind blew coldly and violently around them. And of their own accord, his fingers tightened on her waist as his hand pulled her closer.