Orbit
1557 Words
Adalyn
Keiran’s hand was warm around mine.
Too warm.
Not in a normal way.
Not in the way another person’s hand should have been warm because they had blood beneath their skin and life in their body.
This was different.
This warmth knew me.
It moved beneath my palm in tiny sparks, slipping between my fingers, racing up my wrist, under my sleeve, toward places I did not know could wake from only a touch.
I stared at our joined hands as Keiran led me back through the side door of Luna Nocturne.
The club swallowed us whole.
Music crashed over me. Violet lights flashed across the walls. Smoke curled around our ankles, glowing silver where the spell-lanterns touched it. The crowd shifted and pressed, wolves laughing, witches dancing, vampires lounging in shadowed corners like beautiful nightmares.
It should have been too much.
It had been too much before.
But now all I could feel was him.
His fingers curled around mine like he had done it a hundred times before. Like my hand belonged there. Like we had not met minutes ago in a flash of runes and panic and impossible sparks.
My pulse beat too fast.
Sonny was quiet.
That worried me.
Sonny was never quiet unless she was hunting, furious, or thinking something she did not want me to hear.
“Are you breathing back there, Addie?” Keiran asked without turning around.
His voice slid through me.
Low.
Amused.
Rough at the edges.
Something inside my stomach fluttered hard enough that I nearly missed a step.
I hated that.
No.
I did not hate it.
That was worse.
“I am breathing,” I said, then immediately wished I had sounded less breathless while saying it.
Keiran glanced back at me.
The club lights caught his face in pieces. Dark hair. Sharp jaw. Wicked mouth. Eyes that looked like they were laughing at the world, even when something behind them stayed watchful.
His gaze moved over me once.
Not rudely.
Not like the wolf in the alley.
This felt different.
Careful.
Curious.
Like he was trying to solve me.
“You sure?” he asked. “You look like you might bolt again.”
“I do not bolt.”
His mouth curved. “You vanished into a crowd five minutes ago.”
“That was strategic retreat.”
Sonny stirred, pleased.
That had not sounded like me.
That had sounded like her.
Keiran stopped walking so suddenly I nearly bumped into his back. He turned, still holding my hand, and looked down at me with new interest.
“Strategic retreat?”
My face warmed.
“I mean…”
“No, no.” His smile widened. “I like that. Makes you sound dangerous.”
“I can be dangerous.”
Why did I say that?
I did not know how to flirt.
I barely knew how to talk to boys outside official blessings, ceremonial greetings, and carefully supervised pack events.
But Sonny pressed against my ribs, warm and bold.
Yes, we can.
Keiran’s eyes darkened slightly.
Not with fear.
With something else.
Something that made the air between us tighten.
“I believe you,” he said.
The way he said it did something strange to me.
His voice dropped lower on the last word, and my entire body seemed to hear it. Heat moved up my neck, down my spine, across my skin. My fingers tightened around his without permission.
Keiran noticed.
Of course he noticed.
His gaze dropped to our hands.
Then to my face.
My cheeks burned.
I tried to pull my hand back.
He let me.
Immediately.
That somehow made it worse.
If he had held on, I could have blamed him.
But he released me the moment I moved, and I was left standing there with my empty hand tingling, embarrassed by how badly I wanted him to take it again.
Sonny huffed.
Coward.
“I am not,” I thought fiercely.
You are blushing at his voice.
“I am reacting normally to an abnormal situation.”
You are reacting like a doe that just discovered thunder can be handsome.
I swallowed a laugh and accidentally made a small sound.
Keiran leaned closer to hear me over the music.
That was a mistake.
Not his.
Mine.
Because the moment he leaned down, his scent surrounded me again.
Cedar smoke.
Cold night air.
Leather.
A trace of whiskey.
And something beneath all of that, something wild and dark and ancient that made Sonny lift her head like she had heard a call from deep inside a forest.
I inhaled before I could stop myself.
Then froze.
Had I just smelled him?
On purpose?
Mortification rushed through me.
Keiran’s brows lifted.
He had noticed that too.
Goddess save me.
“Do I pass inspection?” he asked.
“I was not inspecting you.”
“No?”
“No.”
“Because it looked a little like you were.”
“I was breathing.”
“Very carefully.”
“I was not.”
“You were.”
“I dislike you.”
He laughed.
The sound was low and warm and too close.
My stomach fluttered again, worse this time. Heat spread lower, unfamiliar and startling, so sudden that my whole body went stiff.
Keiran’s amusement faded.
His eyes sharpened.
Not cruelly.
Not mockingly.
But like he sensed something had changed.
Like he could smell it.
My heart almost stopped.
Could he?
Wolves could scent fear. Anger. Lies sometimes. Desire too, according to things I had overheard from girls whispering when they thought I was not listening.
But I had never—
I had never felt—
Oh, Goddess.
My face flamed so hot I thought the runes might light up again from sheer humiliation.
Keiran went very still.
For one dangerous second, neither of us moved.
His gaze held mine.
I could not breathe.
He knew.
He knew something had happened inside me.
Maybe not exactly what.
Maybe all of it.
The corner of his mouth softened, but he did not tease me.
That mercy almost undid me.
He looked away first, toward the dance floor.
“Come on,” he said, voice gentler. “I promised you a dance.”
“I do not remember promising anything.”
“You took my hand.”
“That was not a contract.”
“With me, it usually is.”
I narrowed my eyes.
He grinned.
There he was again.
Easy.
Careless.
But I had seen the stillness underneath it now.
Keiran Blackthorne smiled like a boy who did not care about anything.
His eyes watched like a wolf who cared too much and hated himself for it.
He offered his hand again.
My fingers twitched.
Sonny leaned forward.
Take it.
“That is a terrible idea,” I thought.
Most living things are.
“What does that even mean?”
It means take his hand.
The music shifted, deeper now, slower, the beat rolling beneath my feet like thunder under earth. Keiran waited, hand out, not reaching for me, not grabbing, not deciding for me.
That was what made me step closer.
Not the sparks.
Not the pull.
Not even his smile.
The waiting.
The choice.
I placed my hand in his.
Sparks burst between us again.
I sucked in a breath.
Keiran’s jaw flexed, but he only closed his fingers around mine and led me into the crowd.
The dance floor opened around him more easily than it had for me. People moved out of his way without fully looking, instinctively making room for the Alpha power in his body. I felt it now that I was close enough: not loud, not forced, but heavy beneath his skin.
A command he wore carelessly.
A crown he did not know he carried.
The thought came from nowhere.
I stiffened.
Keiran looked over his shoulder. “You okay?”
“Yes.”
A lie.
A bad one.
But he did not press.
He found a place near the edge of the dance floor, close enough to be swallowed by the music but not so deep that I felt trapped. Then he turned toward me and lifted our joined hands.
I stared at him.
He stared back.
“What?” he asked.
“I am waiting for the steps.”
His lips twitched. “The steps?”
“Yes.”
“For dancing?”
“Yes.”
He looked delighted.
I immediately regretted speaking.
“You really don’t know how to dance like this, do you?”
“I know how to dance.”
“Of course you do.”
“I do.”
“I believe you.”
“You sound like you don’t.”
“I believe you know how to count in rhythm while pretending not to hate everyone in a ballroom.”
“That is not what formal dancing is.”
“That is exactly what formal dancing is.”
“It is elegant.”
“It is tragic.”
I gasped.
He laughed again, and I wanted to be offended, but the sound wrapped around me and tugged at something softer than pride.
“Fine,” he said. “No steps.”
“That sounds unsafe.”
“It is dancing, Addie.”
“People fall.”
“Then I’ll catch you.”
- Writer
