Chapter 399 Chapter 399
Terah stumbled a few steps going into the water. Konner jolted and stripped off his pants and rushed after her.
She stopped and looked up at him, “you’re going to swim with me?” He nodded, “good we can check you off the list then.”
He felt annoyed at the thought of that for some reason. “The list can wait; I just want to make sure you’re okay.”
“I feel good,” the pallor of her skin pinked as she smiled.
Putting his arm around her, he urged her gently to keep going into the water. “Don’t try to swim full speed for a few minutes, let your body replenish the lost fluids first.”
She nodded but made no comment. “How come you’re not weak too?”
He decided quickly that saying it wasn’t the first time he’d had real sex was wrong on all fronts. “I’m older, my body has built up more resistance.”
She made a quiet noise, and he wasn’t sure if it was acknowledgment or annoyance.
The water was at their waist now. He moved back, giving her space to glide out into it. He watched her, practically holding his breath as she moved away from him. She listened and did it gently and didn’t dive into it and try to power stroke her way out to the deeper water. When she stopped and just floated, he took a few more steps, his heart pounding like some sort of tribal drum. Cursing in his head, he dove into the cooling water and reached her in a few powerful strokes. Reaching her side, he put his hand under her back, “are you all right.”
“Yes. I am letting the water renew me. It feels nice.”
Relief filled him. He pushed back from her, putting some space between them. The moonlight was bright enough that it reflected off the luminous scales that now covered her. Just looking at her made his heart skip a few beats before it settled into a heavy rhythm that he felt throughout his whole body.
When he put his arms out in front of his body to tread the water and move back away from her, he paused and stared at his arm. The changed tone of his skin was usually almost unnoticeable, it had been that way for years and was the only reason he could get away with swimming in lakes all over the continent to look for others. Right now, he looked like he’d been rolling in the glitter that Nakisa adored with great zeal. He blinked and looked at his other arm. It was the same.
“Konner.”
He jerked his chin up to look at her.
“My chest,” she put her hand against her breastbone. “It is thudding.”
He looked at his arms again, then at her, shaking his head in disbelief. His own heart felt like it was trying to break free of the bones that protected it.
They were mates. He looked from her to his arm one more time. It was the only explanation. Konner opened his mouth to speak, and no words formed. For half his life he waited for this day to come and had long ago given up on the idea that it would ever happen.
“Konner, your skin,” Terah’s voice jerked him out of the stupor he was lost in, “it’s beautiful.”
He looked to see she was beside him now, no longer relaxing on her back. “Men are not beautiful.” He winced, that was not the first words he should have spoken to her right now.
Terah gave him a surprised look, “As long as I am looking with my own eyes, I can say it is.”
He smiled then, unable to argue with her about something so trivial. “Terah, your heart, my skin, it only means one thing.”
“We should have more sex?”
His entire body responded to that idea. Shaking his head, he removed it from his mind, in normal cases of mates finding one another he would have agreed that should happen, but once had already taken too much of her energy and he wasn’t going to risk it so soon again. “We will, not right this moment though.”
“You do not want me right now?”
“Yes.” He answered quickly before thinking it through. “Always.” He added after in a hushed tone. “We’re mates.” He moved closer and let his body sink lower in the water, so their faces were level. “Our hearts are trying to synch with each other.”
Her eyes rounded, “it feels like a dance party inside me. How do we fix it?”
Later, he’d inquire as to where she got the dance party from, but right now, he needed to claim her and put his mark on her so no other male would ever go near her again. “We mark each other, once our body’s scents blend, our hearts will beat in time and settle down.”
She nodded, a nervous look on her face. “So, no more list.”
His smile was slow, almost predatory, “no more list, no more males, no more searching.” He took her hand, “we need to get to the deeper water.”
He swam fast, pulling her along with him with ease, suddenly spurred with an urgency that he needed to know his soul was bound to hers. Once they were in the deeper water, he spun back toward her and wrapped his arms around her, taking her under the water without warning. He’d watched her swim; knew her body could go from air to water in a heartbeat and have no problems.