"Kade…" Her voice was quieter now, strained. "I feel…" She stopped, brow furrowing in confusion. "…cold."
His grip tightened instinctively. Not because her skin felt cold—she was warm, too warm, fevered with the war raging inside her—but because if she said it, then it was real to her. His mind moved faster, sharper. The lower abdomen. The same place she had touched before. The same place the imbalance had first shown itself.
"Where?" he asked, the single word tight.
Dakota swallowed, her hand lifting unsteadily from his sleeve to press against her lower abdomen. "Here…"
Kade's gaze dropped. For a fraction of a second something dark and dangerous crossed his expression—understanding, cold and absolute. Maya. The ritual. The foreign thread of power she had forced into the world and, somehow, into Dakota.
Footsteps sounded in the hall—fast, purposeful. The door opened again.
