The Alpha's Unclaimed Mate novel Chapter 529

Chapter 529: Chest To Chest In A Volcanic Jacuzzi

The stone beneath her hand rippled. Actually rippled, the solid rock moving like water disturbed by a dropped stone, concentric circles spreading outward from her palm in waves that turned black obsidian translucent, then gold, then gone.

An entry formed in the wall.

It opened like a wound in the mountain, a narrow archway carved from nothing, edges still glowing with the gold residue of whatever language she’d spoken. Warm air rushed through the gap, humid and dense, carrying the mineral smell of heated water and ancient stone.

The vampires were ten feet away. Both sides. Closing fast.

Gavriel didn’t hesitate.

He hooked his arm around Serena’s waist, yanked her off her feet, and dove through the opening.

SPLASH.

They hit water on the other side.

Warm water. Bath-warm. The kind of heat that swallowed them whole on impact, closing over their heads for one disorienting second before Gavriel’s hand found the back of her skull and hauled her face above the surface.

The archway slammed shut behind them.

CRACK.

Stone fused back together like it had never been open, the seam disappearing into solid rock in the span of a breath. The wall was whole. Seamless. As if the doorway had been a hallucination shared by two people who were too exhausted and too fucked up to question it.

On the other side, the scratching started.

Claws against stone. Dozens of them. Frantic, relentless, scraping and gouging at the sealed wall with the desperate fury of predators who had watched their meal disappear into solid rock. The sound filled the small space, a horrible, persistent SKRITCH SKRITCH SKRITCH that echoed off every surface.

Gavriel was on top of her.

His full weight pressed her into the shallow pool, one hand behind her head, fingers threaded through her wet hair, keeping her face above the waterline. His other arm braced against the submerged stone beside her, locked rigid, holding himself just high enough that he wasn’t crushing her but low enough that she could feel every hard line of his body against hers.

Steam curled around them in thick, lazy spirals.

The water glowed pink.

Soft, pulsing, luminous pink, the same color her eyes, radiating from the surface. Steam rose from it in waves. The cave was hot. Sauna-hot. The kind of heat that turned the air into something you had to chew before you could breathe it.

His chest heaved against hers. Every exhale spilled warm across her throat, his breath coming in ragged, open-mouthed pulls that she could feel more than hear.

Water lapped at their shoulders, their jaws, the edges of their tangled limbs. His heart hammered against her sternum, pounding through the soaked fabric of both their suits, fast and hard and entirely too close to her own.

Her eyes were still pink.

Gavriel felt his bruises and scrapes healing in real time from the water. The relief almost made him dizzy.

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