Awaken to Pleasure by Lauren Hawkeye

position that Boone had had her in only moments before, and she scrabbled her fingers into the dirt, searching desperately for purchase as she tried to stay upright.
    Then the air was still, still and again calm. Cautiously she opened first one eye, and then the other. Then she frantically scrambled over the dirt toward where Boone lay, sprawled on his back in shock.
    Shiloh was gone. The cabin was empty but for the two of them and the light, fresh breeze that once again trickled through the crack in the door.
    “How?” Moira croaked, her throat dry. Then she saw Boone lying on the floor, still and pale.
    She crawled to him, hurriedly checking for a pulse, for breath.
    Did he even need to breathe?
    “Boone.” Her voice was quiet, serious. She was overwhelmed.
    “You did it.” With a groan, he propped himself up on his elbows, reaching for her. As Moira ran her eyes over him, she saw the small cuts, the bruises begin to disappear. “You saved them all. I knew you would.”
    He was fine. He was whole. And she was happy for it.
    But…
    “I’m going to die.” Her lips began to tremble, and tears began to spark in her eyes. This led to her lips curling into a snarl, for above all else, she hated to cry.
    She was not weak, damn it. But she didn’t want to die.
    “You won’t.” Boone said, placing a finger under her chin and tilting her face up so that it looked into his.
    She wanted to fling herself at him.
    She found herself frozen in place.
    “What do you mean, I won’t? You—you said—” He cut her off by placing his finger over her lips.
    “Magic demands a price, yes. When you want something for naught. But you didn’t wish her dead for yourself. You did it for the haven.”
    Moira could only stare. “I’m…not going to die? You knew this?”
    “I couldn’t tell you, or the wish wouldn’t have been the same.”
    Floored, Moira found that her energy and bravado finally left her, and she slumped on the floor. Boone wrapped his arm around her.
    “You did a brave, brave thing. I saw it, you know. In a vision, so long ago.”
    “That’s why you saved me,” she whispered through dry lips. Cold lips. She was cold all over. In fact, she wondered if she would ever feel warm again.
    “I knew I would only have the magic to save one before Shiloh got me.” His voice was full of regret. “Your parents were my friends. But I had no choice.”
    For years, Moira’s only desire had been to bring her parents back.
    Now…she wanted, more than anything, to have one more wish.
    One very specific wish.
    “It’s just…” Moira had a choice. She knew that she could divulge her true feelings, but something still clogged her throat, choking the words before their birth at her lips.
    “I guess I was surprised, and scared, that I didn’t understand the rules of the lamp. It could have cost us both our skins, you know?” Swallowing hard, Moira looked away, pulling on the iron will she’d once had in an attempt to get her emotions back under control.
    She’d hidden her emotions for so many years, she wasn’t at all sure what to do with the rising tide of them in that moment.
    Boone, it seemed, was just as stubborn as she was, however, for he merely turned her to face him once more. “I did explain,” he informed her, his eyes searching her face. “Earlier. Before we mated. I explained all of the rules of the lamp.”
    “Well, it was a little hard to concentrate when you were half-naked in my bathing tub!” The frustration finally exploded the words from Moira’s throat and she cringed at the outburst, for she knew that Boone was astute enough to glean the real meaning from the silence between the words.
    “Moira.” Though her face was tilted up, toward his, she kept her eyes cast down, embarrassed more than she cared to contemplate. She had never, in all the years since the world had gone crazy, allowed herself to care for someone, for anyone, out of fear that they might be taken from her in the same way