"I’m leaving."
I turned away, my voice cutting through the still air like the crack of glass. My hand trembled slightly at my side as I moved toward the stairs, eager to escape the storm that was brewing between us.
"You ask why?"
The sound of his voice froze mid-step. I didn’t turn around. I couldn’t. My body betrayed , my feet rooted to the floor as though the air itself had hardened around them.
"You ask why I care..."
The silence that followed was suffocating. Even the wind outside seed to hold its breath. My lungs constricted, each inhale scraping cold needles into my chest. It was the kind of quiet that hurt to breathe in.
"Because I hate it."
My knees weakened. The words were jagged, pulled from sowhere raw. Hate what? I wanted to ask, but my lips refused to move. Every part of was rigid, terrified that if I faced him, he’d see too much. The trembling, the confusion, the ache that I refused to na.
"I hate to see you in the arms of other n."
My eyes widened. The confession struck hard.
"I hate to think you’d willingly beco one of their mates."
A footstep echoed. Then another.
My fists, once clenched at my sides, slowly loosened as strength drained from my limbs.
"I fucking hate it."
Another footstep. Closer this ti.
I wanted to run. But a part of , a dangerous, betraying part, wanted to stay. And that part won.
"There’s no way in hell I’ll let you be touched by another man again, Vivien."
My breath caught. My vision blurred as tears welled up, trembling against my lashes.
Before I could form a single word, a hand slipped around my waist, firm and possessive. He turned toward him with a gentleness that contradicted the chaos in his voice.
I gasped. He was so close now I could feel his breath ghosting against my cheek.
"What..." what do you an by that?
Rion’s face was unguarded for once. No mask of control, no trace of the usual restraint that made him untouchable. His crimson eyes burned, not with fury this ti, but with sothing darker... yearning so fierce it almost looked like pain.
The dim light frad him in shades of shadow and red, glinting off the edge of his sharp jawline. His pupils, dilated and wild, darted between my lips and my eyes as if he were fighting every reason not to touch .
He looked like a man stripped bare of his armor, standing at the edge of a truth he could no longer contain.
When his knuckles brushed my cheek, the warmth seared .
"You can’t even think of another man," he said softly, his voice trembling with restrained power. "Do you understand?"
It wasn’t just a command, it was a plea wrapped in dominance, an ache disguised as authority.
His deep, crimson pools swallowed the light around us, filling with equal parts dread and desire. My pulse stuttered, and the logical part of scread to push him away, to remind him and myself what he was doing.
"I am not yours," I managed to say, my voice laced with venom that didn’t match the tremor in it.
How could he say that? How could he confuse when all he’d been planning was to mate with the Celestial Wolf?
He shouldn’t be telling these things. He shouldn’t be making hope, making imagine a place in his life where I could stay.
I didn’t want a part of his heart. I wanted to claim all of it.
That greedy thought twisted inside like a sin I didn’t dare confess. But even so, I couldn’t pull away from it. From him.
"You were mine from the very first night you stepped into my land, Vivien."
His voice dropped low, dark silk threading through the air. His knuckles brushed along my jaw, trailing down the curve of my neck – slow, sensual, sinful. My pulse stuttered under his touch. It wasn’t fair how easily he could turn into sothing fragile.
"So that’s it, then?" I bit out, the words tasting like poison on my tongue. "You want to be your woman while the Celestial Wolf is still out of reach?"
His lips curved just slightly. Not in amusent, but sothing close to satisfaction. It infuriated .
"You want to be the only one, huh?"
I turned my face away, but his fingers caught my chin, guiding it back until our eyes t. The look he gave burned. It was the kind of gaze that stripped a person bare, the kind that could ignite or destroy depending on which side of his desire I stood on.
His eyes were wild fire and I was standing in the center of it, helplessly drawn to the blaze.
"Can’t you feel it?" he murmured.
"Feel what?" My voice cracked, betraying my confusion.
He tilted his head, studying .
"Didn’t you feel it when I danced with you tonight? Sothing changed, Vivien."
Changed? I didn’t understand what he ant, what change he was talking about.
"Why can’t you just tell what you an?"
He took my hand then, so suddenly I gasped, and placed it flat against his chest. His skin was fever-hot beneath the fabric, his heartbeat thrumming wildly beneath my palm.
"Do you feel that?" His words ca out rough, unsteady. "I can feel it... our connection."
I frowned. "As keys to the Undersea Tower?"
He shook his head. The seriousness in his expression rooted to the spot.
"As mates."
As mates.
Mates.
My breath left in a rush.
For a mont, the world shrank into silence. I stared at him, my lips parted but no sound ca out. Mates. The word echoed in my head.
"What are you saying?" I finally managed, barely above a whisper.
"I always knew there was sothing between us," he said, his tone quieter now. "From the mont we t, I felt it. I thought it was because you were one of the keys. But tonight, when I saw you dancing with those males, when I touched you, the bond... it snapped into place."
His hand tightened around mine. I felt the faint tremor in his fingers, as though he was fighting not to fall apart right in front of .
It wasn’t just want. It wasn’t just desire. It was need – raw, all-consuming, terrifying.
"We are fated mates, Vivien."
User Comments
0 comments from readers