Page 53 of Forbid Me

I wanted to chuckle at the sight, at her defiance in the face of danger. Maybe I did chuckle, but the laughter caught in my throat as I tasted my own blood, nearly choking on it.

Magic filled the clearing as she shifted from animal to human. She was completely nude under the moonlight. I did choke then, nearly swallowing my tongue this time. I made the beast recede and took back my human form.

This was not how I planned to be naked with this woman for the first time.

I could barely speak, let alone move. Every part of my body ached. Even my eyelids. Now that my body was flesh again, I saw where the damage had been done.

My chest rose and fell with labored breaths. There was a puncture wound in my chest from vampire fangs. I felt the pulsating agony in my torso where the flesh was ripped. My arms lay heavy at my sides, ripped to shreds by vampires' claws. I tried to sit up, but my abdomen protested with a sharp twinge, the tender flesh a battleground of cuts and bites inflicted by my dead adversaries.

Both of my legs ached. There was no way I could get up. No way I could run. No way I could protect my mate from the next battle. Because there would be more. At least one had gotten away. I knew Ken wasn't the one in charge. His boss would send more now that they knew what Stella was.

"Shhhh," Stella soothed. "I've got you. I can fix you."

My lips stretched at the thought. I'd always been broken. Since the moment I'd been born, things hadn't worked out right for me. This last battle, this had been what my life was leading me to: to her. I just had one more thing to do in this world, and that was to get Stella to safety.

Warmth flooded me when her fingers touched my skin. I was feverish for her. But the heat wasn't filled with desire. It didn't set off the alarm bells of death. It felt rejuvenating.

Magic flowed between me and Stella. I watched as her fingers hovered over me, knitting my wounds back together. The pain was a dull throb. Then pretty soon nonexistent.

"Those wounds were mortal." My voice sounded like gravel being put through a glass strainer.

"And now they're mended."

Stella ran her hands down my chest. The gashes that had given up pints of my blood were now closed. She hesitated over the scars my mother had given me. There was a question in her eyes. She didn't ask it. She moved her hand from my chest and cupped my cheek.

"I'm not letting anyone take you away from me."

The fierceness of her words replenished me more than a blood transfusion. I sat up and pulled her toward me. She wrapped herself around me, holding me tightly.

"You're mine." Her words were an incantation. They wrapped around me like a spell, binding us even tighter.

"I'm yours," I swore.

"I don't want you to die for me. I want you to live with me. Do you understand me?"

I smiled into her neck, breathing her in. "Whatever you wish, princess."

She pulled back, her features stern. Stern Stella was hot. The determined set to her lips made me want to bite them.

"I'll scrounge us up some clothes," she said as she climbed out of my embrace.

I watched her lush ass as she moved through the clearing, peering down at the dead bodies. She grabbed a pair of jeans from one guy. She slipped into them and then used her magic to mold them to her form. Next she reached for a shirt, but when I saw who it came from, I growled.

"What?" she said, holding up Ken's silk shirt—really, what man came to a battle wearing silk? "I picked this out for him. Might as well take advantage of it."

"I will not allow my mate to carry the scent of an ass-wipe."

"Fair point."

She scrounged around some more until we were both clothed and then used her magic to do away with the blood and dirt and tailor the fit.

"We can't go to Earth and Emerald," I told her once we were dressed.

She didn't even look up. She simply shrugged her shoulders. "You're the captain of the ship. I'm simply the cruise director."

"The activities that keep happening around us is why we can't stay here. I need to get you off world. I need to get you to Arcadia."

I purposefully didn't say to Panthera. Though how we'd live in the realm while staying out of the claws of the panther king, I had no idea. Stella's safety remained my number one priority. I might not keep her in luxury, but I would keep her. And I would never break her heart.

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