Page 61 of The Veil of Blood and Magic

He's not wrong, so I don't try to deny him.

I told you from the beginning that fate was cruel for Matching you to me. I cannot be what you need me to be.

I only need you to be you,my Matched, he says.Nothing more, nothing less.

Emotion clogs my throat, and I do my best to bite back the tears that gather in my eyes.I've told you a thousand times before, if you knew the real me, you would curse Aletha for bonding you to me.

You underestimate me.

Perhaps, I write back.But it doesn't change things.

What if you meet me and don’t like what you find? Maybe you’ll be the one cursing Aletha.

Never,I write back. Six is good to his core. I’ve felt that from the moment he came into my life.I could never meet you and dislike any part of you.

See,he writes back.That sentiment goes both ways.

I sigh, relaxing more into the water.

You're coming to Lingate, aren't you? Or at least close?

My travels may be near there.

A jolt of hope and anticipation pulses from the connection between us.

Good, he writes back.I will find you.

You won't.

And even if he does it'll be too late.

I will, he writes back.Whatever it is you're running from or toward, we are Matched. We are bound together through fate. I will find you. I would find you even in the darkest night or the most violent storm.

I bite back a smile.Are you a poet now, Six? Is that what you do to earn a living in Lingate? Stand on the corners of busy streets spouting pretty lines that no doubt has all the maidens dropping to their knees before you?

A tickle of amusement comes from his side of the connection, and it soothes all those guilty aching things inside me.

There is only one female I dream about and that's you.

I suck my teeth.That hardly seems fair, as you already know I’m currently intimate with two males as of right now.

Ah, but you forget that I know you at your core, despite you thinking otherwise. I know your appetite and your needs and your heart. I know it’ll take more than me alone to satisfy them all. And that's all I've ever wanted since knowing you, is for you to be happy and safe and cared for. As long as these two males are doing that, they can have your attention, for now. When we meet? I’ll claim you for myself until I’m certain you’re mine and I’m yours and these playthings of yours will merely be bonuses for you.

A bolt of warmth radiates down the middle of me, something about his devotion and support and understanding has me feeling all sorts of things. Could he possibly sense that I’m a Succubus? I’ve never outright admitted as much, but I suppose if he can feel me enjoying the warmth of the spring, he might be able to feel my thirst.

I have to go, he writes back, that sense of foreboding overtaking every other emotion on his end of the connection.Remember. When you get to Lingate, I will find you.

You won't.

I will find you.

I feel a door close over the connection between us, something he’s only done a few times before when he doesn’t want me writing to him. I’ve never locked him out like that, but I’ll have to once I meet the Collector.

I breathe out another sigh, moving my arms back and forth through the water, unable to satisfy the restlessness prowling beneath my skin.

Not only did Six worry me, but he also worked me up, which is only an addition to what Zev and Jagger were doing to me on a daily basis?—

“Can I join you?” Jagger calls to me from the bank, and I spin around to see him standing there, already slipping out of his leather vest and laying it on the ground near my clothes.

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