Page 104 of A Kingdom of Monsters

“Let me see your stomach,” he demanded, reaching for me.

A spark of irritation shot through me, but I obliged, guiding his fingers to trail over the smooth skin of my abdomen. “I’m fine.” I told him. “You’re doing, I assume?”

I didn’t really remember much of anything after the bear swiped at me. I must have been losing my mind from blood loss and cold, and anything and everything felt like a dream rather than something that had happened to me only hours ago.

I might have been surprised to find myself healed, except that I was alive. He must have given me his blood, or I surely would have never woken up.

“You healed me.” I said, more of a statement than a question.

He shook his head. “I tried, but—” he broke off, looking at a complete loss.

“But what?”

His expression was chaos. Confusion, guilt, anger, relief. There was so much there I couldn’t pick out any one emotion individually.

“I thought you died,” he said finally.

My eyes widened. “What happened?”

“I’d been searching for you,” he said, distractedly. “I couldn’t find you anywhere. Scion was stuck up at the castle holding all the other hunters back, so I was alone.”

“Is he alright?” I demanded.

“I assume so. It hasn’t been that long. The hunt is still going on.”

I bit my lip. If I’d been injured as badly as I remembered then I was sure Scion and Bael would have felt it. They were probably going out of their minds now, wherever they were.

“I found your footsteps in the woods,” Ambrose continued. “But then you disappeared. I assumed you shadow walked.”

“I did. Your fiancé was trying to kill me.”

“She’s not my fucking fiancé,” he growled, gaze suddenly snapping back to mine. “If I could kill her again for hurting you I would do it a thousand times over.”

I shivered, liking the angry growl in his voice, but now that he’d begun I wanted to hear the rest. I wanted to understand. “Then what happened?”

“I kept looking for you on foot. Then, Isawyou. In a vision, which has hardly ever happened. I sprinted all the way here but I was too late. I killed the bear, but you were barely conscious. I could hear your heart failing, so I cut open my arm and gave you as much blood as I could force you to swallow.”

He held up his left arm and showed me a deep gash from wrist to elbow. It was still oozing slightly, not healing like it should have.

“Why would you use a Source forged blade?” I demanded.

“I wasn’t thinking,” he said angrily. It was as if he was relaying the story to himself as much as to me, words pouring out ofhim faster than he could process them. He looked at me, black eyes flashing midnight. “You were fucking dying in front of me. I would’ve torn my own heart out and given it to you. It’s already yours, anyway.”

I gasped.

What did he say?

He was staring at me with so much intense emotion raw on his face that it stole my breath. I could hear my own heart beating so loud that it seemed to echo between us. My entire body was humming, my skin buzzing, heat building all over my body.

Then, the realization hit me all at once.

It wasn’t sudden or shocking, but rather sensible. Like a piece of a puzzle finally snapping into place, giving me the answers I’d been craving for my entire life.

He was mine.

My stalking shadow. My lover. Mymate.

And with that realization came a sense of completeness that I’d never felt before, not even with Scion or Bael. It was the knowing that I was finished. I’d found all three, and now I was done searching.

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