Page 74 of The Broken Aztec Princesses

Cade walked toward me, grabbed my ankle, and pulled on it, making me slide down the bed with a startled cry. He removed the bedsheet from around me and leaned down to kiss me. He placed the warm, wet cloth between my legs and pulled back to clean me. When he was done, Cade threw the wet cloth in the hamper, and crawled over me to the other side of the bed, where he pulled me against his chest until I was enveloped in his arms and safely nestled between his legs. It felt good. Comfortable. Like this was where I needed to be.

I should tell him to leave before someone noticed, but just for tonight, I didn’t. I wanted to know what this was like. I wanted to know what it felt like to wake up next to Cade.

Tomorrow.

Tomorrow we would talk about everything. What this meant, who could know and how this might work. But tonight, I just wanted to enjoy this.

Chapter Thirteen

Violet

Iwas reading the same page for what felt like the third time, without understanding any of the words, when I heard a knock on the door. I tensed. Chris would knock on the bathroom door. He only used the main door when we were coming in together. Cade made a lot of noise coming down the hallway and Bells knew to call out her name when she knocked. So, who was this?

The knock repeated, and I thought about mind-linking Chris, but took a deep breath and tried to think rationally. If they wanted to hurt me, they wouldn’t have knocked, right?

“Who is it?” I called out.

“It’s Elim. Are you okay? I didn’t see you outside.”

I relaxed, put my tablet on the bed and got up to open the door. I still wasn’t a hundred percent comfortable being alone with Elim, but I was comfortable enough to not be rude.

“I wasn’t planning on going to the full moon celebration. There’s too many people there.” I said, opening the door.

It was the truth, but not the whole truth. I hadn’t been to full moon celebrations since the night my mate died, and I was scared. Scared that I would find my second-chance mate and lose him again. Scared that I wouldn’t find him, knowing who else was looking down there.

Elim waited until I was sitting by my bed again before he stepped inside. He left the door open and walked to the other side of the room, leaning against the window.

“You’re not even curious to see if your mate is down there?” he asked.

“Not really. Maybe when I get better,” I lied. I was curious, but I also wanted to remain hopeful for another month. “Don’t you want to be down there when the moon peaks, so you can see if there’s a mate down there for you?” I changed the subject.

I was the one who suggested he ask Bells if he could join and see if he had a mate like Aunt Kassie and Adrien.

Elim looked disappointed for a moment before he turned and drew the curtains open. “It’s peaking already.”

“I’m sorry, Elim. I’m sure the Moon Goddess will grant you a mate soon.”

“It was worth a shot to see if she was here,” he sighed, looking at me with sadness in his eyes.

I felt for the guy. Before I lost Billy, finding my mate was all I could dream of.

“Do you just want to hang out? I was reading, but I can put on a movie. Bells signed me into her Disney Plus account,” I suggested, trying to cheer him up.

It seemed to work because he finally smiled at me.

“That sounds great. I can’t do anything until everyone is sleeping. Do you need some snacks? I can go downstairs and get some for you.”

“Ooh, would you sneak me something? I skipped dinner.”Because I made Chris go downstairs to see if he had a second-chance mate,I thought.

“Sure. Anything you don’t like?” he asked and I shook my head.

“I’m not a picky eater. If you want to bring a tumbler of blood for yourself, that’s fine, too. Adrien and Aunt Kassie learned to be comfortable about it around us.”

They didn’t always have to drink blood, but whenever they were going on serious missions, they drank blood. They said their bodies processed the nutrients faster.

A small frown came back to Elim’s face. “Are you related to Uncle Gonzalo? Is that why you call Aunt Kassie aunt?”

“No. It’s just that his family is incredibly close to mine, so we grew up calling them that.”

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