Page 204 of Mama Si's Paradise

Fuck. That.

“Good,” Grey said. “You don’t have to—I won’t.”

I looked up at him, the wings blowing my hair in my face for a second.

Then I laughed. “Are we really having this conversation in the fucking air?”

“Where else are we going to have conversations?” he said with a mischievous grin.

“Somewhere closer to the ground, for example?”

“But I’m not done with you up here yet.”

“Grey,” I warned. “We have to talk. Iwantto talk.”

“Then talk, baby,” he said, and then we were moving. His wings were beating faster, and we were moving lower,slowly,but even so, my stomach was trying to climb right up my throat.

“This is so uncomfortable…” I squeezed my eyes shut, hiding my face under his chin. “Put me down, please. Just put?—”

We landed on something hard.

There was something solid beneath my feet again, and my heart jumped with joy.

Then I opened my eyes to see that we were on the rooftop of the third tower. Thepointyrooftop, and we were right at the edge of it.

“Grey!”

He was laughing as I held onto him tighter.

God, it was worse than being up there in the air because we were at the very edge. I was practically half lying on the smooth surface of the roof tiles.

Grey pressed me down harder, basically falling on top of me, and his wings wrapped around us on both sides, securing us in place. The curved claws at their edges dug into the roof tiles, taking chunks off them in the process.

A small scream escaped me, but the roof was against my back, and Grey’s body was pressed to mine, and his wings didn’t budge. Rain fell on our heads—small, gentle drops—and the dark of the sky enveloped us completely.

Like this, I saw nothing else but Grey and the sky.

“There. We’re safe enough to talk now,” he said with a lopsided smile that had my insides melting a little bit.

“You’re awful,” I mumbled, but I was smiling nonetheless, holding onto his neck.

“I’m in desperate need of you, baby,” he said, touching his lips to mine. My eyes closed and I somehow had enough strength to resist kissing him.

“Grey, wait.” I wanted to talk, didn’t I? “The…the other brides. This is important.”

“Important, yes,” he muttered, eyes on my lips still.

“I’m serious. I don’t want to be another bride and have to wonder where you are every single night when you’re not with me. I can’t live like that.”I wouldn’t.

“You won’t. I swear it on these wings that I haven’t touched another woman since the moment I saw you, and that I never will until the day I die. Do you understand me?”

His words were heavy. So fucking heavy.

“But you’re an Evernight.” And we both knew what that meant.

“I’m Grey first,” he told me. “And Grey is only yours.”

“Oh, yeah? So, what amIthen?” Because no matter what he said, that’s what I was called—a bride.

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