Page 49 of The Monster's Mate

“Brone. I’m back.” I grab him before he can protest and lock him to me in a man-hug, squeezing my eyes to keep them from glossing over.

“Goddess, you dick! You left before I could apologize,” he mutters into my neck. It doesn’t escape my notice that he’s hugging me back just as hard.

“Not a cool way to apologize,” I chide, though I can hear the laughter in my voice. Who calls someone a dick when they’re making up? “No wonder Isabel left you.”

He lifts his head from the vicinity of my neck to glare at me. Goddess, he’s ugly. So lucky Bel’s a blind sweetheart and doesn’t mind.

“Now, now.” I shove his head back down to my neck. “Let me love you.” Laughter rumbles deep in my chest as he pulls away and yanks me to the sofa.

“Isabelae left me,” he blurts, like a forlorn kish.

“I know. You had to know it was gonna catch up to you.”

“I thought I had more time,” he says. “I thought I could make her love me before admitting we were mated.”

“Mission accomplished. She loves you,” I say wryly.

“Well, yeah. I know she does… but not enough to be mine.”

“She’s just upset. That’s all. She is gestating, you know.” Then I study him, his haggard appearance, the lack of light in the room. The fact that Wrombley’s in his little cave and peers out once in a while with a look of relief that someone else is dealing with Scowly Brow Bronan. “So, what in the creation were you doing?”

“Nothing.” Bronan mutters guiltily.

Moping, then.

I swear this place falls apart without me. How my idiot brothers mated is beyond me.

“How do you know?” Bronan asks, like it just dawned on him that I know Isabel is pregnant or that she’s left. And I guess it doesn’t matter which one I answer.

“I came home and saw River walking. She’d just come from Isabel’s—which surprised the hell out of me that Isabel had a place—so I went there.”

“Did she say anything about me?”

Great Goddess. “What are you, thirteen rotations old?”

He growls but I decide to stop torturing him.

“She regrets moving so suddenly. I think she was just so freaked out over the mating.”

“I could never let her become a breeder.”

“Have you told her why?”

“I-I tried to.”

Translation, no.

“Or did you just shut down when she said how wrong you were because deep down you knew you were wrong?”

He looks stupid when his mouth hands open. My brother has some harsh lessons to learn.

“Which made her assume you’re like every male she’s ever encountered. From the one who left her pregnant when she was but a kish herself, to the patron who betrayed her and married her off to a loser, to the male himself she was forced to mate for over a decade.”

And then he looks ashamed. Sheepish.

So I gentle my voice. “But the difference is you did it for love. You did it because you love her. And she loves you too.” Again, I take a look at the clumsy oaf. Not sure what Isabel sees there. “Poor female is addled mentally.”

He pretends not to hear. “I’m not sure how she can love me.”

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