Page 21 of Ravished By the Reaper

I will not rend my mate’s best friend. I will not rend?—

“Time to go, Glenda,” Hayden says.

“Right.” The ghost giggles. “Be sure to have arealgood time.” With that, she vanishes, taking Maximus with her.

With her ghosts gone, the revenants defeated, and my magic swirling around us, we have the rest of our lives to celebrate what the gods have granted us.

To bond.

To finally finish what I started that fateful night.

To claim the one woman meant to be mine.

She will be my forever mate.

Starting right now.

“You made your choice.” I bind her to me with my shadows, remembering what she said the first time I touched her in this form.Prove it.Her playful taunt repeats in my mind, a teasing challenge I’ll never stop trying to meet. I tighten my grip until she lets out a sigh of submission. “Let me prove to you why it was the right choice.”

“Yes, Shadow Daddy.”

I can’t wait to claim this woman. She’s everything.

Minx.

Miracle.

Mate.

Mine.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Hayden

Wren wraps shadows around my arms, my thighs, even my hair to tug it so that I’m forced to tip my head back in surrender. Like this, I feel himeverywhere. He pins me against the van, and I push against his hold, testing the bonds while not wanting him to release me.

His warm breath against my throat makes me shiver. “Stay there while I fix the wards,” he orders.

He can demand whatever he desires. The promise in his voice tells me I’ll get what I want, whatweboth want in the end.

A swirl of his shadows lifts me in the air like I weigh nothing to him. His darkness cocoons mein heat, a sharp contrast to the cool metal at my back. The thin fabric of my shirt and panties seems so confining when all I can think about is pushing against him to show him how much I crave him, need him. The adrenaline rush from the fight with the revenants and our argument has me buzzing.

Turning his attention from me, he keeps me pinned while patching the wards where I drove the van through his beautiful designs.

My brain knows he’s doing this to protect me in case we haven’t seen the last revenant, and the artistry and detail of his warding sparks my curiosity. But the brat in me wants to demand he pay attention entirely to me. I squirm against his shadows, trying to force him to focus on me.

The shadows tighten, one slipping to rub against the cotton of my panties. “Stay. There.” The rumble beneath his words, the dark command in his voice makes me wet, so wet there’s no way he won’t discover it as he brushes back and forth over the fabric.

“I want?—”

“I’ll give you what you want. As soon as the wards are finished.” Despite the bossy, detached way he says the last, he continues teasing me with his shadows—a sweep beneath my panties, a pinch of my nipples, a stroke of my collarbone, a rougher hold on my hair.

My legs shake, and my knees threaten to buckle, but he holds me steady, toying with me while he painstakingly repairs each line and curve. He drags my pleasure to the precipice of a climax, only to withdraw and leave me panting.

“Don’t you need to concentrate on the spell?” I ask, gasping past the godawful ache in my core so I might fake the same level of control he possesses.

“Spells are about intentions. Intentions are everything.” He keeps teasing me, using his intimate knowledge of my body to edge me again and again. “I intend to protect you, to fight for you, to love you for the rest of our lives.”

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