Page 2 of Wanted

Trying to help her see reason, I say gently. “You have to, my love, if you ever want to experience true happiness.”

She shakes her head back and forth in denial. “It will kill me.”

Images of everything she’s longed to do over the past decade flash through her mind. Everything the Order denied her by keeping her trapped underground like a rat in a cage.

She longs for mortal freedom as much as I long for her.

But fate has already decided where this will end.

My determination strengthening, I know how to convince her.

Tightening my hold, I croon, “All those things you want… Everything you desire…”

Taking control of her dream, I weave together everything I glimpsed in her mind around us.

The grass she wants to run through. The flowers she’s longed to smell. The tall trees reaching for the sky.

And the soft breeze teasing at her hair.

She sways on her feet, but my hold keeps her from falling over.

“I will give them to you,” I vow.

She twists in my arms and stares at the grass swaying before her in wonder.

Turning her back around, I nudge her chin up so she can see what she’s yearned the most for.

A large, open sky splashed with red, pink, and orange stretching above us.

How did he know I wanted this?she thinks to herself.

Wanting her to understand how closely we’re already connected, I answer, “I’m inside you.”

Icy dread flows through the fragile bond on her end.

“You can read my thoughts?” she asks.

Her dread settling in my own stomach for a moment, I hesitate before admitting, “Yes.”

Her muscles tense, as if she means to run.

Crushing her against me, I remind her, “You gave me permission.”

“When?!” she gasps.

I brush my lips purposely against her ear and enjoy how even the slightest touch from me affects her. “When you begged for more pleasure.”

She jerks her head away, but I follow.

Exhaling, I caress her with my breath. “Everything you think, I hear. Everything you feel, I feel.”

Her fear of me surges through the bond, threatening to overwhelm my control.

I pull back and look at her face. “Because you’re the other half of my soul.”

Shaking her head in denial, she thinks to herself,That’s impossible. People don’t share souls.

Anger floods me, further testing the limits of my patience.

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