Page 40 of Blood Moon Heat

I nodded, giving him the truth.

His gaze dipped to my lips, then returned to my eyes. “You want your male to use you, to hold you down and take what he wants, don’t you, Mina?”

My lips quivered and my eyes stung when I nodded a second time. “There’s something wrong with me, isn’t there?” I whispered.

He leaned in and pressed his lips to my forehead in a sweet kiss, then looked down at me again and shook his head. “No, my little doll, there is nothing wrong with you. Those desires are what they should be, the antithesis of mine. You run, I chase. You are this way because of me, because you were unlucky enough to be fated to a monster.”

Thirteen

Nero

“Don’t let her out,” I said to Pretender. “No matter how much she complains, not even if she goes on another hunger strike, understand?”

I was leaving in the morning. I’d be gone no more than a week, and if she escaped while I was gone, the chances of me getting to her before someone else did were slim. Someone was always watching and waiting. I was a member of The Five, my identity had been secret until recently, and I’d collected many enemies over the years.

Pretender nodded. “I’ll make sure she doesn’t leave.”

She still had the key she’d stolen and hidden somewhere in her room, so I’d installed a padlock on the outside. She could hate me for it all she wanted, but her safety was more important than anything else. I’d make it up to her somehow when I returned.

“Are you going to tell her you’re leaving?” Pretender asked, keeping his gaze averted.

My ward knew I didn’t like to be questioned, but he obviously felt strongly enough about it that he’d risked asking. “I assume, you think I should?”

He licked his lips, his gaze darting to me and back down. “I think she’ll be calmer knowing you haven’t abandoned her, that you’re coming back.”

“You think my absence would distress her?”

“I do,” he said. “I think she might believe you’ve lost interest in her if you don’t tell her why you’re leaving.”

I slid my hands in my pockets and studied his unnaturally perfect face. “You think you know my bonded better than me?”

His gaze shot to mine. “No, I would never assume to know Mina more than you, sir.”

“Then what brings you to this conclusion?” I liked the idea of my little Lalka missing me, craving me, but I doubted she felt strongly enough for me to feel distress at my absence.

His gaze came to me again. “My own feelings. When I was young and new to your home and your employ, you would leave and I’d never know until I sought you out that you were gone. I thought…more than once…that you’d abandoned me the same way my family had.”

I stared at him, taken off guard by his confession, and by the mention of his family. He never spoke about them.

“I didn’t mean to overstep or imply I knew your female more than you, I assure you I would never—”

“Be at ease, Pretender,” I said, the urge to alleviate his disquiet also took me off guard. “I appreciate your candor.”

He nodded jerkily.

“I’ll go to her now. After you’ve checked my weapons, you can finish for the evening.”

“Thank you,” he said and continued to sharpen my favorite blade.

I stopped at the door before I walked out. “I’ll see you in a week’s time.”

His throat worked. “Be safe.”

I strode out, a strange feeling in my gut. Pretender had been with me since he was a child, gifted to me by his parents when they were unable to pay their debts and they’d never looked back. He’d been malnourished, terrified, and he’d barely spoken a word when they dumped him at my door. I’d protected and trained him, provided him with an income, a home.

He was the only other being I trusted besides my brothers and, I guessed, the closest thing I’d had to a child of my own. I realized now, for the first time, he probably saw me as a parental figure. I wasn’t sure how to process this realization or the accompanying feelings that filled me—feelings that were volatile and unwanted.

But it was too late to stop them now, wasn’t it? My little doll had been slowly yet surely melting the ice that had numbed me for so very long.

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