Page 80 of Shadowlands Omega

“To be honest, I never even imagined what it would beliketo belong to someone. It was never done, so it never felt like it was an option for the Shadow Lord. It never even crossed my mind as a possibility.”

“I kind of, in a strange way, know how you feel.”

“Hmm,” he says contentedly and cryptically.

“Hmm?”

“Yes, hmm.”

“Don’t sound so pleased."

“Why would I not be pleased? If you ever wanted to belong to someone or several someones, I’d have to launch a killing spree. Your answer spares many lives and me much effort.”

I flick the nipple I’d just been stroking. He hisses and then chuckles, sounding so...so easy I can’t help but ignore his promises of murder. Changing the subject, he says, “Are you in pain?”

I don’t tell him the truth, but lie. “Not at all.” A little.

“I cannot tell if you’re lying to me and you’re making me worry. I don’t want to hurt you, Kiandah. I never want to hurt you. Even if you deny me at the Red Moon Festival, I would not want to see you harmed. You are a special person. Caring to the point of being stupidly self-sacrificing. Domineering to the point of being sadistic.” He grabs a fistful of my ass and I retaliate by pinching his ribs. He hisses and a low growl picks up in his throat that is no longer man, but all beast. “Beautiful to the point of being hard to look at.”

“That’s not true,” I whisper back on a laugh. “None of it is.”

“Humble,” he continues, like he hasn’t heard me one bit. “To the point of being nauseating.”

I laugh and slap him lightly, then kiss his pec beneath my cheek before settling back in and closing my eyes. His cock hasn’t jerked inside of me in a while. I wonder if he’s close to finishing. “And what about you?”

“What about me?”

“You’re all of those things, too.”

He scoffs, “I forgot to add that you are clearly blind, too. If you think I am humble or self-sacrificing or caring or domineering, then you must have forgotten the blood-spattered walls of my dungeons and the fact that I crawled on the ground to your feet just now, and it wasn’t the first time.”

His words shouldn’t make me smile, but I do. “You don’t deny that you are attractive though.”

“As I said, I am not a humble male. I know what I look like. Do you?”

I think about it, chewing on my lower lip as my eyes close and I picture my own face behind my eyelids. Strangely, the first faces I see aren’t mine, but my sisters’. And then the images swirl apart and rematerialize into a memory of Yaron kneeling on the ground of the hunter’s hole before me, and then again, his head tucked between my thighs on the bed. And it’s not what I see in that instant, but what I feel. I feel beautiful in ways I never have.

“I’m not sure. I think I…I think I see myself better through you.”

He’s quiet for a moment and the sounds from all the way in the tavern suddenly trickle in as I begin to lose consciousness. “I don’t know what I see anymore, Kiandah. It seems as if all I can see anymore is you.”

I suck in a little breath, but it sounds loud. I freeze, hoping he doesn’t expect a reaction because I don’t know what reaction I’d give. I feel heat in my eyes and in my cheeks and an overwhelming desire to kiss him. I lift up. He’s already there. He kisses me deeply and rolls us onto our sides. He wraps an arm and leg around me and tucks me in tight. I try to tuck him back, but he’s too big. I feel like he’s my shield now, and I want to be that for him.

“I want…”

“Are you…” he says at the same time. He clears his throat slightly. “Go on. What do you want?”

To protect you. “Nothing.”

He doesn’t believe me, but when I don’t give him more, he grunts, “Are you hungry?”

“No. I want to sleep with you.” I circle my arms around him as much as I can and squeeze him tight, afraid to let him go.

“You will. Every night.”

I smile, filled with a ballooning and terrible hope. “I had a really nice time shopping with you in the market.”

“I did, too.”

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