Page 88 of What Lurks Between the Fates

“You don’t mean that,” he said finally, raising his brows as he shook his head subtly.

“I didn’t understand when you said you would let the world die if it meant I could survive the wreckage. I hadn’t let myself love you… not like this,” I explained, stepping toward him slowly. My bottom lip trembled, this confession feeling different from all the others. “But I do now.”

I reached up, cupping his cheek as he stared down at me. “I would sacrificeeveryoneif it meant I had you,” I said, pulling his face down so that I could brush mylips against his. “So do not ever ask me to leave you. Never again.”

He sighed as he pinched his brow between two fingers. “My star…”

“Don’t,” I said, making my way to his bed.

I brushed off the emotion clogging my heart, shoving it down to salvage what I could of our night together. With my ability to shadow walk, I hoped they wouldn’t be limited any longer, but I had no control over when Mab collared me—or when she didn’t.

I would take what I could when it came to the male who stared at me in disbelief. I dropped down onto the edge of the bed, pulling my nightgown up inch by inch so that my calves showed as I crossed my legs.

“We both know I’m not leaving.”

My mate’s eyes dropped to the exposed flesh, his head tilting to the side as that animalistic desire spread over his face and washed away all traces of sadness.

“We could spend the night arguing about something you will not change my mind about, or we could…”

“You escaped the prison of your room because you wanted my cock?” he asked, but his feet had already moved, bringing him closer. He paused in front of me, staring down at me as he reached out with a single hand. His thumb stroked my cheek, making a single sweep over my skin as he curled his fingers beneath my chin.

“Not just your cock,” I said, nearly breathless. He’d barely touched me, barely even shifted his attention away from our argument. But even still, heat gathered between my thighs. “I want your mouth too.”

That stunning face spread into a grin. “I’ve created a monster.”

He plunged his mouth down onto mine, his lips so firm against my own that I groaned into him. He devoured it, swallowing the sound with a growl of his own as his hands fisted my nightgown—shoving it farther up my thighs and lifting me from the bed just enough to reveal the bare curve of my ass against his sheets.

“I’myourmonster,” I said as he pulled back, the words quietly torn from the depths of me and an echo of what he’d once said to me. It felt like an admission—like telling him my deepest secret of the creature who lingered there. I’d tried not to look too closely at her, at the mix of scales and darkness and flesh that comprised her very being. She wasn’t human, but she wasn’t an animal either.

And though her eyes were larger and gleamed with golden light…

Her face was mine.

My mate’s expression softened, and he leaned forward to touch a far more gentle kiss to my mouth. It was the kind of kiss that nearly broke me—that spoke to the shattered pieces he saw that no one else could find.

“I have lived for centuries, my star.Centuries.And you are the furthest thing from a monster I have ever met.”

I sighed, even as the creature within me settled into the warmth of his words. “You don’t see what’s inside me.” I was tempted to look away, to hide the shame of the parts he hadn’t seen—the parts that terrified me.

But I forced myself to meet his gaze as he leaned forward, touching his forehead to mine as his faint breath washed over me and surrounded me in the scentof snow and wintergreen. “I see all of you, Estrella. There is nothing left that you can hide from me, and there is no corner of you I do not love with every thread of my being,” he murmured, his eyes so intent on mine that I forgot how to breathe.

I swallowed, letting his love wash away the shadows that threatened to consume me. “Is it always like this?” I asked, my voice the faintest murmur.

It seemed impossible to imagine that anyone could love someone as fully as he loved me, that other people existed out there—still kept from the completion that came with knowing their mate.

“I don’t think so,” he said, immediately understanding what I meant. He knew that I couldn’t get enough of his hands on me, of his eyes on mine, and his feelings surging through the thread that tethered us. “But not all males worship their females. Some only expect it from them.”

As if to prove his point, he leaned forward to touch his mouth to my jaw. He trailed those sinful lips over my skin, curving them around to the side of my neck as I arched for him. Brushing the straps of my nightgown down over the curve of my shoulders, he allowed the silk to drop to my waist so that my breasts were revealed to the chilled air.

The fire burned higher in the hearth as he sent a soft winter breeze to it, stoking the flames. It reached my skin in perfect time as he trailed that mouth over my breast, slowly easing himself to his knees. He wrapped his mouth around my nipple, biting it sharply before he continued down.

Skimming over the fabric of my nightgown, he placed his hands beneath my ass and pulled so that I tumbled back to the bed. Tugging me down to the edge, he spread my thighs around his head, draping mylegs over his shoulders as he touched his mouth to me.

I pushed up onto my hands, staring down at him where he dragged his tongue through me. The sight of that beautiful, wicked face between my legs drew a moan from me. Caldris chuckled into my flesh, the rumble of it sending vibrations shooting through me as I grasped him by the hair.

I’d never get used to having a God on his knees for me.

His ashen silver strands glided through my fingers as I gripped, shoving him closer and demanding more. He obliged, using tongue and teeth to bring pleasure to every part of me as I whimpered.

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