Page 101 of The Stone Curse
“I think they injected me with something that heightened arousal. It made me see you at the lake, and I wanted you. I wanted you so fucking badly.” He covered my hand on his chest. “My beast came out and took what it needed.”
They made him imagine he was having sex with me? “They triggered the curse by deception? I don’t understand…If the curse could be activated by simplythinkingthat you were having sex with your mate, then any sigma who dreamed of sex with their mate would have activated it.”
He was silent for several seconds before replying. “I could smell you, Cameron. Your true scent, and I heard them mention pheromones at one point. I think they had yours.”
“But how? How could they…Prasan?”
“It wouldn’t have been difficult for him to take samples of sweat from your clothes. DNA from your hairbrush, your toothbrush even. Whatever they did worked and activated this curse, and then…then I was trapped in darkness, and something else was in control.”
“Ubron?”
His body rippled with tension. “Was that its name?”
“That’s what the general called you.” I refused to think of the graynite as Romi. “But Ubron’s gone now, right?”
“I believe so. I can’t feel him.” He turned his head to look at me. “But I felt our bond solidify. They may have mimicked a consummation and activated the curse, but what just happened here, that was real.”
“I felt it too.” But there was more. Something I’d seen…Fuck, I was overthinking.
Nothing else mattered right now except the fact that he was here. He was safe. I kissed him, a brush of the lips. Just a taste. “You fought, and you came back to me. You saved me.”
“Yousaved me.” He raked his gaze over my face. “I’d be lost without you. You tethered me, Cameron.” He cradled the back of my head and pressed his lips to my forehead. “I thought I’d never see you again. Feel you again. But you’re here. You’re here.” His voice cracked, and he gathered me to his chest, holding me as if I was the most precious, fragile thing, and he was afraid he’d crush me.
Heat bloomed behind my eyes. “I’m never leaving you. We’re never going to be apart again.” I pushed up on one elbow to look down into his beautiful face. “No more running from this.” Icupped his jaw and ran my thumb across his bottom lip. “We can have it now. All of it. Us.”
His eyes darkened. “We will. We’ll have it all, and we’ll bring down the faction in the process. I’m not sure what they’re planning, but when that thing was inside my body, I felt its intent, its excitement. Whatever is coming, it’s close. We can’t get complacent. We can’t back down. We’ve got to do everything within our power to stop them.”
My gums ached where I ground my teeth. “They killed Romi. I’m going to make them pay.”
“We’ll make them pay together,” Serath growled. “Whatever comes our way now, we will face together.”
“Yes, we can—” My skin prickled with a familiar heat, and I stilled.
“Cameron? What’s wrong?” His nostrils flared, chest vibrating in a purr of pleasure. “You smell…so fucking good.” He buried his nose in the crook of my shoulder, inhaling me.
My pussy throbbed at the contact, swelling as his mouth parted over my skin to taste me.
Fuck. I didn’t have the tincture, hadn’t taken it since this morning. All the activity must have burned it out of my system faster than usual, and?—
He pinched my waist, then slid his hand down to grab my ass, hauling me closer while he sucked on my neck. “Fuck, Cameron.” He kissed his way up to my earlobe and across my jaw toward my mouth. “I want inside you. Now.”
My eyes rolled back, and I moaned into his mouth, surrendering to the kiss that promised so much more. I wanted his cock deep inside me. Needed it. I could have it.
Like you had Curi’s fingers in you?
Ice crystalized in my gut. Oh, fuck, how could I have forgotten about that? I pulled away. I needed to tell him aboutCuri, had to confess before the needing hit hard and took my senses.
He’d gone still too, watching me. Waiting. He knew something was wrong, of course he did. He could probably sense it through our bond.
“It’s all right, Cameron,” he said. “You can tell me anything.”
I breathed past the twisted ache in my chest. “Remember they said I had fae blood?”
He kissed my jaw, his lips coasting across to my mouth so his words hummed against my lips. “I do, yes.”
I wanted to kiss him so badly. “Well, we figured out what it means, but before that…” I gently pushed him back so I could meet his gaze. “But before that, the needing hit hard. It was painful, and I couldn’t assuage it.”
His nostrils flared, eyes narrowing. “Go on…”
