Page 136 of Bonds of Hercules
A few hours ago, I’d crawled to her, fully prepared to die so she could be free of me.
But she hadn’t done it.
Instead, Alexis had saved me, her fingers glowing with pure bright light, like she was the sun itself. I’d never seen anything like it.
She was giving us another chance. It was everything I could have ever dreamed of—nervous energy turned my stomach—the pressure was immense.
I couldn’t afford to fuck this up. Not again.
So here I was, standing over her, watching her sleep, holding a black-and-white rose that I’d hand cut from the garden because it reminded me of her eyes.
The groundskeeper was going to murder me.
You need to stop stalking her.
Knowing something was technically wrong was one thing, butactuallystopping the behavior was another.
Alexis discarded the roses I left on her pillow every night, but she still bothered to pick them up. She touched them. She looked at them. She gave them attention, and that had to mean something.
I still had a chance.
If she didn’t care at all, she wouldn’t bother to look at them. She’d just ignore them.
I can still win her over.
Mine. My woman. Mine.
The primitive part of my brain had latched onto Alexis Hert, and it couldn’t let her go. I needed to watch her sleep just like I needed air.
Augustus understood the obsession.
We both felt the pull.
I needed to know that she was safe, especially at night. My protective instincts were screaming at me that it was the mostdangerous time of day. She was unguarded. Anyone could sneak up and attack her, and there would be no way to react in time.
But when I watched her, no one could hurt her because they’d have to get through me and my hounds first.
I was her shadow. Themonsterthat stood behind her.
Augustus said Helen told him that people who loved each other gave each other space when they needed it.
Those people sounded like actual idiots.
I wanted to crawl under Alexis’s skin and learn everything about her. I yearned to hear every thought she ever had. I needed to ask why she slept with her calculator on her pillow next to her head, and how she came to have a pet echidna.
It physically hurt to be parted from her.
Mine. Mine. Mine, the voice chanted in my head.
Maybe I’d spent too many hours in the forest hunting prey; maybe I was born messed up; maybe my parents’ lack of affection had broken something inside of me; maybe it was just how I was.
Space was not something I could give Alexis.Ever.
Pink bedding rustled as the object of my every desire sighed heavily in her sleep, an errant curl blowing off her lips.
Stop being a coward. Do it.
I stepped out of the shadows and leaned over Alexis.
