Page 115 of Our Sins in Shadows (Coven of Sin 2)

“I’m not worthy of you in that form,” he snapped, a brief flash of green showing through the obsidian pools of his glower. “That weakened version of me couldn’t properly protect you in Boston.”

I unlatched from his chest and stretched to a full sitting position where I mounted him.

Sterling and Eros were still kneeling in my periphery at the far end of the room, watching us with haunted expressions.

Feral gaped up at me with a look I couldn’t read. Awe? Love? Guilt? I didn’t care enough to stop and decipher it. Whatever it was, it was becoming apparent that he was attempting to regain his senses. It was possible there was hope that the man I loved was still in there.

He was just buried deep, deep down.

“Youareworthy of being my mate, but only when you let the veil fall away and expose the parts of yourself that you call weak. Don’t you get that?” I sniffled, my tear-swollen face contorting with anger.

“You protected me in Boston by giving me the strength and reassurance I needed to realize the extent of my own hybrid abilities. I don’t need the freakish healing powers of your fae blood. All I need is your heart. But maybe you don’t have one to give.”

With the way I mounted him, his cock pressed against my core. Somehow the bastard still sported a hard-on. My claws skimmed the column of his throat. When his arms lifted from his sides, I thought he’d yank me off him, but his hands held my hips instead, steadying me.

The gentle touch only made me more furious.

“You left me. Without telling me shit. Did you know our bond almost broke while you were gone? No. Why would you? I don’t carry your mark. It was just me who suffered. A part of me thought you died. I couldn’t feel you. I got so cold…” My voice snapped with emotion, and my body trembled at the fresh memory.

He reached up to encase me in his embrace, but I slapped him away with a vicious hiss. “Don’t youdare. You don’t get to touch me. I felt my heart shatter into pieces. I get that me marking you was all a part of our plan to escape from the BC.“I blinked away several more tears. “But to me, it meant more than that. So when you fucked off, a part of me felt like I’d lost you forever. And knowing logically you were alive, it made me think that our mating didn’t mean as much to you as it did to me.”

“Ruby.” Already Vin’s voice was changing, losing its infernal baritone and returning to his usual tone.

“You don’t get to speak yet! And you don’t get to say my name like you give two shits about me.” I seized him by his wide jaw and held my face so close to his I knew my sneer filled his vision. “You don’t get to speak to me like you love me. Like you’re even capable of it. Because a male who loves me wouldn’t go off to fuck knows where without so much as a damn text. He wouldn’t threaten to kill his own brother.”

I traced the scar with the tip of my claw that glittered with his blood. “He wouldn’t leave any part of his mate to think that he’d died. He certainly wouldn’t come back to threaten the male who comforted her and protected her when really he should be on his knees thanking him. So maybe…”

I pushed my claw into his flesh right over the mating scar on his throat. “If I take back my mark and renounce you as my mate, maybe you’ll know that gut-wrenching pain of losing a bonded partner.”

Threatening to rip off the flesh where the scar sat was not a light threat. I knew that by the way it made my own spine shudder and how Eros and Sterling shifted uncomfortably across the room.

This wasn’t some run-of-the-mill break-up threat like slashing a guy’s tires or asking for a promise ring back. I threatened to cut off a vital part of him that was woven into the fabric of his being.

Feral’s face etched with horror. His irises were returning to that bright viridian.

“D–don’t. Please, don’t take the mark away.”

And there it was. Vin’s vulnerability, trying to crawl its way to the surface.

We weren’t out of the woods yet, though. He needed to shift all the way back.

My top lip curled into a bitter snarl. Papers flitted around the room, and my hair whipped against my tear swollen cheeks as my rage exploded from my body like a volcano intent on destruction. “Why should I allow you to keep it?”

His jaw flexed, and the look in his shifting eyes made my chest weak with love and need for him. “Because I am yours, and you are mine. We burn bright together. We are each other’s strength. You feed my chaos, and I feed yours.”

“But that’s the thing. We can’t be any of that for each other if you aren’t here. You left and let your monster take control of you. Maybe all you really are is just a monster, inside and out. I might be a monster too, but I have feelings. You? You’ve got nothing, Vincent Feral. You are cruel and vicious, and I refuse to be your source for blood and pain and nothing more!”

My voice came out thunderous, making everything inside me rattle and shake. Even with my powers out in full force, I felt so weak and wrong, threatening to take my mark back. My finger trembled as my claw cut into his flesh. “I’m taking back my commitment to you, even if it kills me.”

Before I could deepen the cut, large, midnight black fingers coiled around my wrist. Vincent’s grip lacked the force it’d possessed minutes ago. He held me loosely, just enough to guide my hand away from his throat.

“Don’t.Please.I beg of you. Don’t sever our mating bond. I’ll do anything. Just don’t— Don’t take yourself away from me.”

My eyes widened as I realized that the thing to pull Vin from the mire of his instincts wasn’t the threat of pain, but the threat of breaking our mating bond for good.

“I’m so fucking sorry.” His eyes closed, dark lashes brushing his cheeks. When he opened them again, they were back to their full verdant hue.

He held his palm to my cheek, and by the time his fingers stroked my flesh, his talons had retracted.

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