Page 53 of Jace

He might not understand humor, but Jace definitely got sarcasm.

“Frankly, yes,” Bard said. “But I find there’s usually a rational explanation for most things. Don’t go letting that boy tell you you’re being haunted by a lonesome food delivery worker.”

He barked out such a silly laugh at his own joke that Susannah couldn’t help but laugh, too.

She could practically feel Jace bristle behind her as the drum of thunder sounded in the distance.

20

Jace

Jace was managing to hold it together as Wynyx left and they stepped back inside.

Barely.

But he didn’t like being laughed at.

And the people laughing at him were his mate and an impudent man who looked at her with a proprietary air, like she was something fun to conquer in business and in bed.

Bard Wynyx might have land and money, but he could never offer Susannah the pleasure and protection of her true mate.

“What in the ever-loving universe was that?” Susannah hissed at him as he locked the door to the house behind them.

“How could you give a stranger blanket permission to breach your property?” he demanded, his feelings building like the storm outside, threatening to pour down at any moment. “It’s not enough that we have a mystery intruder leaving stuff here, now I have to worry about this joker showing up at any time claiming to want to visit with you?”

She blinked up at him in surprise, as if she hadn’t thought of it that way.

He waited for an apology, that would be a bit hollow since it wouldn’t be for what really made his heart ache.

Instead, she narrowed her eyes and stepped forward.

“I know you’re protective,” she said. “But I’m an adult. And you humiliated me today. That man may be our only neighbor for a whole lot of years, and you made me look like a helpless woman with a basket case of a guard telling her what to do.”

“It’s my job to protect you,” he retorted, furious.

“It’s your job to protect Zeke,” she corrected him. “You’re basically his babysitter. And you are overstepping your bounds.”

“I’m your mate,” he reminded her angrily. “It’s my job to protect you, too.”

“There has been no claiming yet,” she said quietly. “I’m no one’s mate.”

Her rejection hit him like a blaster in the chest, sucking the fury out of him. He staggered backward, unable to speak.

“During an argument isn’t the right time to tell you, but there’s no point putting it off,” she said. “The berries, the arbistle, all of it is the curse. It might not be the same kind of accident as before, but it’s evolving into something that can impact you. I won’t let you take it on. We can’t be mated. That’s that.”

“You don’t really believe that,” he said, then gathered himself. “Why would you think you were cursed? You never told me the reason behind it.”

She sighed and then backed up to the sofa so she could curl up with Zeke still sleeping in her arms.

“I know many Terrans are desperately poor,” she began. “You assumed it of me, and I didn’t correct you. But my family was one of the lucky ones.”

He nodded and moved to the chair opposite her, sitting so that she could see he was listening.

“We lived in a lovely house by the beach,” she went on, with a dreamy look in her eyes. “Almost all the homes by the beach were just as lovely, and the people who lived in them all thought they were just a little bit better than everyone else.”

Jace knew the type. He nodded again, so she would know he did.

“There was one home by the beach that wasn’t so lovely,” she said, with a wry smile. “They called themselves the Church of Cupid’s Archers, but the neighbors called them a cult. Each member of Cupid’s Archers pledged that they believed in love above all else. They were all branded by a heated arrow when they joined, as part of their pledge.”

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