Page 74 of The Blood that Binds Us

“I shouldn’t have slapped you.”

“You’re right—you should have done a lot worse.” He shoots me a half-hearted wink, and my stomach does a somersault in response.

He is dangerously attractive.

I throw up my hand. “Wait a second.”

He furrows his brows.

“The Rut… that would have affected you.”

A slow smile spreads across his mouth.

“That’s why you bit me.” I nod, more to myself than him, as I make sense of his aggressive behavior the night I made him accompany my family and me to the annual shifter event.

His lips part as he sweeps his tongue across the front of his teeth. “That was fucking torture. The Rut affects me the same as any other transcendent, whether I want it to or not. Being that pent up with the need to shift and… engage inotheractivities and not being able to was driving me mad. It’s why I didn’t hang around. I needed distance from the others. And from you,” he adds darkly.

“From me?”

Sin pushes off the tree, ascending to his full height and towering over me. “You can hardly fault Eldridge for his comment at the Rut. Your scent was driving him wild with need, and he couldn’t have you. He may have chosen another mate that night, but it was you he was thinking about.”

“How could you possibly know that?”

“Because I almost did the same thing.”

My breath catches, and his eyes flash to my mouth, his advanced hearing missing nothing.

Goddess above.

I am suddenly all too aware of him. The closeness of his bare chest nearly brushing against mine, his eyes tracking every movement of my body, the devastating smirk on his face…

Seriously. It should be a crime for something so wicked to be this beautiful.

I swallow hard, burying embarrassment in the pit of my stomach. If he’s bold enough to drop a comment like that, I refuse to let it go unaddressed.

“You almost did what?” I ask.

“Take a lover,” he answers, not missing a beat. “Just to be rid of my thoughts of you, even if it would have been temporary.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

“Because I feared it would have only made me more ravenous for what I truly crave.”

I would trade away my magic for the ability to slow my pulse in a heartbeat, embarrassment rising from the depths I shoved it in and coloring my cheeks.

Tilting his head towards me, he grabs my chin and drags his nose from the base of my ear to the curvature of my jaw. “I haven’t been able to get the scent of you out of my mind.”

Every fiber of my being screams for me to place my hands against his chest, to feel his bare skin against mine, but I don’t move. For the first time in my life, I feel powerless. As if this man, looking like darkness incarnate, has the ability to strip me of all sense of rationality and bend my will to his.

I donotlike this feeling. Like I’m not in control. This is wrong. Very wrong.

But the wetness pooling between my thighs seems to disagree with me.

“Would you like to know what you smell like, little witch?” He pulls back just enough to search my face, and when I nod weakly, a soul shattering smile blooms across his. “Like the sea. When you’re angry, your scent shifts sweeter, like the calm before the storm.” He inhales deeply and lets go of my chin. His fingernails lengthen into claws, and his eyes brighten to a vivid green with that yellow ring around his pupils.

Standing before me, partially shifted into his other form… he’smagnificent.Extraordinary.

Sin reaches towards me again and slowly drags the back of one of his long nails across my cheek and down my neck. Not deep enough to draw blood, but enough to sting. In the best way possible. When he reaches the base of my throat, he loops his nail under the bodice ties of my nightgown. “And when you’re aroused,” his eyes flash to mine with a smirk that is pure sinful, “you smell like fucking starlight.”

---