Page 107 of Yearning For Her

“What happened?” she asked, almost incredulously. “What happened? You…” Anger flared from her, striking him hard. She wiped her cheeks and shook her head as a humorless laugh escaped her. “I can’t believe this.”

“Can’t believe what?” He reached for her, meaning to cup her face between his hands, but she recoiled from him. Curling his fingers, he let his arms drop. “I can feel your emotions, but I can’t read your mind. You haven’t told me a fucking thing.”

“Who is she?”

He understood then. Not what she’d been feeling before she left for the restroom, but what she felt now. She’d seen. A single fucking moment of Kian’s guard being down, a single case of him reacting too slowly, and she’d seen it.

“She’s no one, Willow.”

“Sure as hell didn’t look like no one to me. She looked awfully familiar with you.”

Kian ground his teeth together. He could almost feel the other woman’s lips against his, could almost taste the alcohol and lip gloss, and it made his stomach churn anew. “I fed from her in the past. She seems to have mistaken that for an open invitation.”

Someone walked by, giving Kian a look.

“The fuck you looking at?” he growled at them.

The person started, eyes rounding, and hurried away. Kian returned his gaze to his mate.

“You fed from her,” she said quietly.

“Fucked her. Is that what you’d prefer me to say? Is that what you want to hear?”

She looked away from him, bottom lip quivering as her eyes filled with fresh tears.

Fuck!

“How many other people have you fucked there?” she asked.

“I don’t know, Willow. I don’t even remember most of them.”

“So you brought me to a club where you’ve probably fucked what, just about half the people inside?”

He let out a slow, strained breath, and battled to stop himself from reaching for her again. “I brought you to a club where you wanted to dance. I didn’t think about who else would be there, because none of them matter to me.”

“And when will I cease to matter? When I’m no longer useful to you? When you’re finally able to feed from someone else?”

Kian couldn’t hold himself back any longer. He surged forward and caught her face between his hands, forcing her to look at him, not allowing her to escape, even when she grasped his wrists and tried to pull away.

“Never, Willow,” he rasped. “You will never cease to be the most important thing in my universe. Even after the last spark of my soul fizzles out and there’s nothing left of me, you will be my everything.”

A soft cry spilled past her lips, and her tears trickled onto his hands. “You said I could trust you!”

“And I did not lie. I was watching for you when she kissed me, Willow. I was worried about you. And even though I didn’t ask for it, what she did… I feel like I betrayed you. My whole fucking soul is screaming in protest of it.” He brushed his thumbs over her wet cheeks. “I can’t change what I am, can’t change the past. I have fed from countless humans. I cannot feel shame for that. I will not apologize for surviving.

“But I am sorry for the pain my past has caused you tonight. Sorry that my negligence, my failure, put you through this. I should have driven them away sooner. Should have rebuked their advances immediately and harshly, but I was distracted. All I could think of was you.”

Her grip on his wrists tightened, but she no longer fought his hold as she searched his eyes. “You didn’t kiss her?”

“No.” Kian wiped away more of her tears. “Everything I’ve said to you has been the truth. I’ve spent four hundred years experiencing everyone else’s joy like a…a fucking voyeur. Despite how many people I’ve been with, I have never once felt like I was part of anything. I’ve always been on the outside. I’ve always been…alone.

“But you have awoken something in me, Violet. All the emotions I’ve felt from humans, all the connections I’ve seen them make around me, I finally understand. I finally feel it myself. I can finally say these emotions are mine, and they are all because of you.”

Willow’s features strained, as though she were struggling not to cry again. But now it wasn’t sadness or hurt at the forefront of her emotions. It was something warm, something uplifting. “Kian…”

He smiled and lowered his face, brushing his lips over her forehead. “I’d be hollow without you, Willow. Just like I was for all those years before I found you. You gave me what I wanted.” Kian drew back and met her eyes once more. “You taught me to love, my little mortal. And I love you.”

Willow leapt at Kian and threw her arms around his neck, catching him off-guard. She clung to him tightly, desperately. The soft sounds of her weeping caught the attention of several passersby. Kian wrapped his arms around Willow and held her close, glaring at anyone who dared cast a judgmental glance their way.

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