Page 139 of Mate of a Monster

I launch myself at her.

This time, she meets me halfway.

We explode in a ball of fire and water. Her magic presses against me, invasive and fucking raw. So close I can almost reach out and—

The Nightkin roars.

“I will kill you—”

Her eyes widen before she cackles. “You can’t do anything because you’re stuck inside her!”

How can she hear him?

The dark water behind her rises, higher and higher.

“Let’s see how well you fight when you’re drowning.”

Waves crash down over me in a blanket of darkness.

I throw my flames up to meet it, but there’s too much, too fast, and the water swallows my fire like it was never there. Cold slams into me, driving me to my knees, filling my lungs with acid.

“Haide—”

Legend’s voice is clear, but I can’t respond, and his panic fills my chest.

“HAIDE—”

I try to answer, but my throat is full of darkness, and somewhere far away I hear Creed whispering something I can’t make out. Where the fuck are you, Creed!

Then the water recedes, but it’s kept me and Zev and Sinner behind a wall of it, Legend and her on the other.

“Legend—” I start toward him, but the dark water thickens until it’s a rippling wall of impenetrable glass.

We can’t break it but we can see through it.

She reaches out and cups his face in her hands.

He doesn’t pull away.

“Legend, fight it—”

“I can’t.” The words come out of him broken, hollow. “Haide, I can’t—every time I try, it—”

“Shh.” Arabella strokes his cheek, and the gesture makes my stomach turn. “I know. I built it that way.” She leans in, pressing her forehead to his. “You were never going to be free of me, Legend. Not really. Not completely.”

She pulls back slightly, whispering, “You’re home.”

No.

“He’s mine,” Arabella says it out loud, as if she fucking needs to. “He always was. He always will be.” Her eyes find mine. “And there’s nothing you can do to change that.”

She presses a kiss to Legend’s forehead.

He shudders, but he doesn’t move away.

The pale thread pulses brighter.

And I watch, helpless, as the man I love kneels at the feet of the woman who owns a piece of him I can’t reach.