Page 74 of Mate of a Monster

Legend

I had more than enough time to reconsider before landing here, yet here I am.

Standing inside the doorway of what was my sister Temperance’s “fuck around” den when we were young. She and my mother had way too much fun growing and smoking the devil’s lettuce, playing with all sorts of weird magic. In order to scare us from coming in, Temperance used to joke that it was alive. That didn’t stop us. This place grew the best herb on this side of Rathe.

I fucking hate it here. Yet something inside my chest dragged me across the grounds while my brothers argued about floods and my mate whispered words I couldn’t hear.

A soft chuckle sounds in the dark space, and my muscles coil.

Haide thrashes in the single bed, limbs tangling in the burgundy sheets. Her mouth opens on a silent scream that turns into a gasp.

I step closer before I know what I’m doing.

I’m barely a foot away when the glow of steel has my pulse fucking stop.

A dagger—what the fuck. I reach into my pocket, pressing my palm against the cold steel in my pocket. Still there.

But that doesn’t change the fact that she’s pressing a goddamn weapon to her throat in her sleep.

My knee hits the mattress as I lunge over to cover her with my weight and catch her wrists. Bone against bone. Even unconscious, she fights me, muscles locking tight as she tries to break my hold. A low vibration hums through my shoulder, spreading from her own. Shadows crowd the edges of my vision until all I see is her.

Her eyes snap open.

“Holy fuck.” I blink. The color of her eyes is swallowed by crimson. Slowly, it bleeds out and her natural green returns. I feel every breath she takes like it’s my own. She stops fighting the hold, instead focusing on weaponizing her glare. Pure hatred, or at least that’s what I convince myself I see. It lights her up better than any magic ever did. Except for that one time…

Neither of us move. The air thickens, weighed with something that has nothing to do with fear.

Her hips shift beneath me, maybe an inch. My cock hardens against my thigh, pressing against the fabric of my pants until the ache spreads. Fuck. A hunger I didn’t even know existed stirs inside me, yet satiated at the same time.

“Get off me,” she whispers, barely fucking convincing.

My mouth curves. “You’ll slit your own throat if I do.”

My mate is back in my room. My fucking mate is back in my room. The thought should stop me cold. Instead, I’m fixated on shit I shouldn’t be. Like how Haide’s body molds to mine in places I didn’t know I had. How her tits feel against my chest and how they felt in my mouth. Her thighs bracket my hips. Each ragged inhale shoves her tighter into me.

Fuck. I’m a thread away from snapping and grinding my shit against her until I fucking lose it. I remember us. Our sex. Our fucking obsession with each other. Your fucking mate is in your room.

I keep my weight on her wrists. One twitch and she bleeds out, and then what? Oops, I slipped and now the problem is dead, that’s what.

Except every muscle in my body tightens like someone is winding them up.

“Maybe I want to,” she challenges, the words drawing my attention to her mouth.

Is she fucking testing me? Like I wouldn’t let her?

“I think you’re overestimating how good of a lay you were, little pet.” My nose touches hers and I swear her breath catches. I unpeel my fingers from around her wrists. “Go on then.”

If I just inch a little—my lips skim hers and my chest fucking splits open.

“Do it. Show me how pretty you are when you bleed…”

“As if you could forget,” she whispers, then quickly nicks her skin. “Mate.”

My smirk falters the second the first bead of blood slides down her skin and kisses the edge of the blade. It moves slowly, stubborn, like it wants me to watch it happen. Like she wants me to.

The smell hits me hard. Silver, sweat, metal. There’s something underneath it that I can’t name, something familiar. But it’s not her.

It’s me.