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Chapter Fifty-One

Davix

My canines sank deeper against Ember’s neck, still not breaking skin, but enough for me to taste the bond, enough for me to hear the thoughts racing through her head, to feel her blood pumping through her body.

A rush of ecstasy, of desire, of need raced through my system.

“Need to mark mate. Need to mark mate now!”

Every millisecond that passed without me claiming her, the rowdier and rowdier my wolf became. And honestly, I wanted to mark her too. Goddess, I fucking wanted to mark her. Right here. Right now.

So nobody would be confused about who she belonged to.

So no wolf would take her again, without me being able to find her.

So no man would touch her again, without my claws ripping him apart. Piece by piece.

Ember moaned softly and dragged her cute little dull nails down my back. “Please …”

When I closed my eyes, about to finally close the distance, the images of my sister, of Hazel’s mate, of Mom flashed through my head. Every last one of them had suffered. Suffered because of my family.

And Mom? She suffered the worst.

The others died within moments of mating, knowing the consequences. But the curse had sunk into Mom’s bones, sickened her for years, until her bones and body decayed right in front of us.

No amount of pain meds or the mate bond could fix her.

Nor could it dull the pain.

I balled my hand into a tight fist by my side and stiffened, refusing to sink my canines deeper, but also not pulling away. I didn’t want to pull away. I wanted to mark her badly. It wasn’t just my wolf anymore.

No, I had realized that after she was taken.

I had left to look for her. I had chosen to search Black Hollows. Not my wolf.

“But we need mate,” my wolf howled.

“She’ll die,” I growled back.

He howled inside me, and my chest tightened. I squeezed my eyes closed, my breathing becoming shaky, shiftier. If I mated with Ember, it wouldn’t last. She’d die. She’d fucking die in the end, and I couldn’t do anything about it.

“Please,” my wolf said, pleading with me now. “I need her.”

It wasn’t we anymore because he knew that I wouldn’t agree with him as much as I fucking wanted to. It was him. He wanted me to do this for him. He needed me to do this for him. And if I didn’t … I might not ever see him again.

I had heard stories of a wolf leaving their human, of never returning.

Not only would I lose my mate, but my other half too.

“I can’t.”

“Then pull away,” he ordered me. “Then reject her.”

When those words left his mouth, I tensed even more. All this time, he had told me that we needed to mate her. All this time, I had been the one who wanted to reject her. All this time, I had … I had begun to feel something.

Something I knew I shouldn’t.

“Pull away and reject mate,” he said. “We can’t … I can’t do this anymore.”