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That was the beauty of stories—I could make anything possible in them.
And suddenly my mind caught on Erina, this keeper under my employ, and it held. I feared when that happened because when my attention was caught on something, I didn’t let it go.
if it’s a little broken, that doesn’t mean it can’t be beautiful again.”
This human woman—a keeper in my employ—was mine. My blood mate. My kyrana. I only needed a whiff of her blood to know that with the utmost certainty. And I wished I had never stepped foot in this room because of it.
it didn’t matter if she had a lover or not. I would not share. Ever.
That was how I’d always imagined falling in love might be like. Maybe it felt a little like madness—but at least you would know there was a safe place to land.
And when you had never experienced a parent’s love, it was a little easier not to miss it. How could you miss something you’d never known? But oh, had I still craved it.
“I’m yours,” she breathed. A guttural sound rose from my throat, harsh and unexpected. “You can have everything.” I kissed her harder and then pulled away. “Do you mean that?” I growled. Her eyes were unfocused, gazing at my lips. “Yes.” “Tell me you’re mine,” I ordered, my hand gliding up her neck to dive into her hair, holding her in place. “I need to hear you say it again.” “I’m yours,” she whispered. “I’ve always been yours, Kaldur.”
“For weeks, I’ve been searching for you,” he grated, his wings sagging around him when he kneeled in front of me, his chest pressing into my knees. “Do you know what this feels like?”
“I’m not going with you,” I said, a little growl of my own. His eyes shot with fire. “And I’m not leaving without you. I’ll live in this fucking room if I must, but I will not be parted from you again. Ever.”
“But I can’t control it anymore. I…I haven’t been right, Erina. Since you left me.” When I reached for her wrist, I thought I saw a flash of sympathy in her eyes. “There have been no others. I’ve only wanted you,” I confessed.
“Why am I here?” she asked next. “Why did you bring me here?” I didn’t want to scare her, but also…things would be very, very different from how they’d been before. “In an effort to be entirely honest with you,” I began, “I’ll tell you this, even though it’s against my better judgment: I intend to keep you as mine.”
“If anything had happened to you…” I might never have known, I thought, and that realization was a sobering thought.
“The truth is that I fucking burned for you,” he told me, his voice quiet and low and deathly serious. Every word in that sentence was clipped, as if he wanted me to understand each and every one. To make his meaning clear. “I have never desired someone as much I desired you that night, Erina. And I hated it. I hated that you could have that much control over me.”
I would be lying if I said the thought of bearing him sons didn’t send a tantalizing zing of want through me.
And when children are hurt, they like to hurt others. Because it feels good to make others suffer like you, so you’re not alone anymore.
“Take everything from me,” Kaldur rasped against my throat. And I shivered when I felt his hot tongue lick at the spilling blood from my neck. “Take it all, my love.”
I placed my hands on both sides of her head, capturing her beneath me like prey, my wings coming around us until it was like we were blanketed in them. I held her eyes as we shared the same breath, as I saw my own need and pleasure mirrored in her eyes. Looking down at her, I thought that there were very few moments in my life I wanted to capture forever, to be able to relive over and over again. But that this was certainly one of them.
“Everything, Erina,” I whispered, more comforted by the feel of her warm, bare skin against mine than anything in my memory. “I’ll give you everything.”
“I think that,” I began, “the heart is such a stupid, foolish thing, with no sense of self-preservation at all.” “That has been my experience, yes,” she said, her eyes twinkling with mischief. “And isn’t it marvelous?”
