“Alone maybe?” Crilus asked and I motioned for him to lead the way.
Crilus’s lips pulled tight and he turned on his heels. I followed him back into the living room and up the stairs to a room that smelled a lot like Teal Moonscale.
“Teal’s bedroom, huh?”
“Don’t you start. Don’t you think I have half the bloody territory thinking I’m pining away for him? It’d almost be worth the claiming vows just so someone could tell the rest of the idiots that I don’t pine for him or his thick-head brothers.”
I licked my lips, imagining what the clear magical fluid inside his claiming gland might taste like.
“Stop that! I don’t know what you’re thinking about licking –” he blushed and stammered over his words before finding them again. “Just don’t, okay?”
“I fear that my mind is not fully mine at the moment,” I said, stepping closer to him because I couldn’t help it. “I can only imagine how much it belonged to you in the previous lives we’ve shared.”
“I need you to look at something,” he said, pulling his hands out of his pockets and sinking onto the edge of the bed. “This.”
He held out a photograph of an elven woman who looked as if she wanted nothing more than to devour the heart and liver of whoever took her picture.
“Okay,” I nodded and scanned the photo again as if it were a finder page in a children’s book.
“She is my sire’s mother. She is dead but she is also always up to no good and not in a cute way either,” Crilus said, crossing his long, lean legs. “I came back to warn you about her. She tried to kidnap me when I was a kid. She’s a bigot and a bitch. So if you see her, let Mori handle her or something.”
“Does she haunt you?” I inquired.
“I haven’t laid eyes on her since she kidnapped me. Though, my bar sort of blew up tonight.”
“That’s why we met,” I nodded.
“I just thought you should know and---” he stopped talking and slid the photograph back into his pocket as if the woman could use it to eavesdrop through.
“Do you think I’m frightened of ghosts?” I asked him. “Is this your way of trying to scare me off?”
“I—I’m not staying. I should’ve said that straight off, but I needed you to see her photograph so that you’d be safe from her.”
I opened my mouth and shut it again. I couldn’t let him leave. I wouldn’t be able to stand it. He ran once and came back but I couldn’t count on him to find a reason to talk himself into coming back a second time. I’d do whatever it took to keep him here.
“What’s really going on?” I asked, hoping conversation was enough to keep him here.
“I’m saving us both by leaving,” he said, standing up.
“You’re not leaving,” I shook my head, hating how the words tasted on my lips, but I couldn’t let him go again. Not without a tranquilizer.
“I hate to break it to you, Pierce, even if you’re my true-mate it doesn’t mean you’re my boss,” he stood akimbo and ran his eyes up and down me.
“I can’t let you leave, Crilus,” I said, stepping closer to him. “It is an impossibility.”
“Don’t make me fight you,” he whispered.
“Then don’t fight me. Stay. It’s easy.”
“Most downfalls are easy to set off,” Crilus said.
“This isn’t our downfall, mate,” I said.
He stepped away from me and his knees hit the back of the bed. He landed on his back and started to roll over, but I was between his legs with my fingertips resting on his knees before he could. His heartbeat raced in my ears, and I hated myself.
“Are you afraid of me?” I asked.
“I’m afraid for you,” Crilus shook his head. “Ask around about my family history. It’s all dogshit.”
