But he wasn’t smiling. Nothing but pain and frustration etched his handsome, otherworldly features.
He hopped down from the wall and strode over to where I knelt in the grass. His cock was still out, unabashedly standing at its full length. He crouched in front of me, his bare member inches from me.
I hated how badly I wanted to reach out and touch it.
He flipped his eye patch up, revealing the damaged topaz embedded in his eye socket. Sparkling energy trickled from the crack and whirled around me, like it was trying to pull me in.
“I can’t shift, even if I wanted to. My magic is leaking at a rate faster than I can produce. Bigger spells are beyond me. I barely managed to open the portal here. Beyond that, I’m powerless.”
I blinked rapidly, trying to make sense of what he was telling me.He can’t shift.Was this just another game? Or was he telling me the truth?
“How can I trust you…?”
“Like it or not, the gods have deemed us to be fated.”
“I don’t even know what that means.”
It couldn’t be like how it was in my werewolf romance novels. Something told me there would be no biting mark or knots oranything that came along with the paranormal romance novel territory.
“It’s a dark and ancient ritual, forged in flesh and fire.”
“Is that supposed to convince me?”
There was that grin again. Smug and bathed in the glow of his flames. “I think it appeals to ya more than yer lettin’ on. Make no mistake, there will be some discomfort. Yer too small for it not to hurt, even when I’m at my weakest. But there will be pleasure in the pain. I can promise ya that.”
Pleasure in the pain.
“You know I’m never going to find a four-leaf clover, don’t you?”
He didn’t answer, but he didn’t have to. The truth was written all over his face. I was never going to find that clover.
This wholedealwas just so I’d come to terms with it myself.
A single tear slipped from my eye and rolled down my cheek. “How long will you sit here waiting for me?”
“I’ve already waited an eternity for ya, Maeve McCrum. What’s a little while longer?”
Why did he have to go saying shit like that? It was like he was something straight out of my monster romance novels.
If I was going to be stuck with him forever no matter what I did… why not go out with a bang?
I believed Balor when he said he couldn’t shift. That explained why he hadn’t yet. The big question that still hung in the air was what would come next, once we sealed our bond?
For the life of me, I couldn’t bring myself to care. I was drunk on magic berry juice and giant’s cum, with a sprinkle of sleep deprivation for flavor.
“Okay,” I finally conceded, worn down after weeks of hopeless searching.
I waited for Balor to pounce but he held his ground. “Okay,what?”
“Okay, you can have me. Seal our bond or whatever. I don’t care anymore.”
To my shock, Balor shook his head in denial. “I don’t think so, wee one.”
I blinked one, two, three times. “Nowyou don’t want to? What kind of will-you, won’t-you fuckery are you pulling on me?”
“Oh, I want to. I want ya so bad I stare at ya every damn night, memorizin’ yer curves, the way yer eyelashes flutter when ya dream, the sweet sounds ya make when yer body yearns. But I won’t be havin’ ya like this. Like yer thrown’ me a bone.”
He leaned against the bone arch that he’d previously pointed out as once belonging to his ex-mate’s rib cage.
