Oh, God. Lilani.
She forced herself to lower her voice, though her whole body was trembling with emotion. “I didn’t tell you because I don’t want it to be real. Because when I’m with you, I can pretend—I can imagine—that I’m something other than a debt to be collected.”
“You are something other than that.”
“Am I?” The question came out raw, scraped from somewhere deep inside her. “Because from where I’m standing, I’m exactly what my father made me. A modified human designed for underwater exploration, signed away to the highest bidder before I ever had a choice.”
He moved so fast she didn’t see it coming.
One moment he was across the cave; the next, his hands were cupping her face, tilting her head back until she had no choice but to meet his burning gaze.
“Listen to me.” His voice had dropped to a growl, low and dangerous and somehow more frightening than his roar. “I don’t care what contract your father signed. I don’t care what claims this Merrick Bane thinks he has. My beast chose you. I chose you. And no human—no matter how wealthy or powerful—will ever take you from me.”
“Valrek—”
“You are mine.”
He kissed her.
It wasn’t like the kisses in the pool—tender and exploring and full of wonder. This kiss was desperate and territorial. His mouth slanted over hers with bruising intensity, his tongue sweeping past her lips to stake his claim on every part of her he could reach.
Her hands fisted in his tunic, pulling him closer even as part of her screamed to push him away. She could feel his beast in this kiss—the primal side that lived beneath his skin, the monster he kept so carefully leashed. It was howling its triumph into her mouth, marking her with his taste and his scent and his possession.
And God help her, she wanted it.
She wanted to be possessed. Wanted to be claimed. Wanted to belong to someone who looked at her like she was precious instead of profitable.
But it wasn’t possible, was it? The realization crashed through her like a cold wave, and she wrenched herself away from him with a gasp.
“I can’t—” She stumbled backwards, her hand pressed to her swollen lips. “This is too much. It’s too fast, and I can’t think when you’re?—”
“Then don’t think.” He reached for her again, but she evaded his grasp, putting the cold stone wall at her back. “Feel. Trust what your body is telling you.”
“My body wants things that my life can’t give it!”
The words hung between them, stark and painful.
His hands dropped to his sides. His chest was heaving, his eyes still blazing gold, but something in his expression had shifted. The beast was still there, still clawing for control, but beneath it she could see the male. The male who understood duty and sacrifice. Who understood that want and have were two very different things.
“Go,” he said, and the word sounded like it was torn from somewhere deep inside him. “If you need to clear your head, go. I won’t stop you.”
Her throat tightened. “Valrek?—”
“But know this.” He stepped closer, close enough that she could feel the heat radiating from his body. “Whatever that contract says, whatever claims that man thinks he has, you are not his. You never will be. And when you’re ready to fight for what you want, I’ll be here. Waiting.”
She didn’t trust herself to speak.
Instead, she turned and fled—out of the cave, down the rocky path, towards the churning sea that called to her like a siren song. She hit the water at a run, diving beneath the surface without breaking stride, and let the cold embrace of the ocean close over her head.
Down here, everything was simple. Down here, she was just another creature of the deep, swimming through the darkness with nothing to tie her to the surface world. No contracts, no debts, no impossible choices between duty and desire.
She swam until her lungs burned—not from lack of air, but from the sobs she refused to release. She swam until the cave was just a distant memory, until the cliffs gave way to open ocean, until she couldn’t feel the phantom heat of Valrek’s hands on her skin.
It didn’t help. Nothing helped.
CHAPTER 14
The lab was dark when Ariella finally returned.
