“Iamyour fated mate,” she growled, not facing me. She had the sweetest ass, molded by her leather pants in a way I ached to do with my hands. Turning, she sighed. “You’ll remember us. You have to.”
“And if I don’t?” I rasped. I’d remained passive while in the parlor, giving everyone a chance to have their say, but this wasmyhouse.Mybedroom. And I controlled what happened in the only real home I’d ever known.
“Then I’ll find a way to go on without you.” Such hollowness in her words.
If I let the feeling inside, it would gut me.
“I’m sure I loved you too,” I said, though I still couldn’t grab onto the feeling.
The glare she sent me should’ve pinned me to the wall. “Statements like that hurt me. You can be cruel. I saw it—no Ifeltit too many times over the past few months—but even when I had doubts about everything going on around us, they couldn’t shove aside my belief that you cared for me.”
“You doubted me as well?”
Biting her lower lip, she nodded.
“Whydid you doubt me?” I strode right up to her.
She took a step backward. “You gave me just cause.” Sheshared what happened after we arrived at Bledmire, how I’d twisted her emotions to the point she didn’t know what or who to trust.
“That does sound like something I’d do,” I said wryly.
“Quite happily most of the time.” Pivoting, she walked away from me. “I’m going to take a bath. I’ll sleep in a chair or on the floor.”
The crow she’d named Drask after she healed his injuries and adopted him—another strange thing—soared into the room through the open window and landed on a perch. He cocked his head, and I swore he was glaring at me as sharply as Tempest.
“You’ll sleep in my bed,” I ground out.
“With you or alone?” Her lips twisted into a sneer that matched the turbulent feelings churning inside me. “Do you plan to see if you remember fucking me?”
She was beautiful, the loveliest person I’d seen in my wretched life. I wanted to make this right, but I would never do anything that might shatter her.
“You could sleep with me,” I snarled, watching the storm clouds flicking across her face. For whatever reason, I loved pushing her, prodding her into a reaction. The heat in her pabrilleen green eyes set me aflame.
“I’m not fucking you until you remember me.” She limped from the room, and water soon gushed into the tub.
“I wouldn’t ask you to,” I called to her.
“Good,” she snapped.
Yes. Good.
My damn cock disagreed. Funny how my mind might not remember her, but my body shouted it did.
If I were wise,I’dsleep in a chair. I wasn’t sure I trusted my body not to seek hers while I slept. Despite her recent comment, she might welcome it, but I didn’t know her. I would not climb all over her, let alone possess her, until I did.
Because I felt compelled to do so, and a small part of me was softening to her already, I magicked some items into the bathing area.
Her gasp rang out. “Are you trying to rip me apart, Vexxion?” she asked, her voice hoarse with an emotion that spiked right through me.
“I’m not.” I savored making her respond to my words and my very presence, but I was not trying to hurt her.
“Where do you get these roses?” she asked so softly I could barely hear her.
“Somewhere special,” I said. “I’ll take you there one day.”
Her choking sob echoed in the small room.
14
