“What does it mean that I chose you as a mate?” Blake asked. I understood why he would ask, but I had reached my limit on patience.
“You chose. I did not. I don’t know how or why, only that it is. We are now tied together.” His eyes widened at my words, and he leaned toward me. Drawn to be close, and I was helpless to deny the same pull.
“We’re done here. Can we go back to my house?” he asked and watched me, his eyes full of expectation. I knew what he wanted and while I resented that I was now bound to him, I couldn’t deny the need to fully claim him. And I would claim him.
“You understand what will happen when we get there?” My lips pulled back from my fangs, wanting to feed from him again even knowing how much I’d already taken.
He turned to face me and took my face in both his hands. His eyes met mine, and his expression softened as he brushed his thumb against my cheek. “I want you, Marlon. More than I’ve ever wanted anything or anyone. I’ll do whatever it takes to make you trust me, but please don’t treat me like my feelings aren’t real.” I wanted to laugh, but his eyes told me how serious he was, and how little he knew about this fucking bond.
Covering his hand with mine, I kissed his palm. “I know the feelings you’re experiencing are intense. But it’s not how you really feel. It’s the bond.”
“It’s not. I can feel the bond, but it doesn’t control everything. If I chose, I could break it. Tell me it’s not true,” he whispered.
“Blake, look at me, I’m still more corpse than man. I’m not a man at all.” Since scaring him didn’t work, maybe reason would. My hands moved to his hips as though they were meant to be there, and it fucking pissed me off to no end.
“I know what you are and I’m glad it was me that found you. Maybe it wasn’t just the promise of treasure that drove me to dig you up,” he said and continued to look at me like I’d hung the moon.
“What do you mean? What other reason would there have been? No one is alive who would remember me. I have no family here, and no one would have triedto find me. What other reason would there be for a human to dig up a corpse?” Neither of us had moved apart, as though our bodies sought each other out. None of this made sense, and none of it was normal, according to any other mated couple I’d seen in the past.
“Maybe fate played a part in us meeting.”
“I believed I had found my mate once. I don’t know how it could be that you chose me, but I refuse to believe he wasn’t my fated.” And that was the actual issue. I wanted to fuck Blake and claim him as mine but doing that would prove once and for all that my mate—wasn’t.
“Would it be so bad to no longer feel the hurt he caused you? I don’t know why he would betray what you had for gold. Especially after spending so much time with you, but if he did, why would you want to continue to let him have power over you?” Blake asked. He wasn’t angry, and he wasn’t judging. He was just being Blake, curious to a fault.
I let myself feel the hurt Josiah had caused me, it made my eyes prickle in a way I hadn’t felt since beingchanged, and I realized this was what I was afraid of, if I accepted Blake as my mate. He could hurt me too, and it would be more painful when he left. Swallowing hard, I met his eyes. He continued to focus on me and still held my face in his hands. “I don’t think I would survive losing another mate,” I finally said. Pushing the words out of me I knew made me sound far weaker than this simple fucking human.
The corners of his mouth lifted slightly, and he leaned in and kissed me softly. “Let’s go home. There’s so much I don’t understand, and so much we need to talk about.”
My eyes closed, and I rested my forehead against his, and for a moment I just enjoyed the warmth of him. I had gone so long without warmth. “If we go to your house, I will claim you. I won’t be able to stop myself. If you do not want this to happen, then send me away,” I whispered so close to his lips I could feel his breath on mine.
“I want you to,” he murmured.
“You may regret that choice,” I said and pulled back. He wanted this. There was no denying it, and I’d tried to change his mind, but he refused. Now it would be up to fate to decide what happened to the two of us.
“Take me home,” he said and kissed me again before slipping past me and tugging his jeans and shoes on before walking around his truck and getting in. “Want to ride inside this time?”
I did, but I wouldn’t admit it even when I slid into the passenger seat. His hand immediately found mine and now it was me that was helpless to deny him. He started the engine, and we slowly made our way back to town.
“Do you recognize anything from before?” he asked.
“The town is nothing like it was. It’s far bigger and doesn’t resemble how it looked when I saw it last.” I paid attention as we entered the small town and drove down the main street.
“What about the farm?”
“The house that’s there now, wasn’t there then. It was little more than a shack.” I wasn’t sure why I kept answering his infernal questions, but I couldn’t make myself shut up.
“We can talk more later,” he said and squeezed my hand.
We drove the rest of the way in silence, and I wondered what could have made him think of me as his mate. Maybe it was fate, but I thought there must be more to it. His hand against mine showed me even more how alien I looked, more dead than alive. We pulled up to his house, and his idiot friend was sitting out front.
“Hey, Blake, I thought I was going with you to the farm?” he asked as he stood and looked between the two of us.
The animal part of me wanted to shove Blake behind me, so he knew he had no stake here and that Blake was mine, but I didn’t. Instead, I stood silently while Blake walked over to him.
“Hey, Aaron. Yeah, sorry about that. We had time, so we went. There’s no treasure or gold out there. It was all a story they made up,” Blake lied, and his friend believed him.
He glanced at me before looking at Blake again. “What are you doing tonight?”
