“I can.”
“That’s—”
“I told you. I don’t sleep.” He cracks one knuckle at a time, the pressure building inside him, pressing at the seams of his facade. “I don’t require it and physically can’t since merging with my father. I was a regular kid before all this. Or thought I was. I slept and bled and had senses like everyone else, but I was cursed with my dark and light sides all along and didn’t know what was wrong with me. Then I had to deal with the merge.”
My mind seeks the comfort of logic. “You have a bed at the castle. Or had.”
“Have. I’m going to repair the whole place and take you home with me. And people would question it if I didn’t have a bed.”
Home. With him. Because he wants to keep me forever with my heart locked away. Maybe he could lock away the pain too. “Don’t you get tired?”
“Yes. But not sleepy.” He pulls his lucky stone from a pocket and holds it end to end with his finger and thumb, spinning it with the pointer of his other hand. Even that action carries an edge to it.
“Are you linking?” I ask.
His head snaps up. “What?”
“You’re not yourself.”
Like I flipped a switch, he curls his hand around my throat and shoves me back to the ground. “Of course I’m not myself. I’m thousands of other people. And part Kelter!”
He presses harder, eyes so vicious and focused—and eerily dark green—that he’s nowhere to be found in them.
I swallow against his hand. Air. I need air. The wind dies down to the point of eerie stillness. I scratch at his arms and plead with my eyes.Let go.
But he doesn’t. He squeezes tighter, heavy breaths rolling through him as he speaks, the wind fluffing up his curls into a wild mess. “I don’t link either. I mature and become fertile and receive a gift without anyone else involved. In thousands of lifetimes, no one has ever needed me like they do when linking, never craved my presence in the most primal way, never suffered my loss. I shared every woman I had with her link, dead or alive. I’ve never been ‘the one’ for anyone. And never will be.”
He releases my throat, a horrified look on his face. He stares at his hand. Then me. And back to his hand. Then scoots away. “You can’t be around me.”
I cram as much air as possible down my throat and wipe away tears. The wind whirls again. “Icrave you.”
He shakes his head, a merciless scowl slipping over his concern. “Don’t.”
“What’s going on, Eli?” I grab his arm before he can put more space between us.
He shudders, and the way his eyes flutter closed, only for a moment, tells me it’s the pleasurable kind.
I run my hand up his bicep, then in, settling on the firm muscles of his chest. My fingers tap. “I’m not afraid of you. Don’t you know that by now?”
He pulls me onto his lap in a single swoop. “You should be.”
Chapter 45
ELIVANDER
What is wrong with me? Besides being cursed and an eternal mistake…
Something is really fucking wrong. And it’s getting worse by the hour. Yesterday it was a buzzing inside my blood, an annoyance I couldn’t wrap my head around. It was enough to make me want to take my knife to the throat of anyone who breathed in my direction. But that was only the start of it. Unimaginable images have taken over my thoughts, acts of violence, death by my hand. And I crave it all.
To top it off, I’m needier than ever before. The urges are stronger than the desire that pounded through me when Kelter and Never were first linking, which made her sleepy state over the last day borderline torturous. If I can’t have her again soon, I’ll end up killing someone. But now she’s awake. And in my lap.
I only lasted seconds trying to keep my hands off her. We sit alone in the shadowy woods—except for the corpses—chest to chest, my legs folded under us, hers wrapped around my waist. Light tremors in the ground replace the sudden wind she brought on. She doesn’t feel them yet. But I do. They match her heart,ourhearts. She looks up at me with such defiance in her eyes, refusing to be afraid even though my hands are begging to take a life. Hers, at the moment.
What are you all panicky about?Kelter asks, easily pushing past the wall I try to keep up. Compared to my shoddy attempts at privacy, he has better control of accessing the connection… and blocking it.
The urge to kill floods me, and I can’t tell if it’s because he pisses me off to the point of wanting to strangle him, or becauseit’shisurge I feel. I drop all efforts to keep him out and open my mind to him, exposing myself completely.What are you doing to me?
His tone shifts.Get away from her.
