As much as it pained her, she understood why he couldn’t be with her. “You don’t have to explain anything. It’s okay, I under—”
“What the fuck’s okay about any of this?” The orange specks in his irises blazed like an inferno. “When it felt as if my guts had been yanked through my throat watching you leave. I tried to do the right thing, give you a chance at a normal life instead of a fucked-up one with me, but nothing works—not when I think about you all the time,” he said huskily. “If these two days deprived of even a glimpse of you nearly drove me out of my mind, then eternity is going to be absolute torture without you. So no, I’m not letting this damn thing inside me come between us anymore!”
His impassioned words formed cracks in her mental armor, and she wanted so much to believe. But the hurt when he’d rejected her had wounded her deeply.
Nate palmed her cheek, his tender gaze drifting over her face as if memorizing every facet of it. “There is no one like you, Ely. I know I don’t deserve you, but I’ll ask anyway. Give me another chance, please…”
She swallowed painfully, too scared to hope.
At her silence, he brought his other hand to her face. “Talk to me, Ely. Say something. Hell, say anything, even if it’s for me to fuck off. Though I can’t promise you that.”
Her throat sandpapery with emotions, she dismissed her dagger and grasped his wrists. “How do I know you won’t walk away again when things get difficult?” And they would.
“Because you live in here.” He tapped his heart. “In the black, empty space where no light infiltrated until you crept in and took over.”
“What?” She blinked, not expecting that.
“And because I never make promises I can’t keep. In my life, I’ve made two, one to protect my sire and the other, reprisal for the one who—” His mouth tightened, his expression growing colder than the snow in the alley. “It doesn’t matter.”
Whatever number two was had hurt him badly.
“What is two, Nate?” she asked, because it did matter.
After several seconds, he said, “Reprisal for the one who changed my life and made me what I am.”
“The symbionts,” she murmured, a shiver coasting down her heated skin.
He gave a terse nod, but before she could question him further, he said, “I’m a selfish bastard, Ely. And just so you know, if you choose this, choose us, then you aremine. I’m a demon, and yeah, we are all possessive assholes.”
That alone should have sent her running. Heck, she’d run from her overprotective parents, but hearing those words, his promise, especially after witnessing bits of the harsh, dark life he endured, none of it mattered.
Nate was whom she wanted.
More, she realized his life had been as lonely as hers.
The heaviness within her eased. And just as fast, it turned to a lump of dread, her stomach tying itself into knots, not knowing how the others would react when they learned of them. Nate wasn’t even her destined, so she couldn’t use the soulmate card, and he was also a demon housing a dangerous symbiont.
Expelling the air wedged in her lungs, she shrugged off the foreboding. Later, she’d deal with it.
She slid her palms over his chest, needing to touch him. “As long as I’m with you, it’s what matters. You are whom I want.” A smile lit his eyes like a million amber flames igniting, warming them as they tenderly skimmed her features. “But it won’t be easy, Nate. Once the warriors and our leader Michael learn about us.”
He snorted and wrapped his arms around her, pressing his lips on the top of her head. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
Wait—what? She pushed away from him, as far his arms would allow since they remained anchored around her waist. Her gaze searched his gorgeous face. “Did you bump into one of the guys? What happened?”
“Nothing I can’t handle—”
“Nate.” She pinned him with a gimlet stare. “Tell me.”
“Let me hold you,laika. So I know you’re not a dream.” He buried his face in her neck, his warm breath fanning the embers of desire that never quieted.
Unable to resist him, she hugged him, relishing in his hard body and strong arms wrapped around her. She brushed his stubbly jaw with a soft kiss, then pressed her mouth to his ear. “Tell me, please.”
He huffed out a laugh. More seconds passed before he straightened, his gaze sweeping the dingy, wet alley with its sludgy snow piles, probably scanning the area around them, too, for his enemies, or her Guardian brothers. However, all seemed quiet.
“I crossed paths with Nik and the blond one here in the Bowery,” he said. “I heard blondie say something about hoping you were okay. I hadn’t seen you for two nights, and with no way to contact you, well, I wasn’t letting it go. Let’s just say he didn’t like me asking after you. Give me your cell phone.”
Ely gaped at him. It had already started. Unease nipped at her with sharp teeth as she fumbled out the device from her coat pocket and handed it over. She knew it would happen, just not this fast. “Did you fight?”
