“And what about ours?” He closed the distance I’d created when I shoved him. Right back in my space, chest heaving, gold swallowing the gray in his eyes. “What about what it would do to Solomon if you bled out in those woods? To Percival? To me?”
“Stop making this about you!”
“It is about me!” His voice cracked open, full volume. “You are our mate. Every threat to you is a threat to us. When he had his hands on your throat tonight, we felt it, Mira. Through the bond. Your fear, your pain. And I couldn’t get to you fast enough.”
I was startled as his voice turned softer again. But my mind is still reeling, still drowning in self-blame and destructive tendencies.
“I need you to listen to me.” My voice shook. Tears burned down my cheeks and I hated them. “I need you to understand that I can’t be the person who hides while everyone else bleeds. I can’t. It will destroy me faster than any weapon or injury.”
“And I need you to listen to me.” He closed the last inch between us. His chest pressed against mine, his breath ragged, his eyes fully gold. “You may not believe it but I need you to understand that losing you will destroy us. Not might.Will.There is no version of my life, no kingdom or throne, no future that exists without you in it.”
Neither of us moved back.
His chest heaved against mine. My fists were clenched at my sides, his were clenched at his. Tears streaked my face and his eyes burned gold and we stood there, wrecked, stripped raw, two people screaming the same fear in different languages and refusing to hear each other.
Slowly, his hand came up. Still shaking, clenched with frustration. But his thumb found my cheek and dragged across the wetness there, gentle despite our argument, wiping tears away with fingers that trembled from effort.
Lucian did it again. The other cheek. His jaw locked so tight the muscle jumped, and his breathing refused to slow, chest rising and falling against mine. Furious and tender at the same time. Wiping my tears while his eyes burned with everything he wanted to say but couldn’t anymore because his hand was on my face and the argument had run out of words.
“Gods, you are the most impossible woman I have ever met.” Through his teeth. “The most stubborn, reckless, infuriating...”
His thumb stilled on my cheekbone as his gaze dropped to my mouth.
Mine dropped to his.
The anger didn’t fade. Itshifted.
His breath landed on my lips and mine landed on his. Lucian’s hand was still cradling my jaw, still damp with my tears, and the half-inch between us caught fire.
My mind was fuzzy from everything that escalated but it happened without thinking. We moved at the same time.
I grabbed his face with my hands and he grabbed mine. Our mouths collided despite our fight, mid-breath, mid-fury, and the kiss was nothing gentle.
It was teeth and desperation and every word we’d screamed at each other finding a different way out.
“Fuck,” Lucian breathed against my mouth. His hands gripped my hips hard enough to bruise and he walked me backward until my spine collided with the bookshelf. “I wanted to kiss you so bad. All night. The whole time you were yelling at me.”
“Shut the hell up and keep doing it then.”
He kissed meharder.
His mouth was hot and demanding, tongue sliding against mine, and I moaned his name into the kiss without meaning to. “Lucian.”
The sound changed him.
His grip tightened. His composure, whatever shred remained, disintegrated. Lucian pinned me harder against the shelf and a growl built in his chest that I felt in my bones.
Books rained down around us, spines cracking against the floor, pages fluttering.
I didn’t care.Couldn’t care.
The noise in my head went quiet. Every spiraling thought, guilt and fear and self-loathing that had been screaming since the clearing, silenced in one brutal sweep and replaced with a fog that tasted ofhim.
His body pressed against mine, solid and burning, and his tongue swept deeper into my mouth and I arched into him, fingers clawing at the fabric of his shirt. My brain had been drowning for hours. The kiss pulled me deeper into a different kind of madness, one that felt good.
I yanked the remaining buttons of his shirt open. They scattered across the floorboards. My palms found his chest, muscles tensing beneath my touch, and I dragged my nails down his torso.
Lucian growled against my mouth, a sound that vibrated through my teeth and sank directly into the ache building between my thighs.
