Her scent was carried with the summer wind, tugging me from the tree I was draped across before I consciously decided to move. Towards where she was. I noticed her father didn’t follow her immediately, watching from the screen door as she made her way towards the barn. I would’ve broken the tree lineand revealed myself had a small sound at my feet not drawn my attention downward and halted my steps.
The source was a rabbit crouched beneath the brush, trembling at my presence hard enough to stir the leaves around it. The rustling brush caught her attention immediately. She moved directly in my direction. Then she shouted, the sound startling me more than it should have.
This feral creature was my mate?
I snatched the rabbit from the ground, sinking my teeth into it and ending its life before she could appear. I knew she was there, but I didn’t dare expose my location.
Was it normal to be a little frightened of your mate?
Or was that simply the effect Melinda had on those around her?
In the grand scheme of power, I knew I could end her life here and now, but my fangs wouldn’t listen. Even with fresh blood coating my tongue, they refused to descend in her presence.
I was a stalker.
No, I was worse than a stalker. Stalkers were obsessed with getting closer to their targets, while I desired nothing more than to be rid of mine. At least, most of me did. There was still the part inhabited by the bond. That part had turned her into an obsession against my will.
With the women back in Shadowhaven, effort had never been required once they saw my gold eyes. This one neither feared them nor lusted after what they symbolized. Instead, she looked at me the same way Isadora sometimes did: cold and venomous, like any proper she-devil.
Except, this wasn’t a she-devil.
This was my mate.
The woman I had watched sleep and had stolen from within the same hour. And now, I was hiding in the woods with adead rabbit in my hands, not because I needed food, but because I was trying not to get caught.
She must’ve given up on searching for the rabbit or trying to discover who had disturbed the plant life. Her scent still lingered, but the heat of her presence had been replaced by a different warmth that belonged to the summer. It wasn’t as welcoming, but it scorched my body all the same.
The change invited me to peer around the tree trunk and watch her retreating figure. My eyes couldn’t help but stray from the swing of her hair to the sway of her hips.
My hands flexed at my sides, and I knew if the bond wasn’t enough to hook me on her, her body would be. There had been a time when I thought the Unseelie were the most irresistible, but this one was in a league all her own. At least my mate wasn’t horrific to look at, because if she had been, I would already be on my way back home. Isadora would complain the whole way back, but I would take that torture over this one.
Turning away, I fled from my mate and the pull that threatened to strip me of my autonomy. The rabbit in my hand was forgotten, until I caught the scent of the last remnants of blood that leaked from the wound. I felt as it fell onto my skin, as lifeless and pathetic as the prey it came from. The sticky crimson wasn’t distracting. If anything, it almost grounded me, reminding me what I was.
A monster.
One ravaged by hunger—for blood, for death and now for Melinda.
The latter was beginning to stir even the monster within me. I felt it gnawing at my heart, unrelenting as it begged to return to her intoxicating presence. The creature within had smelled her, touched her and felt her—and now it wanted more.
So much more.
My cock hardened at the thought of touching her again. Not with gentle, sweet caresses, but with conquest. My mark would bless every part of her. My bite would serve as my mark, and the screams I would draw from her from dusk till dawn would be proof of how she was mine. where my mark would bless every part of her.
Fuck.
I stopped to look down at my pants, where the evidence of how terribly she had already claimed me pressed painfully against the dark denim.
She must be a witch the way she has cursed me. I doubt I could respond to a siren’s song now.
Melinda Hardgrave—my own personal curse, designed to torment me and pleasure me in equal measure.
Chapter Ten
Melinda
The nerve of that man.
That was my first thought when I woke up the next morning. The anger rose with the sun—as did the image of Lucien Dumas. He’d been rude to Bryon, inserted himself where he wasn’t wanted, and then had the audacity to call me dangerous after a bit of static electricity.
