Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 65167 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 326(@200wpm)___ 261(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65167 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 326(@200wpm)___ 261(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
This baby whose DNA is like a maze.
Who will be more wolf than anything he gets from me.
Yet it’s my body who nurtures him, who gives him life.
Who sustains him while he grows.
I drink for him more than for myself.
I take from his father what I know will be stolen from me when Rogan’s true mate shows up.
And she’s nearer than ever.
I sense it.
I sense it in Rogan’s growing agitation.
I could drain him so easily. Drain him and leave him to die, so his true mate can never have him.
But I’m no killer. Not like the rogue vamps who stroll through dirty cities at night feeding from the homeless and leaving their bodies among the trash and refuse.
Still, that’s not the reason I’ll never drain him.
I’ll never drain him because I love him. I love the father of my child, and his child needs him.
I’m not his destiny, and I have to accept that.
I remove my fangs from his flesh and close the wounds with my saliva.
“Rogan,” I whisper in his ear.
“Yes, princess.”
“She’s here, isn’t she?”
“Yes,” he growls.
“Now, do you believe me?”
He doesn’t reply at first, and our previous words tumble into my head.
“We’re not mates, Rogan. We never were.”
“Don’t start with this bullshit again, princess. You’re my mate. I know it instinctively, viscerally. You’re inside me, pulling at me from the inside out. You’re ingrained in my very soul. I smell you everywhere. See you everywhere. Taste you in everything I put in my mouth. You’re me, Hannah. We are each other!”
I place my feet back on the ground and move away from him.
In his face I see so many emotions.
The fear I saw and felt before, and now I understand. He’s fearful of losing me, yet his body and his instinct are telling him he belongs to someone else.
The determination to fight his body and instinct, because he loves me.
And of course, the love itself. The love that I feel as well. No mate can change those feelings, but she will try.
He will succumb.
He will succumb because it’s what nature dictates.
But above all of that is the alpha protectiveness in his soul. The desire to protect his unborn child…and its mother.
“I don’t understand,” he says. “I love you, Hannah.”
“I told you.” I sniff back the tears that threaten to fall and prepare to say the words I’ve already said to him. “It was my father. Or one of his scientists. I don’t know. He fixed it all. Convinced you I was your mate. Even when it doesn’t make sense. None of this. Fated mates are all but unheard of for wolves these days, but you find one? And one that’s not your kind? It never made sense, Rogan.”
He inhales deeply, closes his eyes. “But I do have a fated mate.”
“I know. And she’s here. Somewhere above us. Isn’t she?”
He opens his eyes. “Yes. But I don’t love her.”
I swallow the lump in my throat. “You will. That’s how it works, right?”
“Yes,” he says again quietly.
His cock is still hard as a rock, and he gives it another pull.
“Take me,” I say. “Please. Take me one last time before you go to her.”
“I don’t want her,” he growls, his jaw clenched. He’s clearly fighting the urges of his own body. “I love you, princess. Only you. And you’re carrying my child, for God’s sake.”
“Then take me,” I beg again. “Give me something to remember.”
He closes the distance between us. “Stop talking like that. This is not the end of us.” He grabs me and kisses me.
Hard.
Hard and passionate and aggressive. He’s marking me. Marking me with this kiss. He’s thinking that if he brands me hard enough, he can escape what is in his destiny.
He’s wrong, of course, but my need for him is too great to resist. I begged him to take me, and I want it as much—probably more—than he does.
His mate be damned.
33
Rogan deepens the kiss, and outside in the ether, rain begins to fall, a steady rhythm that matches the drumming of my heart.
It seems right, in some way. Right that the clouds above us are crying because Rogan and I are holding back such tears. Above us the droplets fall on the dead, saying goodbye to them.
And here, Rogan and I are saying goodbye. Our paths are now unknown, and that knowledge weighs heavy in my heart, overtaken only by the longing for this man I love.
Rogan’s kiss becomes more desperate and—if possible—even more aggressive.
Again I feel like he’s branding me, making sure I stay his no matter what happens.
He doesn’t need to worry. I’m not the one who’s bound to another. His heart will follow where his body takes him, but my heart will always be his.
The only person who will suffer when his true mate comes to claim him is me.
I break the kiss, my fangs still descended. “Mine,” I growl before I plunge my teeth hard into his pectoral, right around his nipple. His blood trickles slowly compared to the carotid, but I didn’t do this for nourishment. I’ve already taken enough blood for now.