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“Not because of the baby,” he told her, grabbing her hand and gazing into her eyes so that she would believe him. “Because of you. Because I care for you and I couldn’t live without you.”
“I love you too,” she said, a faint smile on her lips.
“It’s more than love,” he told her as waves of need washed over him. “Olivia, you are my mate.”
The people around them gasped in surprise and there were a few appreciative chuckles.
“I’m… I’m yourwhat?” she asked him.
“Let’s get you to the hospital back at the Center and I’ll explain everything,” he told her.
She still looked confused, but he was out of patience. He lifted her into his arms again and headed back toward the Center.
As he walked, he saw the drones had done their job well. Many of the smoldering houses were nothing more than blackened shells, but the fires were swiftly being put out, and people were out in the streets, shaking hands with his soldiers as the center staff carried the wounded onto strange-looking vehicles.
“What’s going on?” he asked a woman in a lab coat who was helping a man onto a reindeer drawn carriage.
“Oberon released all the conveyances we use in the activities for patients,” the woman said proudly. “We’re using them to take people back to the hospital at the Center.”
While they chatted, another lab tech rode past on the back of a mechanical bear, with a little boy wrapped in a blanket in his arms. A third tech led an elderly lady who was riding on a hoverboard, her wrist wrapped in a scarf, and a delighted smile on her face.
“Incredible,” Olivia murmured as a hot air balloon sailed past.
Stark gazed down at her sweet face, stroking her cheek with his thumb.
“I’m covered in soot, aren’t I?” she asked him.
“You couldn’t be more beautiful to me,” he murmured. “I almost lost you today.”
“You didn’t lose me,” she reminded him, her hand snaking up to stroke his left horn.
Hot lust slid through his blood and he grabbed her wrist.
“Y-you don’t want me to touch your horns,” she guessed.
“I want you to touch them,” he growled. “But only when we’re alone.”
Understanding dawned in her eyes and he swore he saw a haze of lust there too, despite all they had been through.
He broke into a run, sprinting toward the Center at full speed in his haste to get her alone.
She laughed, and the sound was like bells, beautiful, clear, and sweet, just like her presence in his heart.
20
STARK
Stark arrived back at the house at last, with Olivia clinging to his neck, her every breath delicious torture to his hungry senses.
Everything they passed was the world Oberon had built for them, stripped down to its foundations without his simulation on top. Towers were no more than posts, castles formed of wire whorls.
Stark was unsurprised to see that their fancy house was only a shell when they reached it. The building was mostly scaffolding and wood frame, with a hose and a mister where the surrounding waterfall should have been.
But it was real where it counted.
The stairs to the porch were sturdy and the living space inside was just as before, except for the art on the walls, which must have been holograms.
He carried his mate up to the bedroom, praying for the will to explain everything to her before the frenzybegan. But he could feel it burning in his chest, prodding him to claim her now before someone else did.
