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And I won’t let him stand here and convince himself he’s done something wrong, when all along, he’s just fulfilling his part of a bond. Lainey deserves to watch them all burn from where she resides, and I’m going to help him reach that goal.
Well, my other mates will be the biggest tools in helping him. I’ll probably not be much use, unless it involves doing a jigsaw.
“What is wrong with you?” he asks, sounding a mixture of amused and exasperated.
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve gone from frustrated, to sad, to happy, to… bloodthirsty?”
“You can’t scent bloodthirstiness,” I say, rolling my eyes, and he laughs. A laugh so similar to another mate of mine, one whose name won’t be said aloud until Cevon tells it to me himself. I hope he doesn’t hate me for not opening up, but I think that we need to get to know each other as Nora and Cevon, two people who have been harmed by their mates—intentionally or not.
I think getting to know each other as Nora, Atticus’s mate, and Cevon, Atticus’s brother, is a pressure that neither of us is ready for.
“But I’m a complex kind of girl,” I finish, shrugging at the confusion he’s showing.
“I know,” he says, running his finger down my face, giving me a sad smile. “You deserve better than me, Nora.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“You deserve a man who isn’t in love with another woman.”
I shrug and decide to go for a combination of truth and some dark humour. Let’s hope it’s well received. “It’s not like you’re going to step out on me and fuck her. I’m not worried.”
He gasps before his pretty pink lips tilt up in a smile. “I worry I’m too dark for you,” he murmurs, twirling my hair around his finger in a fascinated kind of movement. “But then you say shit like that.”
I smirk. “You deserve your revenge, Cev, and I think getting it will go a long way with helping you heal,” I say, and he sighs as the tortured look fills his face once again. “And at the end of the day, you’re not the only one in love with someone else. That doesn’t mean we can’t love each other, too.”
He nods, a little unsure, and returns to his task of burning romance books as if the heroes of those stories have acted deliberately to spite him. I know he’s got a good few first editions in this pile, and I pray he decides not to touch them, but I’m not going to tell him not to.
I’ll just cross my fingers and hope.
Because with a work-in-progress like Cevon, that’s all you can do.
25
NORA
“Eat,” Cevon says, holding a fork with some rice on it in front of my mouth. I sigh, and shake my head. “Eat!” This time, his command sounds more like a growl from his lion than something I’m actually meant to understand.
He’s been like this the whole meal. Obsessing over my food, determined to make me eat more than I can stomach in an effort to… to what? I’ve got no idea. He sort of reminds me of the witch from Hansel and Gretel right now, fattening them up before she eats them.
Even if I didn’t have stomach cramps, I’d not be able to eat even half of what he’s got on this plate.
“Fine,” he mutters, a pout falling on his plump lips as he pushes my plate away. “Time for dessert.”
I groan, and he instantly freezes.
“What’s wrong?” he demands, and I can hear the panic in his words. He’s terrified.
“I’m so full, I can’t eat anymore,” I say softly, sitting up and looking at him. He’s tense as if he’s preparing himself for a fight. “Why don’t you sit and eat?”
His brows pull together as if that thought never came to him. It’s not the first time I’ve tried to get him to eat during this meal, but he’s been more obsessed with getting me to eat.
The attention is sweet, but it’s coming from a misguided place. He’s obsessing, pouring all of his energy into me, and it just doesn’t seem healthy.
Although, who am I to judge? It’s not like I’m healthy.
“What’s that look for?” he demands.
