“But there was something between you?”
“There hasn’t been anything between us in a long time.”
When she looked to the window, he clasped her chin and turned her head back to him. Her sweeping lashes brushed her cheek before they lifted. For a second, he lost himself in the fathomless sea of her green eyes.
“The only thing Becca truly wants is power, and she mistakenly saw me as her way to gain more of it. What little there ever was between Becca and me is over, and there willneverbe anything between us again,” he vowed.
“I don’t think she agrees with that statement.”
“I don’t care what she thinks. You’re it for me, Lexi, and I mean it.”
Doubt swirled in her eyes. He caressed her cheek as he bent to kiss the tip of her nose. He had to tell her what she was to him; it would add pressure to her, but it would also ease her doubts about their relationship.
Everyone knew a lycan never betrayed their mate.
Chapter Sixteen
Lexi’s heartswelled with love as she gazed at him. Words of love were on the tip of her tongue to utter, but she didn’t get them out before he spoke again.
“You’re my mate, Lexi.”
Her words died as confusion, joy, and then a cold dread crept through her. His mate? Hislycanmate?
That meant when he said she wasitfor him, she really wasit. The bond he felt toward her wasn’t complete in the lycan way, but he was bound to her.
That meant she wouldn’t have to share him with anyone else. He would always be loyal to her asnolycan ever strayed from their mate. Her joy returned, but then a cold dose of reality doused it again.
It also meant he didn’t want to be with her because he loved her as she loved him, but because his instincts told him to claim her.
The words she’d been about to utter withered away.
“You think I’m your lycan mate?” she asked.
“I don’t think it; Iknowyou are,” he said.
* * *
She didn’t lookrelieved as he’d expected. Instead, she appeared… annoyed. He frowned over this response, and his hackles rose. Did she look annoyed because she didn’t want him for eternity?
They’d never spoken of love or their future, but he believed she cared for him. Was he wrong?
He retracted his claws when they lengthened, but he couldn’t get his fangs under control.She might not want forever.
He believed it was forever for them, but she was young, and she didn’t feel the pull of a bond between them like another lycan would or a full-blooded vampire toward their consort. She could walk away without consequence.
“You haven’t completed the lycan bond with me,” she said.
Was that it then? Was she afraid about how the bond was completed?
That would be a good possibility, but Lexi wasn’t one for fear. She’d run toward the marketplace when the dragons destroyed it. She wasn’t scared to go home, even if Malakai remained a threat and would until he died.
“Do you know how it’s completed?” he asked.
“I’ve heard the lycan bite their mate while having sex, and that is how they claim them.”
“Yes.” That was some of it.
“They say a lycan loses control when it happens,” she said.
