My wolf is pacing inside, rearing to get out and smell his mate in the flesh. I hold him back, not wanting to surrender my girl to him just yet.
My eyes drop to her luscious pink lips and I wonder how soon it will be before I can kiss those soft lips whenever I desire. Once I start, I may never stop.
“You are my mate,” I say, hammering it home. “Fate has decided on it. The Gods have decided on it. We are mates, and nothing in this world—or the next—is going to change that.”
“My opinion on the subject doesn’t matter?”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “And neither does mine. You can ignore the yearning feelings surging through your body right now. You can flee our kingdom and scurry back home. You can run. You can hide. You can try to fight it all you want. But you will fail. The yearning will be too great. And you will return. Matesmustbe together.”
It’s not like I’d let her leave. I’d lock her in my castle if I had to. I’d follow her home. There’s no way my mate is going back into that dangerous world without me beside her for protection. She’s much too precious for that.
She gently pulls her hand from mine and takes a step back. I watch her as she turns away and looks up at the stained glass windows that display the history of my ancestors.
My wolf growls possessively as my ravenous eyes roam down my mate’s body, taking in every delectable curve.
She is softer than any creature I have ever seen, so unlike the hard, muscular bodies of female wolf shifters. But there is strength in her too. There is nothing fragile about the way she carries herself. She may look delicate and breakable, but she is a force to be reckoned with.
I want to reach out and touch her. To pull her flush against my body and feel exactly how well she fits. I want to taste that sweet mouth and drag my tongue along her skin.
My cock gets long and hard under my purple tunic as I imagine undressing her. I’d take my time and relish every inch of her exposed skin.
Gods. Will this lustful need ever be quenched?
The swell of her breasts rises and falls with each breath she takes, and I find myself tracking the movement, imagining the warmth of her skin beneath my palms, the soft give of her body as she arches toward me instead of away. Her mouth reaching for mine… My hands exploring… Pulling… Needing…
My wolf lunges forward. Urging. Demanding. His lustful hunger sharp and immediate.
Mine.
I swallow hard and turn away. But even the air is thick with her exhilarating scent. She smells like warm wax and honey and something intoxicatingly human and feminine beneath it. I breathe her in with deep, insatiable breaths.
It kills me that I must wait to claim her. It’s three weeks until the next full moon, until the mating ceremony when mates are finally allowed to touch, to mark, to take what fate has sogenerously provided. It’s a sacred night, but right now, the wait feels like a curse.
I have waited half a lifetime for her, wandered without my other half for forty-one barren years, and now that she stands within arm’s reach, I am expected towaiteven more.
It will be torture.
Pure, exquisite torture.
My wolf snarls his agreement, pacing restlessly inside me, already imagining her taste, her sound, the way she will look when she finally submits to the bond she is fighting with every proud inch of her spine. I swallow hard, forcing myself to breathe, to remember that she is not a wolf, not bound by our instincts or our laws.
Yet.
“Okay,” she says, turning slightly, stunning me all over again. “I guess I can stay for the night. Will I get my own room?”
My heart soars. “You will get everything you desire.”
She nods. It’s decided. “I will stay the night.Ifyou order those brutes to treat those women like proper ladies and escort them home.”
“It will be done.”
“Home,” she says with a firm stare. “Not dropped off at the border like cattle, but right to their front doors. Safely.Withcompensation.”
“You have my word. They will not be harmed.”
“Good,” she says with a nod. “Because if even one of them is harmed, I will leave this castle and never return.”
“Understood.”
