“Hearing what he did to you will haunt me forever. I wanted to take him alive back there, to get any information we could, then let his body rot in pieces in the dungeons. The next time we meet, he will not escape that fate, I swear it to you.” His voice rang so tenderly despite his vengeful words. He brought his forehead down to meet hers. She didn’t shy away.
“Even when I didn’t know who or what... or where you were, that power called to me. It desires me, it matches mine completely.”
The tips of their noses brushed against each other.
“You willneverbe his, Helaina, because you were always meant to be mine.”
He pulled her up as she wrapped her legs around him. She gravitated toward his lips, and they locked in the most passionate kiss. His mouth on hers was raw and claiming. His kiss felt essential, like the need to take in air. Her nightgown bunched around her hips as she pressed her body to his growing hardness.
She pulled away breathless. “Take me somewhere, anywhere. Make me forget, make me feel. I want you to be the last memory of my mortal life.” The longing ache in her eyes seemed to strike him down. Even with the threat, he would not deny her. His eyes went wicked as they roamed her neck, her lips, and he swept her hair back behind her ears in languid strokes.
“I can do that.”
CHAPTERFIFTY-EIGHT
Theo carried her until they heard rushing water. She turned her head toward the sound of the same waterfall where she had almost fallen to her death. She tensed in his arms.
He held her tighter as the cascading water illuminated with the brightness of the full moon. He neared the cliff’s edge.
“Where I want to take you, we need to fly in.”
She nestled her face into the hard crook of his shoulder. “Is it safe?” she whispered.
She felt his hand trace a line down her spine. Her whole body vibrated. “Nothing is safe out here.” He had given her the same answer before. “But you are not meant to stay caged within safe walls, are you, little hellion?”
She twisted a strand of his midnight hair between her fingertips as she smiled. “No. I don’t think I am.”
So Theo began to change. That monstrous side of him he held on a leash was allowed to surface.
She kept her arms wrapped firmly around his pale neck, trusting he wouldn’t harm her. She leaned back to appraise him and for once did not balk at the sight of those black eyes. Then he pulled her back to his chest and leaped upward, following the source of the falls.
At first, she kept her eyes scrunched tight. They catapulted high, higher, higher still, until her eyes popped open, taking in the view below. She started laughing; she wasn’t even sure why. Maybe it was the nerves.
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you laugh before,” he said in her ear as they soared. “I think it just became my favorite sound.”
With a few more beats of his wings, a small cave came into view. Soft greenery dusted the surrounding rocks. Where the sun could reach, patches of white flowers sprouted at the entrance, which was carefully camouflaged under the falls. It smelled of moss and earth.
He turned his attention to her as his body changed back, once again securing his beast within. Both of them were drenched from the water’s mists.
“I know what you think of me. I know I’m a monster to you—I tried to stay away, but I...” He traced one finger down her neck, over the collar of her now-transparent nightgown, to her beating heart. Her excitement was evident in her peaked nipples showing through the fabric. “Please tell me you’re sure... that you want this without a single doubt in your soul.”
Her eyes closed, enjoying the lithe tracings of his finger.
“If you tell me that, you will never be alone another day of your eternal existence.”
Gooseflesh formed over her chest as he spoke.
“If you tell me that, I vow to fulfilleverysinful desire you ask of me.” His plea was laced with agony and lust as he pulled his head forward, roaming his lips against her neck and exposed shoulder. She whimpered.
“Please say I can stay, not just tonight but every night after.”
She was having trouble finding the words to answer him as he continued his shameless begging.
“I have seen real monsters,” she finally began. “Ones that are cleverly disguised so you can’t see the vileness beneath until it’s too late. You are no monster to me, Theo. Forgive me for making you believe otherwise.”
He pulled back, showing her the boundless desire in his eyes.
“Stay with me.” She pressed a gentle kiss to the top of his rippling abdomen. “Stay.”
